Purpose is perhaps the most pivotal rhetorical element, as it leads the content in the direction the writer wants it to take. It is what the writer wants to achieve through their work, what they want to get from themselves and from the reader. Are they trying to persuade the audience or inform them? These are the questions asked when the purpose of a document is considered, and it can largely affect the document as a whole. Previously, I mostly understood the important of document and how to take it into account to accurately convey it through my writing. This course has just let me pay attention to it even deeper, furthering my understanding of this rhetorical concept.

For example, purpose played a large part of how my memo was written. The main objective of a memo was to address the audience of an issue at hand, so I took that skeleton and combined it with my exigence to form my main purpose of this memo. As Figure 1 states, I figured out that my main purpose to address my audience of the problems with communicative efforts of academic advising and why it should be fixed. Since this was my purpose, the entirety of the document reflected that, only adhering to that subject matter.