The writer's purpose is not necessarily stated. You will have to use your inference skills to answer most questions about the author's purpose. Sometimes the writer has more than one purpose for writing. You will have to ask yourself what his/her primary purpose is. Is the writer mainly trying to INFORM the reader about a topic? Or does the writer primarily want to ENTERTAIN his/her audience? Perhaps the author has an opinion about the topic and wants to PERSUADE the reader to agree with him/her and/or take action.
What other words could we use to identify a writer's purpose? There are many. For example, an author might write to WARN someone about something. Or (s)he may want to RIDICULE someone or something. You might write a note to a friend to ENCOURAGE him/her.
Your white book has a chart of Analysis questions on p. 30. The chart lists five other terms that could be used to identify the author's purpose. What are they?
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The chart also makes a VERY GOOD POINT about the relationship between MAIN IDEA questions and PURPOSE questions. Since the writer's purpose is always to get the main idea across to the reader, it makes sense that your answers to these two types of questions should work together (be consistent).
Notice from the chart how the purpose questions are worded. The phrases in order to and so that the reader will are clues that you are dealing with a purpose question.
Try the following exercises from the Townsend Press website: