Author’s Purpose: Mass Extinction

In scientific texts, authors make strategic choices when explaining a topic or concept. Authors choose the text structure through which to explain the central idea and the relationship between the key ideas and the central idea. Authors are thoughtful about the words they choose in order to shape your understanding and reaction to the topic. These choices ultimately reveal the author’s overall purpose for writing. When you know how to analyze text structure, word choice and the relationship between key ideas, you will have the tools with which to gain a deep understanding of the text you are reading and the content to be learned.

In this module, you will examine a scientific text about Earth’s sixth mass extinction. You will analyze the author’s purpose by evaluating text structure, word choice and the relationship between key ideas.

Module Objective

By the end of this module, you will be able to:

• Analyze the author’s purpose in providing an explanation by evaluating text structure, word choice and the relationship between key ideas.