Connect Across the Curriculum

Literary Analysis: Analyze Author’s Purpose and Style
Academic Vocabulary

  • • style (stī-ul) noun Style is a certain way of doing something.

How Do Writers Use Style? An author uses a different style for different purposes, such as to inform, to entertain, to persuade, or to create emotion. Sometimes an author changes style in a selection to keep readers interested. When the information is very technical, the author might use real-life stories to make the selection more personal.

Healthy hearts have four chambers, or sections. The two upper chambers, called atria, receive blood from veins.

informative style

But Whitlow’s mother didn’t give up. Nor did his doctors. When Brian was just a few weeks old, the surgeons operated on him.

personal style

Practice Together

Identify Style and Purpose Compare the information in the chart to the passages above. Then complete the chart by filling in the missing information.

Style and Purpose Chart
ExampleStylePurpose
Healthy hearts have four chambers.lots of scientific wordsto inform
Whitlow’s mother didn’t give up.

Try It!

Make a Style and Purpose Chart Make a chart for the other sections of “The Beat Goes On.” Compare the author’s style in each. How many styles does the author use? Discuss how each section gets the reader’s attention.