Article (publishing)
Encyclopedia
An article is a written work published in a print
or electronic
medium. It may be for the purpose of propagating the news, research results, academic analysis or debate.
A news article can include accounts of eye witnesses to the happening event. It can contain photographs, accounts, statistics, graphs, recollections, interviews, polls, debates on the topic, etc. Headlines can be used to focus the reader’s attention on a particular (or main) part of the article. The writer can also give facts and detailed information following answers to general questions like who, what, when, where, why and how
.
Quoted references can also be helpful. References to people can also be made through written accounts of interviews and debates confirming the factuality of the writer’s information and the reliability of his source. The writer can use redirection to ensure that the reader keeps reading the article and to draw her attention to other articles. For example, phrases like "Continued on page 3” redirect the reader to a page where the article is continued.
While a good conclusion is an important ingredient for newspaper articles, the immediacy of a deadline environment means that copy editing
often takes the form of deleting everything past an arbitrary point in the story corresponding to the dictates of available space on a page. Therefore, newspaper reporters are trained to write in inverted pyramid
style, with all the most important information in the first paragraph or two. If less vital details are pushed towards the end of the story, the potentially destructive impact of draconian copy editing will be minimized.
is text at the top of a newspaper article, indicating the nature of the article. The headline catches the attention of the reader and relates well to the topic. Modern headlines are typically written in an abbreviated style omitting many elements of a complete sentence but almost always including a non-copula verb.
(sometimes spelled lede) sentence
captures the attention of the reader and sums up the focus of the story. The lead also establishes the subject, sets the tone and guidesreader into the article.
In a news story, the introductory paragraph tells the most important facts and answers the questions: who, what, where, when, why, and how. In a featured story, the author may choose to open in any number of ways, including the following:
A featured article will follow a format appropriate for its type. Structures for featured articles may include, but are not limited to:
form. By contrast, the featured article needs more definite closure. The conclusions for these articles may include, but are not limited to:
Publishing
Publishing is the process of production and dissemination of literature or information—the activity of making information available to the general public...
or electronic
Electronic media
Electronic media are media that use electronics or electromechanical energy for the end-user to access the content. This is in contrast to static media , which today are most often created electronically, but don't require electronics to be accessed by the end-user in the printed form...
medium. It may be for the purpose of propagating the news, research results, academic analysis or debate.
News articles
A news article discusses current or recent news of either general interest (i.e. daily newspapers) or of a specific topic (i.e. political or trade news magazines, club newsletters, or technology news websites).A news article can include accounts of eye witnesses to the happening event. It can contain photographs, accounts, statistics, graphs, recollections, interviews, polls, debates on the topic, etc. Headlines can be used to focus the reader’s attention on a particular (or main) part of the article. The writer can also give facts and detailed information following answers to general questions like who, what, when, where, why and how
Five Ws
In journalism, the Five Ws is a concept in news style, research, and in police investigations that are regarded as basics in information-gathering. It is a formula for getting the "full" story on something...
.
Quoted references can also be helpful. References to people can also be made through written accounts of interviews and debates confirming the factuality of the writer’s information and the reliability of his source. The writer can use redirection to ensure that the reader keeps reading the article and to draw her attention to other articles. For example, phrases like "Continued on page 3” redirect the reader to a page where the article is continued.
While a good conclusion is an important ingredient for newspaper articles, the immediacy of a deadline environment means that copy editing
Copy editing
Copy editing is the work that an editor does to improve the formatting, style, and accuracy of text. Unlike general editing, copy editing might not involve changing the substance of the text. Copy refers to written or typewritten text for typesetting, printing, or publication...
often takes the form of deleting everything past an arbitrary point in the story corresponding to the dictates of available space on a page. Therefore, newspaper reporters are trained to write in inverted pyramid
Inverted pyramid
The inverted pyramid is a metaphor used by journalists and other writers to illustrate the placing of the most important information first within a text...
style, with all the most important information in the first paragraph or two. If less vital details are pushed towards the end of the story, the potentially destructive impact of draconian copy editing will be minimized.
Text articles
- Academic paper — is an academic article published in an academic journalAcademic journalAn academic journal is a peer-reviewed periodical in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as forums for the introduction and presentation for scrutiny of new research, and the critique of existing research...
. The status of academics is often dependent both on how many articles they have had published and on the number of times that their articles are cited by authors of other articles. - Blog — Some styles of blog articles are more like articles. Other styles are written more like entries in a personal journal.
- Encyclopedia article — In an encyclopedia or other reference work, an article is a primary division of content.
- Marketing articleArticle marketingArticle marketing is a type of advertising in which businesses write short articles related to their respective industry. These articles are made available for distribution and publication in the marketplace. Each article has a bio box and byline that include references and contact information for...
— An often thin piece of content which is designed to draw the reader to a commercial website or product. - Usenet articlesUsenetUsenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It developed from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980...
— are messages written in the style of e-mail and posted to an open moderated or unmoderated Usenet newsgroup.
Spoken articles
- In the general context, this term refers to articles produced in the form of audio recordings. They are also referred to as podcasts.
- With reference to Wikipedia, this term usually refers to audio recordings of Wikipedia articles. These are produced by members of WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia.
Headline
A headlineHeadline
The headline is the text at the top of a newspaper article, indicating the nature of the article below it.It is sometimes termed a news hed, a deliberate misspelling that dates from production flow during hot type days, to notify the composing room that a written note from an editor concerned a...
is text at the top of a newspaper article, indicating the nature of the article. The headline catches the attention of the reader and relates well to the topic. Modern headlines are typically written in an abbreviated style omitting many elements of a complete sentence but almost always including a non-copula verb.
Lead
The leadLead paragraph
A lead paragraph in literature refers to the opening paragraph of an article, essay, news story or book chapter. Often called just "the lead", it usually occurs together with the headline or title, it precedes the main body of the article, and it gives the reader the main idea of the story.In the...
(sometimes spelled lede) sentence
Sentence (linguistics)
In the field of linguistics, a sentence is an expression in natural language, and often defined to indicate a grammatical unit consisting of one or more words that generally bear minimal syntactic relation to the words that precede or follow it...
captures the attention of the reader and sums up the focus of the story. The lead also establishes the subject, sets the tone and guidesreader into the article.
In a news story, the introductory paragraph tells the most important facts and answers the questions: who, what, where, when, why, and how. In a featured story, the author may choose to open in any number of ways, including the following:
- an anecdoteAnecdoteAn anecdote is a short and amusing or interesting story about a real incident or person. It may be as brief as the setting and provocation of a bon mot. An anecdote is always presented as based on a real incident involving actual persons, whether famous or not, usually in an identifiable place...
- a shocking or startling statement
- a generalizationGeneralizationA generalization of a concept is an extension of the concept to less-specific criteria. It is a foundational element of logic and human reasoning. Generalizations posit the existence of a domain or set of elements, as well as one or more common characteristics shared by those elements. As such, it...
- pure informationInformationInformation in its most restricted technical sense is a message or collection of messages that consists of an ordered sequence of symbols, or it is the meaning that can be interpreted from such a message or collection of messages. Information can be recorded or transmitted. It can be recorded as...
- a descriptionDescriptionDescription is one of four rhetorical modes , along with exposition, argumentation, and narration. Each of the rhetorical modes is present in a variety of forms and each has its own purpose and conventions....
- a quoteQuoteQuotation is the repetition of someone else's statement/thoughts. This can be in the form of words, songs, American Sign Language, written, or any other form of communication. Quotation marks are punctuation marks used in text to indicate the words of another speaker or writer...
- a questionQuestionA question may be either a linguistic expression used to make a request for information, or else the request itself made by such an expression. This information may be provided with an answer....
- a comparisonComparisonComparison may refer to:-Language:* Comparison , a feature of many languages* Degree of comparison, an English language grammatical feature* Mass comparison, a test for the relatedness of languages-Mathematics:...
Body
- For the news story, details and elaboration are evident in the body of the news story and flow smoothly from the lead.
- Quotes are used to add interest and support to the story.
- The inverted pyramidInverted pyramidThe inverted pyramid is a metaphor used by journalists and other writers to illustrate the placing of the most important information first within a text...
is used with most news stories.
A featured article will follow a format appropriate for its type. Structures for featured articles may include, but are not limited to:
- chronological — the article may be a narrative of some sort.
- cause and effect — the reasons and results of an event or process are examined.
- classification — items in an article are grouped to help aid understanding
- compare and contrast — two or more items are examined side-by-side to see their similarities and differences
- list — A simple item-by-item run-down of pieces of information.
- question and answer — such as an interview with a celebrity or expert.
Conclusion
One difference between a news story and a featured article is the conclusion. Endings for a hard news article occur when all of the information has been presented according to the inverted pyramidInverted pyramid
The inverted pyramid is a metaphor used by journalists and other writers to illustrate the placing of the most important information first within a text...
form. By contrast, the featured article needs more definite closure. The conclusions for these articles may include, but are not limited to:
- a final quote
- a descriptive scene
- a play on the title or lead
- a summary statement
Characteristics of well-written articles
- Article is usually on a well-defined topic or topics that are related in some way, such as a factual account of a newsworthy event.
- The writer is objective and shows all sides to an issue.
- The sources for this news story are identified and are reliable.
- Show, don't tellShow, don't tellThis page is about the composition principle. For the Rush song, see Show Don't Tell Show, don't tell is an admonition to fiction writers to write in a manner that allows the reader to experience the story through a character's action, words, thoughts, senses, and feelings rather than through the...
.
Authorship
Publications obtain articles in a few different ways:- staff written — an article may be written by a person on the staff of the publication.
- assigned — a freelanceFreelancerA freelancer, freelance worker, or freelance is somebody who is self-employed and is not committed to a particular employer long term. These workers are often represented by a company or an agency that resells their labor and that of others to its clients with or without project management and...
writer may be asked to write an article on a specific topic. - unsolicited — a publication may be open to receiving article manuscripts from freelance writers.