Types of Quantitative Writing Assignments


Genre, audience, and purpose

  • Role (or purpose) Examples of purpose include:Informative purpose using quantitative data to enlarge audience's understanding of a topic; Analytical or interpretive purpose using quantitative data to clarify audience's view of a topic; Persuasive purpose using quantitative data to change audience's view of a topic
  • Audience Examples include experts or lay audience.
  • Format (or genre) Examples include academic, white paper, letter to editor, op-ed piece, magazine article, or letter to a client.
  • Topic (or Task (or problematic situation)

    See The RAFTs Technique for some specific suggestions about using the RAFT technique and Holston and Santa, 1985 and Santa, 1988 for additional background material.

Length, stakes and complexity

Thesis writing


Options include:


  • Providing students with the data, or telling them where to find the data, or asking them to find appropriate data on their own, or asking them to create their own data using surveys, for example
  • Tasks requiring high-school level math--ratios, percentages, interpretation of graphs and tables, differences between mean and median or raw versus adjusted numbers, versus tasks requiring disciplinary-appropriate mathematics or statistical techniques
What matters is tying the assignment to a specific course goal.

Informal Writing

Jotting Notes


Course-related informal writing includes:

  • Class notes
  • Research Journals for a research project, where students are asked to narrate the process of their research
  • Personal journals for reflection
  • Free-writes to prepare for class discussion

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Formats other than Essays
