Composing for a Purpose

Composing for a Purpose

The word composition comes from a Latin word meaning “a putting together.” Today the word means “putting together a whole by combining parts.” The musician who composed your favorite song did so by putting together sounds. Writers compose by joining words, sentences, and paragraphs.

In school the word composition usually means a short paper of several paragraphs.

According to your purpose in writing, compositions may be classified as narrative, descriptive, or expository. The purpose of a narrative composition is to tell a story; of a descriptive composition, to describe people, places, objects, or events; and of an expository composition, to explain something.

Musicians, artists, and writers have something in com­mon: they decide how to put the parts together so that the whole composition achieves its purpose. In this chapter you will learn how to bring words, sentences, and paragraphs together to form a composition that achieves your purpose.

The same general subject can be used for different purposes. For example, suppose that you have had a great deal of experience as a baby-sitter. To write a descriptive composition, you might describe an unusual family you have encountered in your work. For a narrative composition you could tell about a frightening incident that happened to you one stormy night. An expository composition about baby-sitting, for instance, could explain how to be a good baby-sitter, or tell how you have begun to feel about baby-sitting as a difficult job, or show that baby-sitters are not paid enough.