This document discusses an author's purpose for writing and identifies the four main purposes: to entertain, to inform, to persuade, and to describe. It provides examples of text types that serve each purpose and explains that readers can determine an author's purpose by examining clues within the text, such as the type of information presented and whether the author aims to educate, convince, depict a location, or tell a story. Determining an author's purpose is an important reading comprehension skill.