Which approach helps determine the author’s purpose?

Which approach helps determine the author’s purpose?

• A. Relying on the author’s personal background alone.
• B. Analyzing tone, word choice, and evidence.
• C. Counting the number of paragraphs.
• D. Focusing only on the conclusion.

Answer: (B)

Determining an author's purpose comes from reading the text for how the author tries to affect the reader. The tone shows the attitude toward the subject and audience—urgent, celebratory, skeptical, playful—giving you clues about whether the goal is to persuade, inform, entertain, or explain. Word choice matters too; the connotations, optimism or negativity, and the use of charged or precise terms reveal what the author wants you to feel or think. The evidence or examples the author presents show what type of impact is intended—logical arguments to convince, vivid details to entertain, clear explanations to inform. Relying on the author’s background alone isn’t enough because personal history can provide context but doesn’t directly reveal the text’s aim; writers may address topics outside their own experiences or adopt perspectives to serve the piece’s purpose. Likewise, counting paragraphs or focusing only on the conclusion ignores how the full text builds its effect—structure and ending can be misleading if you don’t consider tone and diction throughout. So, combining tone, word choice, and the kinds of evidence used gives the clearest read on what the author is trying to achieve and why.

Determining an author's purpose comes from reading the text for how the author tries to affect the reader. The tone shows the attitude toward the subject and audience—urgent, celebratory, skeptical, playful—giving you clues about whether the goal is to persuade, inform, entertain, or explain. Word choice matters too; the connotations, optimism or negativity, and the use of charged or precise terms reveal what the author wants you to feel or think. The evidence or examples the author presents show what type of impact is intended—logical arguments to convince, vivid details to entertain, clear explanations to inform.

Relying on the author’s background alone isn’t enough because personal history can provide context but doesn’t directly reveal the text’s aim; writers may address topics outside their own experiences or adopt perspectives to serve the piece’s purpose. Likewise, counting paragraphs or focusing only on the conclusion ignores how the full text builds its effect—structure and ending can be misleading if you don’t consider tone and diction throughout.

So, combining tone, word choice, and the kinds of evidence used gives the clearest read on what the author is trying to achieve and why.