Writing A News Article

1. Writing A News Article ICap Spring 2014 Brittany Biesiada

2. Basic Format • Information is formatted in descending order of importance • Inverted pyramid • Most important information goes at the top.

3. Types of Sentences • Unbiased • Clear writing • Explain any difficult language/concepts.

4. Paragraphs • Remember quotations start a new paragraph. • New idea=new paragraph • Paragraphs should be clear and concise. • 1-3 sentence max.

5. In Your Article • Title • Medium: Photo/Chart/Graph/etc. • Lead • Describe your group • Describe the research method • Describe what you discovered

6. A Lead • The one-sentence summary of your article. • Like introductions, leads are often the most difficult part of writing a news article. • What goes in a lead: • Who • What • When • Where • How

7. Example: • What do you some of your articles use as their lead?

8. Activity • In groups, organize the following sentences: • They wanted to bring awareness to the public. • Hundreds of people dressed up in gorilla outfits. • The awareness they want to make public concerns the plight of apes. • The apes are endangered. • They ran through the streets of London. 

9. Activity Now organize the paragraph into a single sentence. • They wanted to bring awareness to the public. • Hundreds of people dressed up in gorilla outfits. • The awareness they want to make public concerns the plight of apes. • The apes are endangered. • They ran through the streets of London. 

10. Activity Now reduce your word count as low as you can. • They wanted to bring awareness to the public. • Hundreds of people dressed up in gorilla outfits. • The awareness they want to make public concerns the plight of apes. • The apes are endangered. • They ran through the streets of London. 

11. Making an Outline • Lead: your main research question • Describe your group • Research method • Topics in descending order of importance • Main research • Lexis • Social networking • Quote • Summary quote • Communication • Quote

12. Quoting • From your interviews, you should use relevant quotations to make your article more interesting. • Remember making up quotations is plagiarism. • Use quotes that are relevant to the paragraph you are writing. • Remember quotation format: A quote is always its own paragraph.

13. Quoting • In a newspaper article, always use “said.” • Need to state whether it was an interview (implies in-person) or e-mail interview • Only use name if given permission, otherwise • Ex: Interviewee A, a 19-year-old male junior at Purdue

14. Types of quotations • Normal quote • “It was a fun time,” Michelle Davis said. • “I had a good time,” Davis said. • Summary quote • Davis, a member of the group, said everyone had a great time and 23 people attended.  

15. Types of quotations • Long quote • “I had a good time.  It was super fun, I loved being there. The event was awesome.  We had an excellent turn-out, like twenty people came,” Davis said.

16. Types of quotes • How to edit quotes: • “I had a good time.  It was super fun… We had an excellent turn-out,” Davis said. • “I had a good time. [It was] super fun,” Davis said.

17. Summarizing • In news writing: You briefly summarize the main topic of your essay then elaborate with the most important info first. • Must suspend your own beliefs to report unbiased and summarize.

18. Summarize • In news writing, you are not writing to prove a thesis. • You must must summarize both sides of your results. • i.e.what you expected to learn and what you actually learned

19. Reading your article: • Read your article and summarize it to the class. • What is the main point? • How do they use quotations? • Is the most important information listed first? • How do they explain any complicated procedure/method/language/idea?

20. Sample writing exercise: • From the practice lead, write two paragraphs to follow. • Use your imagination. • You may create a quote. • You may explain the group, what else happened that day, etc.