Introduction to Textual Analysis 3 - Writing - Skills

Back to Writing

Texts, Their Purposes and Formats

I translated this little table I wrote for Spanish students taking their second year at Compulsory Secondary Education when I was a secondary teacher (incidentally, this table was plagiarized by at least one publishing house!).

This table can help you get a very general idea, a feeling on the world of texts (mostly of written texts, so you remember they should have a logical structure. For oral texts check out our Speaking section: monologues, dialogues, discussions, oral presentations – these also have a structure).

Types of texts	Communicative Purpose	Examples	Structure
Descriptive	What somebody, something, some place is like…	Travel guides, some reports (comparing, describing), parts in postcards/diaries/novels...	General presentation Detail in (thematic, spatial, temporal...) order
Narrative	What happens	News*, comics, history/herstory texts, jokes...	Presentation Problem Result/Ending		*Inverted pyramid (info from + to - important)
Descrip.-narrat.	What things are like and what happens	Novels, stories, comics, reportage, diaries, blogs...	Presentation Problem Result/Ending
Argumentative	What is posed as defence, analysis or refutation of something	Articles, speeches, essays, comparative analysis, assessment, letters of the sort Madame DuDeffand wrote Voltaire!	Intro/ Prst. Development Conclusion (There are more models)	In other words: What we are going to break The analysis of the pieces The explanatory conclusion
Scientific	What we are investigating Using the scientific method (objective description of the parts and formulation of hypotheses or theories)	Scientific-technical articles	Introduction Presentation of facts Interpretation of facts Conclusions
Conversational / Epistolar	What	Dialogues, drama, interviews, informal letters, job-hunting letters et al (complaints, etc.).	Greeting Stating / Introducing the topic Developing it Saying goodbye
Instructive or Procedural	How to-	Recipes, instructions, traffic signs, any how to- text...	Schema (step by step; order is of paramount importance)
Didactic or Explanatory	Why, how, what... They’re easy to understand if they’re well written.	Textbooks, articles, fables, encyclopedias, dictionary	Presentatio Development Summary/Conclusion

Printer-friendly version of Intro to Textual Analysis 3

(1 page)

Read Intro to Textual Analysis 1 and Textual Analysis 2 (at the end of which you get a printer-friendly version of TA 1 & 2).