This presentation shows how to use the TAPF method (Topic-Audience-Purpose-Form) to plan a piece of academic writing. The presentation is used in the English Composition I course at City Vision University (www.cityvision.edu)

1. Making a Writing Plan:
TAPF
Evan Donovan
City Vision University

2. What am I writing about?
Who am I writing for?
How am I structuring my writing? or
What genre of writing will I use?
Why am I writing?
Before you begin an academic piece of writing, ask yourself the following questions:

3. Topic What am I writing about?
Who am I writing for?
How am I structuring my writing? or
What genre of writing will I use?
Why am I writing?
These questions can be summarized in the form of an outline:

4. Topic
Audience
What am I writing about?
Who am I writing for?
How am I structuring my writing? or
What genre of writing will I use?
Why am I writing?
These questions can be summarized in the form of an outline:

5. Topic
Audience
Purpose
What am I writing about?
Who am I writing for?
How am I structuring my writing? or
What genre of writing will I use?
Why am I writing?
These questions can be summarized in the form of an outline:

6. Topic
Audience
Purpose
Form
What am I writing about?
Who am I writing for?
How am I structuring my writing? or
What genre of writing will I use?
Why am I writing?
These questions can be summarized in the form of an outline:

7. Let’s take
a closer look…

8. Topic
• Often the topic for an academic paper is set in advance
• However, even then it may be necessary to revise the topic into the form of a more specific
question so that you can make an argument
• Sometimes, however, the topic is left up to you
• Look over your notes and readings to see if there are subjects that you would like to explore
further
• Common errors to avoid:
• Having a topic that is too broad or unfocused
• Having a topic that is too narrow to develop adequately
• Adding unrelated details
• Additional Questions to Ask:
• What do I know about this topic already?
• What else do I need to know to write about it?
• Where will I find this information?
• This is the start of planning your research.)

9. Audience
• Just like if you were about to give a speech at a professional event, it
is important to know the audience for your paper
• Most importantly, consider what they already know about your topic
• Also consider if they already have opinions on your topic
• Finally, keep in mind their overall level of reading / understanding
• These three items will guide the tone that you set for your paper, as
well as how you structure your argument
Audience Tone
Academic or professional group Formal language, specific detail
Peers Informal / casual language
Child Simple language, more basic explanation

10. Purpose
• Purpose is closely linked to the genre of your writing; it defines the form that your
writing will take
• For example, if your purpose is to change people’s minds about an issue, then you will
write a persuasive essay
• On the other hand, if your purpose is to tell a story, then you will write a narrative essay
• If you are uncertain of your purpose, consider what reaction or response you want your
audience to have to your writing
• Some examples of purpose are:
• Inform or explain
• Describe
• Record ideas
• Entertain
• Persuade
• Express personal thoughts & feelings
• Learn or discover
• Note that some of those purposes could be served by several different forms (genres) of
writing

11. Form
• Form is often the final element of the writing plan to be decided
• The overall form of your writing informs how you will structure it in
detail
• For example, the 5-paragraph essay format is effective for persuasive and
argumentative forms of writing, but would be less effective in a narrative
essay, since it is too rigid
• The most commonly used forms of writing in college are the research
paper, the persuasive essay, and literary analysis
• In the business world, emails, memos, and reports are common, as
well as presentations (a form of visual rhetoric)

12. Pulling It All Together: TAPF in Action, I
• Suppose you had to write a response to the following prompt:
What is the greatest lesson that you have learned in school?
Describe why this lesson was so meaningful to you.
• First, look at the words in the prompt to determine what the prompt
is asking you to do.
• The first sentence outlines the topic: “the greatest lesson that you learned in
school.”
• This will be a good starting point, but you would need to narrow this down to write a
focused response.
• The second sentence contains a verb and supporting clause that suggest a
purpose: “describe why this lesson was so meaningful to you”. You need to
go beyond simply stating the lesson to showing why it was meaningful to you.

13. Pulling It All Together: TAPF in Action, II
• Second, focus in on your topic.
• This is where some brainstorming is in order.
• For me, I will say, “The greatest lesson I learned in school is that you don’t
learn everything in school.”
• This is a strong thesis statement for my writing because it is a paradox (an
apparent contradiction) and thus catches the reader’s attention.
• Also, though, it sets me up to explain how I learned that through supporting
details.
• Note, however, that a good TAPF outline doesn’t necessarily require your
topic to be stated so specifically at this point.
• But if you came up with a good topic in your brainstorming already, then roll with it!

14. Pulling It All Together: TAPF in Action, II
• Third, consider your audience.
• You may not know much about your instructor, but it’s probably safe to
assume that he or she is well-educated and loves learning.
• They may be surprised by the statement “you don’t learn everything in
school” (or they may not).
• Be creative here – imagine that you are talking to your instructor in person.
How would you go about telling them that you don’t learn everything in
school?
• What kind of details would you share?
• What kind of rhetorical techniques (that is, ways to persuade) would you use?
• Remember the quote from novelist John Steinbeck, “I have found that
sometimes it helps to pick out one person - a real person you know, or an
imagined person - and write to that one.”

15. Pulling It All Together: TAPF in Action, III
• Fourth, refine your purpose.
• In this case, the prompt requested that I describe how a lesson I learned in
school was meaningful to me.
• In selecting my topic, I focused in on a specific lesson that I thought would be
provocative for my audience (the instructor for my course).
• Given these two choices I’ve made, now I need to decide more specifically
what shape my essay will take.
• In order to answer the prompt successfully, given how I have narrowed the
topic, my purpose must have at least two parts:
1. Describe the lesson that I learned, giving more details.
2. Tell how this lesson has been meaningful to me.
• Ideally, though, I would like to go beyond that to defend to my audience why
this is an important lesson for teaching & learning in general.
• This means that my purpose is not simply to describe, or to express emotions,
but also to persuade.

16. Pulling It All Together: TAPF in Action, IV
• Fifth, select a form.
• Since I have more than one purpose for my writing in response to this
prompt, my form is a combination of descriptive and persuasive writing.
• I will outline the assignment in more detail in a later presentation.
• For now, I will simply say that the form will be as follows:
1. State the lesson I learned in school.
2. Describe why this is meaningful to me (brief narrative).
3. Show how this is helpful for teaching & learning in general (persuasion).
• The next slide will show the completed TAPF outline.

17. Topic
Audience
Purpose
Form
The greatest lesson I learned in school is that
you don’t learn everything in school.
Professor who believes that their class is the
most important thing in the world
(my “imaginary listener”)
Combination of descriptive and persuasive essay
Persuade this professor that there is a great
deal of learning that happens outside of class
and school should prepare us for that
Prompt: What is the greatest lesson that you learned in school?
Describe why this lesson is meaningful to you

18. Sources & Licensing
Presentation License
Creator: Evan Donovan of City Vision University
License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0
• Allen, Suzie. Purpose, Audience, Form and Tone. (2012, October 24). Retrieved from
http://www.slideshare.net/suzieallen336/1-purpose-audience-and-form
• Boone, Katrina. Purpose and Audience Powerpoint. (2009, August 25). Retrieved December 11, 2015, from
http://www.slideshare.net/katrinaboone/purpose-and-audience-powerpoint
• Crowther, G. P. and F. (1975, Fall). John Steinbeck, The Art of Fiction No. 45 (Continued). Paris Review, (63).
Retrieved from http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4156/the-art-of-fiction-no-45-continued-john-
steinbeck
• Kipp, Sarah M. The Writing Process: Part 3 – TAPF video. (2014, April 26). Retrieved December 11, 2015 from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNDOKZ-PJyg
• Greece Combined School District. TAP Graphic Organizer. (n.d.) Retrieved December 18, 2015 from
http://www.greececsd.org/files/filesystem/Tap.pdf
• TAPF - Writing Process. (n.d.). Retrieved December 11, 2015, from
https://sites.google.com/a/pvlearners.net/writing-process/home/tapf
Images:
Magnifying Glass icon created by Edward Boatman from Noun Project
(https://thenounproject.com/term/magnifying-glass/95/)