Book excerpt: Discourse Description presents in one convenient volume a variety of approaches to text description that have been proposed in the linguistic literature in the last decade or so. The book is organized to make it easy to understand and compare the various approaches. Since all of the researchers are analyzing the same text, their differences are readily seen. The text they analyze is a letter, mailed in bulk by a Washington-based lobbying organization which is supported by contributions from donors. Far from simply informing the readers, the letter seeks to appeal to them on many levels, intellectual, emotional, and financial. It is a fascinating study in how texts do their work. Discourse Description is expected to serve both as a research document and as a case textbook for graduate and undergraduate courses in discourse and text analysis, as well as a resource for text analysts.