Foucault describes his author-function in four ways.

The first characteristic of the author-function is that it acts as appropriation of discourses. Discourses are appropriated as being owned by a certain author.

Secondly, the author-function does not affect all discourses in a universal and constant way. Throughout history, discourses have not had the same author-function. He names as an example that before the seventeenth or the eighteenth century, literary texts did not need to be published under the name of an author. Yet, in modern times, literary texts are commonly not accepted if published anonymously. 

The third characteristic of the author-function is that it the author is not spontaneously attributed by his/her text. That is, the author does not spring fully developed from his/her text, but is constructed differently in different time periods and different societies.

The fourth characteristic of the author-function is that it is not a simple reconstruction made from a passive text. That is, the text always contains a number of references to the author. These signs of the author in the text are personal pronouns, adverbs of time and place, and verb conjugations. These signs do not refer to a specific, single individual, but to several subjects or selves within the text.