Article (publishing)

For Wikipedia guidelines, see Wikipedia:What is an article.

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.

News articles

See also: News style

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.

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.

Other types of articles

Text articles

• Academic paper — is an academic article published in an academic journal. 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 article — An often thin piece of content which is designed to draw the reader to a commercial website or product.
• Usenet articles — 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.

Listicles

• Articles whose primary content is a list

See: Listicle

Elements of an article

Headline

A headline 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.

Byline

A byline gives the name and often the position of the writer.

Lead

The lead (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.^[1]

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:^[2]

See also: Narrative hook

• an anecdote
• a shocking or startling statement
• a generalization
• pure information
• a description
• a quote
• a question
• a comparison

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 pyramid 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:^[1]

• 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 pyramid form. By contrast, the featured article needs more definite closure.^[3] The conclusions for these articles may include, but are not limited to:^[4]

• 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 tell.

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 freelance 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.
  See also: Slush pile

See also

• Listicle
• Article directory

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b} Jacobi, Peter, The Magazine Article: How to Think It, Plan It, Write It. Writer's Digest Books: 1991, ISBN 0898794501, pp. 50-77, 90
2. ^ Polking, Kirk, Writing A to Z. Writer's Digest Books: 1990. ISBN 0898795567, pp. 136, 143, 224, 422, 497
3. ^ Sova, Dawn, How to Write Articles for Newspapers and Magazines. Thomson Arco: 2002. ISBN 076891089X, pp. 1, 87
4. ^ Wray, Cheryl Sloan, Writing for Magazines: A Beginner's Guide. NTC Publishing: 1990. ISBN 0844259616, pp. 8, 31, 50, 96-97