“The Reader“ By Wallace Stevens

1 Pages 360 Words

Why Writing is Important

To inform, share, present facts, persuade, record, and learn; these are all reasons that we write. These reasons lead us to the conclusion that we write out of a profound need to communicate. In fact the thesaurus states that “communicate” and “write” are synonymous. According to James Kinneavy, there are four basic purposes for writing: to express yourself, to inform a reader, to persuade a reader, and to create a literary work. Expressive writing allows you to express your thoughts and feelings. An example of expressive writing would be keeping a diary. Writing of this type is an outlet for expression of deep personal feelings. Expressive writing is meant only for the author to read. As soon as it is intended for public reading it evolves into more of a literary work.
Informative writings’ purpose is to provide information. This type of writing is most commonly found in textbooks, encyclopedias, newspapers, ect. Expository writing is one of the more basic purposes for writing. The aim of informative writing is relay information to the reader with a minimum of bias. The goal is not to persuade but to teach.
Persuasive writing seeks to change a person’s opinion on a subject. This is done through presenting a logical argument to combat that person’s known opinion through the use of examples and reasons that back up your point of view. Some examples of this type of writing are newspaper editorials, letters to the editor, reviews, and even sermons.


Literary work, our final purpose, has many uses. It is meant to entertain, evoke feeling, and in some cases persuade. There are so many different genres in this type of writing that it would take years to explain all of them. This type of writing is the one most of us are most familiar with.
All of these basic purposes for writing, although so overwhelmingly different are still used for one purpose, communication. Without communica...