FUNCTIONS OF PROSE

Prose is any writing that is not organised into poetic form. This entire manual is about writing prose.

Functional prose is prose that has a job to do. Many hundreds of years ago, the Greek philosopher Aristotle categorised the jobs that prose can do under four broad headings. Understanding these functions of prose helps us to write better: if we can identify what kind of writing we're doing at any point, we can do it better.

So, what do you think prose can do? Make a list on your notebook of all the things you can think of that writing can do.