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How to Write a Feature Article

Last Updated: March 11, 2024 Approved

This article was co-authored by Mary Erickson, PhD . Mary Erickson is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Western Washington University. Mary received her PhD in Communication and Society from the University of Oregon in 2011. She is a member of the Modern Language Association, the National Communication Association, and the Society for Cinema and Media Studies. There are 7 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. wikiHow marks an article as reader-approved once it receives enough positive feedback. This article has 41 testimonials from our readers, earning it our reader-approved status. This article has been viewed 1,461,367 times.

Writing a feature article involves using creativity and research to give a detailed and interesting take on a subject. These types of articles are different from typical news stories in that they often are written in a different style and give much more details and description rather than only stating objective facts. This gives the reader a chance to more fully understand some interesting part of the article's subject. While writing a feature article takes lots of planning, research, and work, doing it well is a great way to creatively write about a topic you are passionate about and is a perfect chance to explore different ways to write.

Choosing a Topic

• Human Interest : Many feature stories focus on an issue as it impacts people. They often focus on one person or a group of people.
• Profile : This feature type focuses on a specific individual’s character or lifestyle. This type is intended to help the reader feel like they’ve gotten a window into someone’s life. Often, these features are written about celebrities or other public figures.
• Instructional : How-to feature articles teach readers how to do something. Oftentimes, the writer will write about their own journey to learn a task, such as how to make a wedding cake.
• Historical : Features that honor historical events or developments are quite common. They are also useful in juxtaposing the past and the present, helping to root the reader in a shared history.
• Seasonal : Some features are perfect for writing about in certain times of year, such as the beginning of summer vacation or at the winter holidays.
• Behind the Scenes : These features give readers insight into an unusual process, issue or event. It can introduce them to something that is typically not open to the public or publicized.

Interviewing Subjects

• Schedule about 30-45 minutes with this person. Be respectful of their time and don’t take up their whole day. Be sure to confirm the date and time a couple of days ahead of the scheduled interview to make sure the time still works for the interviewee.
• If your interviewee needs to reschedule, be flexible. Remember, they are being generous with their time and allowing you to talk with them, so be generous with your responses as well. Never make an interviewee feel guilty about needing to reschedule.
• If you want to observe them doing a job, ask if they can bring you to their workplace. Asking if your interviewee will teach you a short lesson about what they do can also be excellent, as it will give you some knowledge of the experience to use when you write.

• Be sure to ask your interviewee if it’s okay to audio-record the interview. If you plan to use the audio for any purpose other than for your own purposes writing up the article (such as a podcast that might accompany the feature article), you must tell them and get their consent.
• Don't pressure the interviewee if they decline audio recording.

• Another good option is a question that begins Tell me about a time when.... This allows the interviewee to tell you the story that's important to them, and can often produce rich information for your article.

Preparing to Write the Article

• Start by describing a dramatic moment and then uncover the history that led up to that moment.
• Use a story-within-a-story format, which relies on a narrator to tell the story of someone else.
• Start the story with an ordinary moment and trace how the story became unusual.

• Check with your editor to see how long they would like your article to be.

• Consider what you absolutely must have in the story and what can be cut. If you are writing a 500-word article, for example, you will likely need to be very selective about what you include, whereas you have a lot more space to write in a 2,500 word article.

Writing the Article

• Start with an interesting fact, a quote, or an anecdote for a good hook.
• Your opening paragraph should only be about 2-3 sentences.

• Be flexible, however. Sometimes when you write, the flow makes sense in a way that is different from your outline. Be ready to change the direction of your piece if it seems to read better that way.

Finalizing the Article

• You can choose to incorporate or not incorporate their suggestions.

• Consult "The Associated Press Stylebook" for style guidelines, such as how to format numbers, dates, street names, and so on. [7] X Research source

• If you want to convey slightly more information, write a sub-headline, which is a secondary sentence that builds on the headline.

How Do You Come Up With an Interesting Angle For an Article?

Sample Feature Article

Community Q&A

• Ask to see a proof of your article before it gets published. This is a chance for you to give one final review of the article and double-check details for accuracy. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

• Be sure to represent your subjects fairly and accurately. Feature articles can be problematic if they are telling only one side of a story. If your interviewee makes claims against a person or company, make sure you talk with that person or company. If you print claims against someone, even if it’s your interviewee, you might risk being sued for defamation. [9] X Research source Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

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• ↑ http://morrisjournalismacademy.com/how-to-write-a-feature-article/
• ↑ https://www.nytimes.com/learning/students/writing/voices.html
• ↑ http://careers.bmj.com/careers/advice/view-article.html?id=20007483
• ↑ http://faculty.washington.edu/heagerty/Courses/b572/public/StrunkWhite.pdf
• ↑ https://www.apstylebook.com/
• ↑ http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/166662
• ↑ http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/libel-vs-slander-different-types-defamation.html

About This Article

To write a feature article, start with a 2-3 sentence paragraph that draws your reader into the story. The second paragraph needs to explain why the story is important so the reader keeps reading, and the rest of the piece needs to follow your outline so you can make sure everything flows together how you intended. Try to avoid excessive quotes, complex language, and opinion, and instead focus on appealing to the reader’s senses so they can immerse themselves in the story. Read on for advice from our Communications reviewer on how to conduct an interview! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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How to Write a Feature Article: A Step-by-Step Guide

Feature stories are one of the most crucial forms of writing these days, we can find feature articles and examples in many news websites, blog websites, etc.  While writing a feature article a lot of things should be kept in mind as well. Feature stories are a powerful form of journalism, allowing writers to delve deeper into subjects and explore the human element behind the headlines. Whether you’re a budding journalist or an aspiring storyteller, mastering the art of feature story writing is essential for engaging your readers and conveying meaningful narratives. In this blog, you’ll find the process of writing a feature article, feature article writing tips, feature article elements, etc. The process of writing a compelling feature story, offering valuable tips, real-world examples, and a solid structure to help you craft stories that captivate and resonate with your audience.

Read Also: Top 5 Strategies for Long-Term Success in Journalism Careers

Table of Contents

Understanding the Essence of a Feature Story

Before we dive into the practical aspects, let’s clarify what a feature story is and what sets it apart from news reporting. While news articles focus on delivering facts and information concisely, feature stories are all about storytelling. They go beyond the “who, what, when, where, and why” to explore the “how” and “why” in depth. Feature stories aim to engage readers emotionally, making them care about the subject, and often, they offer a unique perspective or angle on a topic.

Tips and tricks for writing a Feature article

 In the beginning, many people can find difficulty in writing a feature, but here we have especially discussed some special tips and tricks for writing a feature article. So here are some Feature article writing tips and tricks: –

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1. Choose an Interesting Angle:

The first step in feature story writing is selecting a unique and compelling angle or theme for your story. Look for an aspect of the topic that hasn’t been explored widely, or find a fresh perspective that can pique readers’ curiosity.

2. Conduct Thorough Research:

Solid research is the foundation of any feature story. Dive deep into your subject matter, interview relevant sources, and gather as much information as possible. Understand your subject inside out to present a comprehensive and accurate portrayal.

3. Humanize Your Story:

Feature stories often revolve around people, their experiences, and their emotions. Humanize your narrative by introducing relatable characters and sharing their stories, struggles, and triumphs.

4. Create a Strong Lead:

Your opening paragraph, or lead, should be attention-grabbing and set the tone for the entire story. Engage your readers from the start with an anecdote, a thought-provoking question, or a vivid description.

5. Structure Your Story:

Feature stories typically follow a narrative structure with a beginning, middle, and end. The beginning introduces the topic and engages the reader, the middle explores the depth of the subject, and the end provides closure or leaves readers with something to ponder.

6. Use Descriptive Language:

Paint a vivid picture with your words. Utilize descriptive language and sensory details to transport your readers into the world you’re depicting.

7. Incorporate Quotes and Anecdotes:

Quotes from interviews and anecdotes from your research can breathe life into your story. They add authenticity and provide insights from real people.

8. Engage Emotionally:

Feature stories should evoke emotions. Whether it’s empathy, curiosity, joy, or sadness, aim to connect with your readers on a personal level.

Read Also: The Ever-Evolving World Of Journalism: Unveiling Truths and Shaping Perspectives

Examples of Feature Stories

Here we are describing some of the feature articles examples which are as follows:-

“Finding Beauty Amidst Chaos: The Life of a Street Artist”

This feature story delves into the world of a street artist who uses urban decay as his canvas, turning neglected spaces into works of art. It explores his journey, motivations, and the impact of his art on the community.

“The Healing Power of Music: A Veteran’s Journey to Recovery”

This story follows a military veteran battling post-traumatic stress disorder and how his passion for music became a lifeline for healing. It intertwines personal anecdotes, interviews, and the therapeutic role of music.

“Wildlife Conservation Heroes: Rescuing Endangered Species, One Baby Animal at a Time”

In this feature story, readers are introduced to a group of dedicated individuals working tirelessly to rescue and rehabilitate endangered baby animals. It showcases their passion, challenges, and heartwarming success stories.

What should be the feature a Feature article structure?

Read Also: What is The Difference Between A Journalist and A Reporter?

Structure of a Feature Story

A well-structured feature story typically follows this format:

Headline: A catchy and concise title that captures the essence of the story. This is always written at the top of the story.

Lead: A captivating opening paragraph that hooks the reader. The first 3 sentences of any story that explains 5sW & 1H are known as lead.

Introduction : Provides context and introduces the subject. Lead is also a part of the introduction itself.

Body : The main narrative section that explores the topic in depth, including interviews, anecdotes, and background information.

Conclusion: Wraps up the story, offers insights, or leaves the reader with something to ponder.

Additional Information: This may include additional resources, author information, or references.

Read Also: Benefits and Jobs After a MAJMC Degree

Writing a feature article is a blend of journalistic skills and storytelling artistry. By choosing a compelling angle, conducting thorough research, and structuring your story effectively, you can create feature stories that captivate and resonate with your readers. AAFT also provides many courses related to journalism and mass communication which grooms a person to write new articles, and news and learn new skills as well. Remember that practice is key to honing your feature story writing skills, so don’t be discouraged if it takes time to perfect your craft. With dedication and creativity, you’ll be able to craft feature stories that leave a lasting impact on your audience.

What are the characteristics of a good feature article?

A good feature article is well-written, engaging, and informative. It should tell a story that is interesting to the reader and that sheds light on an important issue.

Why is it important to write feature articles?

Feature articles can inform and entertain readers. They can also help to shed light on important issues and to promote understanding and empathy.

What are the challenges of writing a feature article?

The challenges of writing a feature article can vary depending on the topic and the audience. However, some common challenges include finding a good angle for the story, gathering accurate information, and writing in a clear and concise style.

Aaditya Kanchan is a skilled Content Writer and Digital Marketer with experience of 5+ years and a focus on diverse subjects and content like Journalism, Digital Marketing, Law and sports etc. He also has a special interest in photography, videography, and retention marketing. Aaditya writes in simple language where complex information can be delivered to the audience in a creative way.

• Feature Article Writing Tips
• How to Write a Feature Article
• Step-by-Step Guide
• Write a Feature Article

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Feature Writing: What It Is and How to Do It Right

By Happy Sharer

Introduction

Feature writing is a form of journalism that focuses on telling stories in depth. It is used to inform readers about interesting topics and give them a deeper understanding of events and people. Feature writing combines elements of storytelling, research, and interviews to create compelling articles that engage readers and allow them to explore a topic in greater detail. This article will discuss what feature writing is, why it is important, and how to craft successful feature pieces.

Exploring the Definition and Benefits of Feature Writing

Before jumping into how to write a feature article, let’s first take a look at what feature writing actually is. A feature article is a longer piece of writing than a news article, typically between 800 and 1,500 words. Unlike a news article, which is intended to report facts quickly, a feature article dives deep into a topic and provides more detailed information. Feature articles often have a narrative arc, with a beginning, middle, and end. They can be about anything from a person or event to a trend or issue.

Feature articles are different from opinion pieces, as they are not intended to push a particular point of view or agenda. Instead, they are meant to provide an unbiased exploration of a topic. Feature writing also differs from creative writing, as it is based on facts and research rather than imagination. However, feature writers still utilize their creativity when crafting stories, as they must choose which facts to highlight and how to structure the narrative.

So why should you write feature articles? Feature writing can be an effective way to engage readers and build relationships with them. Through feature writing, you can give readers an in-depth look at a topic and help them understand it better. Feature writing also allows you to showcase your writing skills and connect with readers on an emotional level. By creating stories that are both informative and entertaining, you can make a lasting impression on your audience.

A Guide to Crafting Feature Articles

Now that you know what feature writing is and why it is important, let’s take a look at how to write a successful feature article. The first step is to find an interesting topic to write about. Think about issues or stories that you find intriguing, and brainstorm ideas for potential feature pieces. You can also look at current events and trends, as these can be great sources of inspiration.

Once you have chosen a topic, it is time to do some research. Read up on the subject and gather relevant information from reliable sources. Take notes as you go, and look for quotes or other material that you can use in your article. If possible, try to conduct interviews with experts or people involved in the story, as this can add valuable insight to your article.

Once you have gathered all the necessary information, you can begin outlining your feature article. Start by deciding on a structure for your story, such as chronological order or a comparison between two sides of an issue. Then, create a list of points that you want to include in your article. This will help you stay focused and organized while writing.

Finally, it is time to start writing your feature article. Make sure to craft an engaging introduction that will draw readers in and set the tone for your story. As you write, keep in mind the structure you outlined and make sure to include all the important points. Use vivid language to make your article come alive, and don’t forget to proofread your work carefully before submitting it.

Feature Writing: What is it and How to Do It Right

Once you have a basic understanding of what feature writing is and how to craft feature articles, it is time to learn more about the art of feature writing. When writing feature stories, it is important to remember that each one is unique. No two stories will be the same, and there is no “right” way to write a feature article.

When structuring a feature story, think about how you can present the information in an interesting and engaging way. Consider using different formats, such as a Q&A or a timeline, to break up the text and make it easier to read. Also, try to avoid clichés and overused phrases, as these can make your article seem dull and uninteresting.

Interviews are an important part of feature writing, so it is important to ask the right questions. Make sure to prepare ahead of time and come up with thoughtful questions that will elicit meaningful responses. And don’t forget to ask follow-up questions, as this can help you get even more insightful answers.

In addition to structure and interviews, your writing style is also important. Feature writing should be written in an accessible and engaging style. Avoid jargon and technical terms, and focus on creating an inviting and conversational tone. Also, make sure to include vivid details and descriptions to bring your story to life.

Understanding the Art of Feature Writing

Feature writing is an art, and it takes practice to master. To become a successful feature writer, it is important to understand the different types of feature writing and how to use them effectively. There are three main types of feature writing: human interest stories, investigative pieces, and profiles. Human interest stories focus on people and their lives, while investigative pieces delve into specific issues and uncover new information. Profiles are biographical stories that explore a person’s life and accomplishments.

Visuals can also be an important part of feature writing. Photos, videos, and illustrations can help bring your story to life and help readers connect with it. However, it is important to make sure that any visuals you use are relevant and high quality. Low-quality images can take away from the impact of your article.

Finally, it is important to create an engaging voice for your feature pieces. Think about how you can make your writing stand out and draw readers in. Consider using humor, wordplay, and other techniques to make your article more memorable. Also, make sure to keep your readers in mind and tailor your writing to their interests and needs.

The Power of Feature Writing for Journalists and Writers

Feature writing has the power to engage readers and spark social change. Stories about real people and issues can inspire readers to take action and make a difference. Feature writing can also be used as a platform for reporting on injustices and raising awareness about important issues.

There are many examples of feature writing that have had a powerful impact. One example is the Pulitzer Prize-winning series “Angels in America” by Washington Post reporter Gene Weingarten. The series explored the struggles of a family living with AIDS in the 1980s, and it helped change public perception and attitudes towards the disease.

Another example of impactful feature writing is the New York Times’ “Modern Love” column. The column publishes personal essays about love and relationships, and it has become a popular destination for readers looking for advice and comfort. By sharing intimate stories, the column has created an online community and sparked conversations about love and relationships.

Feature writing is a powerful tool for journalists and writers who want to engage readers and tell compelling stories. Feature writing combines elements of storytelling, research, and interviews to create in-depth articles that explore a topic in detail. It is important to keep in mind the different types of feature writing and how to structure a feature story when crafting a feature article. Additionally, visuals and an engaging voice can help make your article even more impactful. Feature writing has the power to inform readers and spark social change, and it is an important skill for any journalist or writer.

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Hi, I'm Happy Sharer and I love sharing interesting and useful knowledge with others. I have a passion for learning and enjoy explaining complex concepts in a simple way.

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How to write a feature article

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• Rebecca Ghani , freelance journalist, London
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Interested in writing for a medical journal? Rebecca Ghani finds out from the experts where you can start

You have an excellent idea for a feature article that you would like to publish: you know that the topic is relevant; you’re sure the audience would be interested; you can access the facts and statistics; and you know that you could source a great interview or two.

So where do you go from here?

Know the publication

Read the latest copies of the publication or journal to get a feel for the style and tone. Think about the different sections and where your idea would best fit.

Scan the online archives for similar subjects: it’s unlikely that your piece will be commissioned if the topic has already been covered recently.

Edward Davies, editor of BMJ Careers, says, “The first thing that I would say is absolutely crucial for anyone submitting a pitch is to make sure we haven’t done it before. Google is your friend on this; Google the idea you’re thinking of—and search within the BMJ , BMJ Careers, and Student BMJ websites to see if there’s anything that’s been done on this before.”

Know your audience

If you’re writing for the Student BMJ , and you’re a medical student, you’ll have a good idea of what your peers will be interested in reading about. Sound it out with your colleagues and get input about your idea. Remember that the Student BMJ has an international readership and that your piece should be accessible and relevant to a worldwide audience.

Other medical journals have an even wider reach: the BMJ has a circulation of over 100 000 and a mixed audience of hospital doctors, GPs, retired doctors, and almost 5000 international doctors. 1

Even though most of your readers will be medics, don’t assume knowledge: there is always a lay audience, and keep in mind that the mainstream media often pick up on stories published in medical journals. Don’t dumb it down, but ensure it is accessible to a layperson.

In particular, spell out acronyms, explain colloquialisms, and use straightforward language. It shouldn’t be written as a research piece, so steer clear of academic jargon.

Udani Samarasekera, senior editor at the Lancet , makes the point that features are different from academic work: “Features are actually very different from essays: they’re a lot more colourful and journalistic and much more engaging. My advice would be not to think too much along the lines of an essay, which can be some students’ downfall,” she says.

Samarasekera also advises researching what makes a good feature: “There is a certain structure: they have an intro, background, new development, and then some debate. And often if it’s a journalistic piece it will describe the scene or have a character that draws you into the beginning of the story as well. So, very different from essays.”

When is a feature not a feature?

It’s important to understand what a feature is. Such articles showcase a topic or subject and weave in quotes, facts, and statistics to frame a topic and give it context and flavour. Although there is a place for opinion writing, this is a distinct type of writing and should be approached differently. A straight feature should not include your opinions: it will be your writing style that adds personality to the piece, not your viewpoint.

Davies outlines why it’s important to avoid airing your views if you’re pitching a standard feature: “We get a lot of things pitched as features that are actually opinion—so, people who’ve done a little survey or found a topic that bugs them. And actually what they’re writing about is their feelings on it, what they think of it. And you’ve got to be quite careful with that.”

Features will generally take straightforward news items or topical stories and examine them in more depth, bringing in original quotes from experts and often adding a human interest angle.

Profile articles focus on one person and should include a first hand interview and contextual information about the subject. The BMJ , BMJ Careers, and Student BMJ all publish profiles of eminent doctors or healthcare professionals, as do most general medical journals: the Lancet publishes a profile in its perspectives section.

This section of a publication can include editorials and first hand experience pieces; in Student BMJ and BMJ there’s the personal view section, and in BMJ Careers there is an opinion slot each week. Here, your voice and your opinions shape the piece and give readers an understanding of your experience and viewpoint. You should still support your opinions with facts and evidence, where appropriate.

Most features will have a peg or a hook on which the rest of the item will hang. This helps to shape the piece and give it a focus. Think about what will draw in your reader: something funny, controversial, or shocking; a new angle on an old subject; or something that generates conflicting viewpoints.

Human interest stories usually work well and can liven up an otherwise dry feature. Generally, features published in medical journals have a topical peg. One example is “The case of M,” 2 which took a recent court ruling about a patient’s right to die and then looked more closely at the current debate and research about ethics and the law surrounding this issue.

Samarasekera of the Lancet emphasises the importance of this: “Topicality is a big thing,” she says. “A feature needs to have something that’s interesting—maybe a recent controversy with an issue, but also a recent development to expand the feature—and to tell your readers why you’re covering it now.” She goes on to say the peg can be “a new piece of research, a report, a pending court case, or something like the first world hepatitis day or some big global health news.”

Once you have a firm idea of your subject, the publication, the audience, and the appropriate section, you are ready to make a pitch to the editor.

Be targeted —Once you’ve selected the journal, think about which section to target within the journal, and make this clear.

Be concise —Your pitch should be one or two paragraphs in the main body of an email. Do not send attachments, as editors may not have time to open them. Ensure that the subject line of the email is descriptive and introduces the pitch in a few words.

Engage —Say why your idea is relevant, why the audience will be interested, and what it adds to existing published work.

Follow up —If you don’t hear back within two weeks, follow up with a phone call to talk your idea through.

Davies says: “Put it down in writing—send an email pitch. And then if you haven’t heard within two weeks, get the phone number and pester them.

“And while the editor might not like it, giving them a quick nag on the phone is no bad thing, as your pitch comes back to the top of their pile and they reconsider it,” he advises.

Liaise with your editor

If your pitch is successful, your editor might allow you to run with it in your own style or could be more prescriptive and will brief you with some guidelines on tone, style, and what to include or avoid.

Make sure you and your editor are thinking along the same tracks. Should the piece be informal, chatty, or serious? Is there anyone specific you should be interviewing? Do you need to reference any other research or articles—particularly if the BMJ itself has published a relevant piece.

Agree a word count and deadline and stick to them.

Be organised

Although the final product will be one article, you will use many sources of information to inform your piece, which can easily get lost or mixed up.

Approach writing a feature like a mini-project. Keep your electronic files in a properly labelled folder and use descriptive file names—labelling a file “interview” probably won’t be that useful. Use dates and names to help you keep track of your research and interviews.

Log all requested interviews with latest notes, press office details, contact details, and any other notes that could be useful. Note whether a potential interviewee is in your own time zone or abroad and calculate time differences to make sure that you don’t call them in the middle of the night.

Keep links to any online research. You might find the perfect statistic or fact to back up your article, but it will be of no use if you can’t reference it properly.

Interviews can be face to face or on the phone. Although face to face is best, Skype is a great way to conduct international interviews.

Keep interviews to the point. Although it’s tempting to veer off to other topics, this can waste time and means that you have more audio to wade through.

Record or take shorthand notes. If you’re quoting someone directly, this needs to be an accurate representation of what they have said. Request permission if recording, and check equipment beforehand.

Don’t allow copy approval. It’s sometimes acceptable to show interviewees their words before publication, but for viewing—not for approval.

Interviewees

Features should contain original quotes from experts in the subject area. This will give your piece a fresh angle on a subject and first hand quotes will help to bring the story to life.

Allow interviews to shine through and don’t stifle with too much “framing”—often direct quotes don’t need much explanation and add to the authority of the piece.

Try not to use “quote sluts” 3 —overused media friendly sources who can churn out the same old line to each interviewer they speak to. Think about who might give a different, fresh, and possibly more controversial viewpoint.

Approach more interviewees than required. People may not respond, may be too busy, or just might not be interested. The risk here is that you end up with too much material, but that is better than not enough.

Your piece needs to be accurate, and any statements should be backed up by well sourced references. Try to verify statistics and facts from at least two sources, at first hand from the original source if possible. Don’t just repeat a fact you’ve read elsewhere. Libel laws apply each time a defamatory comment is repeated. If you’re using a non-primary quote or text, reference it properly so that the reader can see it in its original context.

Unlike news stories, which are written with the least important information at the end, the final paragraphs of a feature often tie up the loose ends. This could be an answer to the original question; a quote that sums up the gist of the piece; or a weighing up of the arguments within.

Competing interests: None declared.

From the Student BMJ .

• ↵ BMJ Group Journals Division. Media Pack 2012 http://group.bmj.com/group/advertising/BMJ%20Group%20Journals%20Division%20Media%20Pack%202012.pdf .
• ↵ Jacobs B. The case of M. Student BMJ 2012 ; 20 : e236 . OpenUrl
• ↵ Matalin M, Carville J. All’s fair. Random House, 1994.

1. Researching, Writing and Presenting Information - A How To Guide: Writing a Feature Article

• Brainstorming and Planning
• Effective Research
• Note-taking
• Writing an Essay
• Writing a Discussion
• Writing an Exposition
• Writing a Rationale
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• Writing a Feature Article
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• Glossary of Literary Terms
• How to use Appendices
• How to paraphrase

Writing an Article

Feature articles explore issues, experiences, opinions and ideas. They present research in an engaging and detailed piece of writing. Features articles are written using language and content tailored to their chosen audience. Always refer to your task guidelines for specific instructions from your teacher.

A Step by Step Guide To Planning Your Article

1. Topic - what is the idea, issue or experience that you intend to explore?

2. Audience - who is the target audience of the publication that will contain your feature article?

3. Purpose - why are you exploring this issue, idea or experience?

4. Research the publication. Remember that each publication has a specific target audience and a distinct style of writing. If you’re writing for a well-known magazine, journal or newspaper, find some examples of feature articles to get an idea of the layout, structure and style.

5. Research your topic. Research will ground your article in fact. Good details to include in your article are statistics, quotes, definitions, anecdotes, references to other media (print, film, television, radio) or references to local venues or events (if for a regional/local publication).

• Draws attention to the main idea of the article
• Encourages the reader to engage with the article

Introduction - the first paragraph

• Establishes tone
• Provides necessary background information
• Includes a hook or unusual statement
• Heightens drama or importance of topic to increase appeal
• May include subheadings
• Personal viewpoints
• Quotes, interviews, expert opinions
• Specific names, places and dates
• Photographs, diagrams, tables and graphs
• Suggests an appropriate course of action
• Encourages reader to change attitude or opinion
• Reinforces article's main idea

Language features of an Article

The language features of an article will depend upon the purpose and audience; usually, the vocabulary of the article will fit the topic content, and who it is targeted at.

• Direct quotes - personalises the topic
• Imagery and description - engage reader's imagination
• Facts & research - validate the viewpoints being presented
• Anecdotes - personalise & maintain interest
• Relevant jargon - increases authenticity
• Personal tone - created using informal, colloquial language and first person narrative where relevant to purpose and audience
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6.1: The Purpose of Feature Writing

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In the previous chapter, we touched on using the news media as an informational tool to achieve your organization’s communication goals. One useful writing material is a feature article. Features are more in-depth than traditional news stories and go beyond providing the most important facts. The purpose of these stories is to provide a detailed description of a place, person, idea, or organization.

Although reporters and editors classify features as news stories, they are not necessarily structured using the inverted pyramid style. Instead, features use storytelling devices to help the reader connect with the overall narrative and its central characters. Features are particularly common in magazine writing, although they frequently appear in other mediums.

Profiles or personality features that give insight into a person’s role, experience, or background are one type of feature. Among the most common subjects of profiles are celebrities, athletes, individuals who overcome challenges, and high-profile executives.

Click here for more information on the different types of features.

It is important to understand the circumstances that warrant a feature piece from a strategic communication perspective. Communication professionals write feature articles to provide in-depth exposure for their client or organization. A feature can increase a client or company’s visibility and even help find new key audiences.

If you need to quickly get information about your client or organization to the media, a feature article may not be the best tool because it typically is longer than a traditional news story. However, you could write a feature article on, for example, your company’s new CEO to provide more background information to key audiences. Feature stories are also used in an organization’s internal communications, such as newsletters and magazines.

Overall, feature articles use an informative tone while incorporating creative and descriptive devices in order to increase audience appeal. Here is an example of a feature article from the New York Times.

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How To Write An Amazing Feature Article In 5 Steps

Need to write a feature article for class? Don't worry, in this article, we show you how to write an amazing feature article in 5 steps!

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Unsure of the difference between a feature article and a newspaper report? Well, it’s time to find out! We will show you the different characteristics of an amazing feature article and how to write one!

To show you how to write an amazing feature article, we’ll discuss:

Characteristics of a feature article.

• Different types of feature articles

Language used in feature articles

• Research / Planning
• Header / Title
• Introduction

What is a feature article?

A feature article is a non-fiction piece of writing that focuses on a particular topic. You will find them in newspapers and news sites, online blogs, or magazines.

However, they are not the same as news reports! Whereas news reports are more factual…

Feature articles are more subjective and emotive.

They commonly present information in a more narratorial manner to make them more engaging.

Now that we have a general understanding of what a feature article is, let’s take a detailed look at their characteristics.

A feature article should,

• Explore a topic or issue of current importance
• Follows  narratorial conventions (i.e. There is a plot, complication, and conclusion)
• Written in short paragraphs
• Combine facts and opinions
• Provide a perspective or angle about the topic or issue
• Includes catchy features (eg. Catchy title, images etc.).

Different types of feature articles:

There are many different types of feature articles. Each one has a different focus and purpose.

So, let’s see a few examples of feature articles!

• eg.  ‘ Charlie Kaufman’s debut novel, ‘Antkind’, is just as loopy and clever as his movies ‘
• eg. ‘ A Former High School Football Player Dove and Caught a Child Dropped From the Balcony of a Burning Building’
• eg. ‘ How to Tie Dye ‘
• eg. ‘ My 2019 UCAT Experience ‘
• eg. ‘ Why Australia Day is really held on 26 January and the push to change the date ‘ or ‘ Thanksgiving 2020 – Date, history behind the holiday and what time is Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade ?’
• eg. ‘ Craziness behind the scenes at the White House ‘ and ‘ Two Former McDonald Employees Spill Insider Secrets About Working at the Fast Food Chain ‘

Note : There are many more different types of feature articles. You’ll want to research the genre specific for the task you’ve been set.

Before we go into the nitty-gritty details for writing feature articles, you need to know what skills and techniques you need to acquire in order to write a feature article!

• Share your opinions
• Show your personality (eg. humourous, serious…)
• Use semi-formal language (i.e. some colloquialism)
• Use emotive language
• Refer to the audience in second person language (eg. “you”)
• Use literary and rhetorical techniques to engage the reader (eg. rhetorical questions, anecdotes, imagery…)
• Don’t overuse adjectives or adverbs . Use strong verbs and nouns to describe, instead of adjectives and adverbs.
• Use facts, quotes and jargon  to add authenticity
• Make sure you write in the  active voice

How to write an amazing feature article in 5 steps

Now that we know what a feature article is, let’s see what you need to do in when writing an amazing feature article:

Step 1: Research and Planning

Remember, feature articles are still based on factual information. So, it is vital that you research your topic very well and that you carefully plan out what you want to write.

We will need to research, plan and research again!

Once you’ve thought about the topic you’ve begin, or decided which issue you would like to discuss, you’re ready to get stuck into researching.

a. Research the general topic

This step is all about reading different perspectives and information about your chosen topic.

Doing this will help you take an informative stance on your topic.

See which perspective interests you most, or which one you agree with most. Also, take into account of the amount of strong evidence you can find for your feature article.

b. Narrow your focus and plan

Now, it is time to take a stance and start planning your feature article!

Here are some points you need to consider when you are planning:

• What type of feature article do you want to write?
• What is your stance on the topic?
• Who is your target audience?
• What is your article about?
• Why are you writing about this topic? (i.e. purpose)
• Chronologically?
• Level of importance?
• Like a narrative?

Note : The purpose of your feature article can be to convince, evoke sympathy or anger, praise or even to educate. It is up to you to figure out what you want to say about the topic.

c. Research evidence

Now, it is time to research some more and gather some evidence to support your feature article.

Feature articles are supposed to help readers really understand and feel your story.

So, to do this, you must ensure that you spend this time to really flesh out your story and get a good grasp of what you are writing about.

Here are some examples you should look for:

• eg. “ According to Cancer.org , 1960 Australians died from skin cancer in 2016 “
• eg. “ Brendan Thomas will not be deported to New Zealand because he is an Indigenous Australian and is protected by the new law “
• eg. “ Professor Gabriel Leung, Expert on COVID-19 Epidemic from Hong Kong University , says that COVID-19 could ‘infect 60% of global population if unchecked'”  
• “ From the live interview with Holocaust survivor.. “

Step 2: Header / Title

Feature articles are known for their eye-catching headers!

Let’s take a look at 2 headers. Which title would you click on first?

“ Rising film director, Sherrice, just released a provocative stop-motion piece that will change your view about fast food! ”

“ Film director, Sherrice, just released a stop-motion piece about fast food ”

The first line is more catchy because it uses emotive language and it directly addresses the readers.

So, how do you write catchy headlines?

• Keep it short and snappy
• Directly address the reader
• Use adjectives / adverbs
• Tell readers what your content is about
• Ask a question
• Give an imperative

Step 3: Introduction

Like your title, your introduction also needs to ‘hook’ in the readers.

They set the scene and draw interest from the audience.

Think about a narrative’s 3 Act Structure:

• The opening act sets the scene and captivate the audience’s attention
• Act 2 is where the action and the major complication occurs
• The 3rd act is the conclusion. It ‘solves’ the problem.

Feature articles function in the same way.

However, unlike a narrative, feature articles’ introductions are very brief and short. They should never be longer than 15% of your whole article.

So, how do you write effective introductions to feature articles:

• Make an interesting and provocative opening statement to draw reader’s attention
• Briefly introduce the topic and purpose
• Establish a relationship with your reader through your language (eg. second person language, rhetorical questions…)
• Create intrigue and interest by foreshadowing your points or challenging your audience
• Provide background information about your topic

Take a read of ABC journalist, Stan Grant’s introduction from  ‘Anger has the hour’: How long must Indigenous Australia Wait for Change? 

“How long must Aboriginal people wait? How many “turning points” must there be, before we stop believing?

Time is something Indigenous people do not have, not when we die 10 years younger than the rest of the population. Every year lost is counted in graveyard crosses.

Yet the Federal Government says there will likely be no referendum on Indigenous constitutional recognition this term of Parliament. Three years since the Uluru Statement from the Heart laid out a vision for Australia — Voice, Treaty, Truth — and we are told still to wait.

That is three years lost; a wasted opportunity to finish our unfinished business. First Nations people asked Australians to walk with us for a better future, yet we cannot get beyond those first steps.”

You see, Grant draws the audience’s interest by asking provocative rhetorical questions that hints at his stance about the topic.

He then provides background information about his topic to inform his audience about the issue. However, notice how he does this in an interesting and engaging way.

Grant uses literary techniques like tricolon (eg. “Voice, Treaty, Truth”), metaphors (eg. “year lost is counted in graveyard crosses” and “First Nations people asked Australians to walk wth us for a better future, yet we cannot get beyond those first steps”) and the motif of steps (eg. “walk with us” and “first steps”).

Step 4: Body

Now, let’s move onto the main part of your feature article.

The body of your feature article is where you write all of your juicy information.

This is where the story unfolds and you share your opinions.

So, let’s get started and see what you need to do in your feature article body paragraphs.

a. Show don’t tell

‘Show, don’t tell’ is a commonly taught writing technique. It requires students to describe and ‘show’ what is happening, instead of simply recounting (‘telling’).

Let’s take a look at an example:

• Tell : Johnny was tired after he ran up the hill.
• Show : Johnny’s legs were aching as he forced himself up the hill. He was struggling to catch his breath and his cheeks were red and puffed up.

Notice the difference? The second line is much more engaging and descriptive, and we feel more connected to the character.

As such, you need to ‘show’ your information to make your article more engaging and interesting to read.

Remember, a feature article is much more colourful than a newspaper report.

So, let’s learn how to ‘show, not tell’:

• Write vivid descriptions and imagery
• Rely on the different senses to describe (i.e. sight, touch, smell, hearing, taste)
• Use literary techniques
• Don’t state emotions (eg. ‘He is happy’,  ‘She was excited’ or ‘That was scary’)
• Use strong verbs and nouns, instead of adverbs and adjectives (eg. ‘sprinted’ instead of ‘ran fast’)

b. Be creative

In other terms, use rhetorical and literary techniques! Using these techniques will help you achieve your purpose and simultaneously engage the audience.

For example, if you want to evoke sympathy from the audience, you can use emotive language and hyperbole:

“Big, brute boys brutally beat small neighbourhood boy until he was unrecognisable” 

Or, if you want to convince the audience, you can use high modality words and an imperative voice:

“The time to take action is now! Get your phones and fill out the survey now”

So, what are some techniques that are commonly used in feature articles:

If you want to find more techniques, or learn more about the listed techniques, take a read of our English Literary Techniques Toolkit .

c. Support your opinions

Remember, a feature article isn’t just a story… it is also an article! This means that you will need a set of strong evidence to support what you are saying.

We already went through the various types of evidence you need for a feature article:

• Case studies
• Quotes from critics or experts

So, ensure you use a variety of different evidence and use it across your whole feature article.

Step 5: Conclusion

We are at the final stage of your feature article!

Too often, students neglect the conclusion because they think it’s unimportant in a feature article.

However, it is quite the opposite.

Conclusions are especially important in feature article because they summarise your ideas and stance, and ultimately inspire your readers to take action.

So, take your time to quickly summarise your article and add a call to action (i.e. tell your audience to do something, either explicitly or implicitly).

Let’s take a look at News.com journalist, Emma Reynold’s conclusion: “ Craziness Behind the Scenes at the White House ”

“ Three levels of the imposing White House are visible above ground, with the rest beneath. The basements include workrooms, bombs shelters and a bowling alley.

I’m told to look out for the famous red-tailed hawks that live in the rafters of the building. While squirrels are a common sight outside the gates, not many survive within.

Back on Pennsylvania Avenue, I note the absence of sewer grates or rubbish bins, a precaution against bombs.

Clearly, there is a strong consciousness of danger here. But it’s covered with a Disney smile. “

Here, Reynold summarises her experience at the White House and comes to a final conclusion.

She also uses rhetorical and literary techniques to engage her audience and make her conclusion more memorable.

For example, we see a metaphor with “while squirrels are a common sight outside the gates, not many survive within [the White House]”, drawing links between squirrels and common people.

She also uses framing (her introduction refers a ‘Disney star’), allusion and metaphor in her final line: “But it’s covered with a Disney smile”.

Furthermore, Reynolds also implicitly warns us to be aware and critical of what is truly happening in the White House. This is her call to action.

This is what you need to do with your conclusions too!

Written by Matrix English Team

© Matrix Education and www.matrix.edu.au, 2023. Unauthorised use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Matrix Education and www.matrix.edu.au with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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4 Types of Features

From profiles to travel stories, there is feature style for everyone

“If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn’t brood. I’d type a little faster.” Isaac Asimov

Truth be told, no one writes a plain, old feature article, since “feature” is an umbrella term that encompasses a broad range of article types, from profiles to how-tos and beyond.

The goal here is not just to know these types exist but rather to use them to shape your material into a format that best serves your reader and the publication for which you are writing. Pitching a story that takes a particular format or angle also helps editors see the focus and appeal of your idea more clearly, which can help you get hired.

Let’s take a look at some of the most common feature article types.

A profile is a mini-biography on a single entity — person, place, event, thing — but it revolves around a nut graph that includes something newsworthy happening now. That “hook,” as we call the news focus, must be evident throughout the story.

A profile on Jennifer Lawrence might be interesting, but it is most likely to be published about the time she has a new movie coming out or she wins an award.

This fulfills the readers’ desire to know why they are reading about someone at a given time or in a given magazine.

The best profiles examine characters and document struggles and dreams. It’s important that you show a complete picture of who or what is being profiled — warts and all — especially since the controversy is often what keeps people reading. Controversy, however, is not the only compelling aspect of profiles. They are, most importantly, personal and insightful, beyond the pedantic list of accomplishments you can get from a bio sheet or a PR campaign.

Profiles aim to:

• Reveal feelings
• Expose attitudes
• Capture habits and mannerisms.
• Entertain and inform.

Accomplishing those goals is what makes profiles challenging to write, but also makes them among the most compelling and fulfilling stories to create.

Delving deeply into your subject’s interests, career, education and family can bring out amazing anecdotes, as can reporting in an immersive style.

The goal is to watch your subject closely and document his or her habits, mannerisms, vocal tones, dress, interactions and word choice. Describing these elements for readers can contribute to a fuller and more accurate presentation of the interview subject.

Consider this opening paragraph from one of my favorite profiles, Jeff Perlman’s look at one-time baseball bad boy John Rocker of the Atlanta Braves:

A MINIVAN is rolling slowly down Atlanta’s Route 400, and John Rocker, driving directly behind it in his blue Chevy Tahoe, is pissed. “Stupid bitch! Learn to f—ing drive!” he yells. Rocker honks his horn. Once. Twice. He swerves a lane to the left. There is a toll booth with a tariff of 50 cents. Rocker tosses in two quarters. The gate doesn’t rise. He tosses in another quarter. The gate still doesn’t rise. From behind, a horn blasts. “F— you!” Rocker yells, flashing his left middle finger out the window. Finally, after Rocker has thrown in two dimes and a nickel, the gate rises. Rocker brings up a thick wad of phlegm. Puuuh! He spits at the machine. “Hate this damn toll.”

Perlman does not have to tell us anything about Rocker; he has shown us and lets us make our own determinations as to the person we are getting to know through this article.

Research is key to any piece, but profiles provide the ultimate test of your interviewing skills. How well can you coax complete strangers into sharing details of their private lives? Your job is to get subjects to open up and share their true personalities, memories, experiences, opinions, feelings and reflections.

This comes from a true conversational style and a willingness to probe as deep as you need to get the material you need.

Interview your subject and as many people as you need to get clear perspectives of your profile subject.

Not everyone will make your article, but you can get background information and anecdotes that could be crucial to understanding your subject or asking key questions. (Now might be a good time to download “Always Get the Name of the Dog.”)

Take the time to watch your subject at work or play so you can really get to know them in a three-dimensional way.

The fewer sources and the less time you spend with your subject the less accurate or complex your profile will be.

The framework of a profile follows these guidelines:

Anecdotal lede

An engaging, revealing a little story to lure us into your article.

Nut graph/Theme

A paragraph that shows the reader what exactly this story is about and why does this entity matter now?

Observe our subject in action now using dialogue details and descriptions.

A recap of our subject’s past activities using facts, quotes and anecdotes as they relate to the theme.

Where Are We Now?

What is our subject doing now, as it relates to the theme?

What Lies Ahead?

Plans, dreams, goals and barriers to overcome.

Closing Quote

Bring the article home in a way that makes the reader feel the story is complete like they can sigh at the end of a good tale.

A Q&A article is just what it sounds like — an article structured in questions and answers.

Freelancers and editors both like them for several reasons:

• They’re easy to write.
• They’re easy to read.
• They can be used on a variety of subjects.

The catch is writers/interviewers must take even greater care with the questions asked and ensuring the quality of the answers received because they will provide both the skeleton and the meat of your piece.

This may seem obvious, but quality questions are vital, meaning we avoid closed-ended (yes or no, single-word answer) questions and instead ask questions that will inspire some thought, creativity and explanation or description.

Q&A articles start with an introduction into the subject — often as anecdotal as any other piece, but then transition into the fly-on-the-wall feeling of watching an interview take place. You are the interviewer.

The subject is the interviewee, and the reader is sitting alongside you both soaking in the experience and your relationship.

That means a Q&A has to stay conversational so it does not feel like a written interrogation.

The interview itself is much like we would use for an article, but you have to be more conscious of the order in which you ask questions, how they transition from one another and the quality of the answer so you are not tempted to move answers around.

You will be amazed at how many words get generated in an actual conversation or interview, so the Q&A is far from over when the interview concludes. Editing and cutting the interview transcript can take far longer than the interview itself.

You cannot change your subject’s words, but you take out redundancies and those verbal lubricants that keep conversations moving — “like,” “you know,” etc., Sentences and phrases can be edited out by using ellipses (…) to show you have removed something.

Grammar is a challenge with a lot of transcripts, and I will leave in that which represents the subject, but I will not let them come across badly by misusing words or phrases.

Instead, let’s take it out or ask them to clarify.

If you do an internet search on “round-up story,” you very often get a collection of information from various places on a central them.

Feature round-ups are written the same way.

These articles are like list blog posts, where you have a variety of suggestions from different sources that advance a common idea:

• 7 secrets to a happy baby
• 10 best vacation spots with a teenager
• 5 tips on how to pick the perfect roommate

You may notice that there is a numeric value on each of these ideas, and that is a key part of the roundup. You are offering a collection of suggestions, provided and supported by sources, on a specific topic.

The article begins, as most features do, with an anecdote that takes us to a theme, but instead of a uniform or chronological body style, we break it up into these sections outlined by each numbered suggestion.

Each section can be constructed like its own mini feature — complete with sources, facts, anecdote and quotes, or just the advice provided by a qualified source (not the author!).

There does not need to be a specific order to how each piece of the article is presented, rather their order is interchangeable.

It is important to have sources with some level of expertise and not merely opinions on the topic. Just because someone went to Club Med with their 5-year-old and had fun does not mean it’s the best vacation spot for kids.

We first need an idea of what makes a good vacation spot and then support with facts how this one fits the criteria.

Readers love to learn how to do new things, and there are few better ways to teach them than through how-to articles.

How-to articles provide a description of how something can be accomplished using information and advice, giving step-by-step directions, supplies and suggestions for success.

Unlike round-ups, these articles must be written sequentially and have to end with some sort of success.

Aim for something that most people don’t know how to do, or something that offers a new way of approaching a familiar task. Most importantly, make sure it is neither too simplistic, nor too complex for their attempt, and include provide definitions and anecdotes that show how things can go well or poorly in attempting this task.

Personal Experience

Most of us have had some experience that we think, “I would love to write about this so other people can learn or enjoy this with me.”

If you have a truly original and teachable moment and can find the right feature to which to pitch it, you may very well have a personal experience story on your hands.

Some guidelines for finding such a story include whether this is an experience readers would:

• Wish to share?
• Learn or benefit from?
• Wish to avoid?
• Help cope with a challenge?

Unlike a first-person lede, which might use your personal anecdote to get us into a broader story, in a personal experience article you are the story, and how we learn from your experience will help us navigate the same waters.

They can be emotional, like the New Yorker piece on women who share their abortion stories , but they can also be about amazing vacations that others might consider — “Bar Mitzvah trip to Israel” anyone? — or how about a man who quits a high-powered job to stay home with his kids?

No matter what your experience, you must be willing to tell your story with passion and objectivity, sharing the good, the bad and the uncomfortable, and making readers part of the experience.

It’s important that the experience is over before you pitch, so the reader can get a clear perspective of what happened and the resolution. Did it work or not?

As the author, you also need time to gain perspective on your issue so you can “report” it as objectively as possible.

Finally, make sure you are chronicling something attainable or achievable. We need to go through it and come out the other side with evidence that will make us smarter and better equipped to handle a similar situation that might come our way.

The Art of Covering Horse Racing

Melissa Hoppert is the racing writer from the New York Times, and despite covering the same events over and over she manages to find a unique story each time.

Belmont Park is called “Big Sandy,” because the track has so much sand on it. I rode the tractor and asked the trackman, “What makes it like that? What it’s like to race on it?”

It was my most-read story that year. You have to think outside the box.

When the horse Justify came along, it was like ”here we go again — another Triple Crown with the same trainer. What can I possibly write about Bob Baffert that has not written before?

We observed and thought outside the box. We didn’t do a Bob Baffert feature. We went to the barn and still talked to him every day, but we looked at things differently.

We focused more on the owners . They were in a partnership and that is a trend of the sport. Rich owners team up to share the risk. That made it more of a trend story. Is this where we are going.

Sometimes I like writing about the horse. American Pharoah was a really fun, quirky horse. My most favorite story was when I went to visit American Pharoah’s sire, Pioneer of the Nile , at the breeding shed. He has a weird breeding style. He needed the mood to be set. It was kind of random, but it helped tell a story of American Pharoah that had not yet been told.

True-Life Drama

Examples of these include:

• The couple on a sight-seeing plane ride that had to land the plane when their pilot died
• Aron Ralston frees himself by sawing off his own arm after getting trapped in the desert.
• Tornado survival stories

It is fitting that the first example I found to show you of true-life dramas came from Readers Digest because these types of stories are the bread and butter of that magazine.

They are the stories that are almost impossible to believe but are true, and they are driven by the characters who make them come to life.

Some “true-life dramas” become even more famous when they are adapted for the screen, like the Slate story of being rescued from Iran , you might know better as the film, “Argo.”

How about Capt. Richard Phillips’ dramatic struggle with Somali pirates, now a film starring Tom Hanks?

Steve Lopes of the Los Angeles Times found a violin-playing homeless man who became the subject of numerous columns and later the movie “The Soloist.”

These stories are, quite simply, dramatic experiences from real people, where they live through moments few of us can imagine.

Many of the feature versions of these stories start as newspaper coverage of the breaking event, and then a desire to go behind-the-scenes and chronicle exactly what happened over a much longer course of time — the lead-up, the culmination and the aftermath.

Being a consumer of news will help you come across these stories, and a desire to conduct really penetrating interviews to get the “real story” will make them come to life.

You might not be thinking about Christmas in May or back-to-school in February, but chances are editors will be scheduling those topics and looking for article ideas.

Seasonal stories are the ones that happen every year and need a fresh angle on an annual basis.

It goes beyond standbys like “Best side dishes for Thanksgiving,” and how to make a good Easter basket, to “ How to do the holidays in a newly divorced family ,” and “Back to school shopping for a home-schooled child.”

The key is that a timely observance is interwoven in the theme, and these stories are planned and often executed months in advance since we all know they are coming.

Seasonal can also relate to anniversaries — Sept. 11, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Titanic sinking — and their marketability can escalate dramatically around an anniversary.

The angle is all about the audience, so think how you can spin one day or a milestone event to toddlers, teens, seniors, your local community, pets, business, food, travel and you may suddenly have 10 stories from one topic.

Remember, though, that your pitch has to come long before the event is even in the mind of most readers — at least six months and sometimes a year.

The perceived glamour division of freelance writing is the travel piece, which most people think comes with an all-expense-paid trip to swanky, exotic locations.

That can be true, but more likely writers make their own plans and accommodations and their pay reflects that a portion of their compensation comes from the good time they had traveling.

The good news is that with the rise of travel blogs and smaller travel publications there are more outlets than ever to pitch your ideas, provided they are original and unique to the audience.

That means, “Traveling to Paris,” probably won’t work, but “ Traveling to Paris on $50 a day ” just might.

That also does not mean that publications are looking for your personal essay on what you did for your summer vacation, or just because you visited Peru and loved it that it’s worthy of a feature article. You have to show the editor and the reader why you have a unique perspective and angle on a traveling experience.

Travel writing means looking for stories on about:

• How to travel
• When to travel
• Advice on traveling

The more specifically you can focus on a population of travelers — seniors, parents, honeymooners, first-time family vacation — the more likely you can come up with an idea that has not been overdone and pitch it to a niche magazine.

In a column on the Writer’s Digest website, Brian Klems writes the need to travel “deeply” as opposed to just widely, and I thought that was such an insightful term. He spelled out the need to really dig deep into whatever area you might cover and take copious, detailed notes, but I would add that you also have to really dig deep into what people want to know about travel and enough to go past the cliché or stereotypes.

The more descriptively you can present experiences, the more compelled readers may be to join you.

To separate yourself from the cacophony of travel voices out there, consider building up expertise in one subject or area. If you are from an interesting area, see how you can pitch stories to bring make outsiders insiders. Are you a big hockey fan? What about traveling to different hockey venues and making a weekend travel story out of what to see and do before and after the game?

The key to success is to become a curious and perceptive traveler from the minute you book a trip. Think about how your experience can be a travel story, as opposed to only looking to pitch stories that could become an experience.

Some other types to consider:

Essay or Opinion

First-person pieces, which usually revolve around an important or timely subject (if they’re to be published in a newspaper or “serious” magazine).

Historical Article

Focus on a single historical aspect of the subject but make a current connection.

Trend Story

Takes the pulse of a population right now, often in technology, fashion, arts and health.

No, we are not talking about trees.

Evergreen stories are ones that do not have an expiration date and can be pitched for creation at any time.

A profile on a new trend or profile-worthy person has to be pitched in relatively short order, or it will not really marketable anymore. But a story on how to build an exercise program around your pet does not really have to be published at a specific time.

Incorporating evergreen ideas into your repertoire of story ideas will open up even more publishing doors.

Writing Fabulous Features Copyright © 2020 by Nicole Kraft is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Expert Commentary

Feature writing: Crafting research-based stories with characters, development and a structural arc

Semester-long syllabus that teaches students how to write stories with characters, show development and follow a structural arc.

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The best journalism engages as it informs. When articles or scripts succeed at this, they often are cast as what is known as features or contain elements of a story. This course will teach students how to write compelling feature articles, substantive non-fiction stories that look to a corner of the news and illuminate it, often in human terms.

Like news, features are built from facts. Nothing in them is made up or embellished. But in features, these facts are imbedded in or interwoven with scenes and small stories that show rather than simply tell the information that is conveyed. Features are grounded in time, in place and in characters who inhabit both. Often features are framed by the specific experiences of those who drive the news or those who are affected by it. They are no less precise than news. But they are less formal and dispassionate in their structure and delivery. This class will foster a workshop environment in which students can build appreciation and skill sets for this particular journalistic craft.

Course objective

To teach students how to interest readers in significant, research-based subjects by writing about them in the context of non-fiction stories that have characters, show development and follow a structural arc from beginning to end.

Learning objectives

• Explore the qualities of storytelling and how they differ from news.
• Build a vocabulary of storytelling.
• Apply that vocabulary to critiquing the work of top-flight journalists.
• Introduce a writing process that carries a story from concept to publication.
• Introduce tools for finding and framing interesting features.
• Sharpen skills at focusing stories along a single, clearly articulated theme.
• Evaluate the importance of backgrounding in establishing the context, focus and sources of soundly reported stories.
• Analyze the connection between strong information and strong writing.
• Evaluate the varied types of such information in feature writing.
• Introduce and practice skills of interviewing for story as well as fact.
• Explore different models and devices for structuring stories.
• Conceive, report, write and revise several types of feature stories.
• Teach the value of “listening” to the written word.
• Learn to constructively critique and be critiqued.
• Examine markets for journalism and learn how stories are sold.

Suggested reading

• The Art and Craft of Feature Writing , William Blundell, Plume, 1988 (Note: While somewhat dated, this book explicitly frames a strategy for approaching the kinds of research-based, public affairs features this course encourages.)
• Writing as Craft and Magic (second edition), Carl Sessions Stepp, 2007, Oxford University Press.
• On Writing Well (30th anniversary edition), William Zinsser, Harper Paperbacks, 2006.
• The Associated Press Stylebook 2009 , Associated Press, Basic Books, 2009.

Recommended reading

• America’s Best Newspaper Writing , edited by Roy Peter Clark and Christopher Scanlan, Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2006.
• Writing for Story , Jon Franklin, Penguin, 1986.
• Telling True Stories: A Nonfiction Writers’ Guide from the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University , edited by Mark Kramer and Wendy Call, Plume, 2007.
• The Journalist and the Murderer , Janet Malcolm, Vintage, 1990.
• Writing for Your Readers , Donald Murray, Globe Pequot, 1992.

Assignments

Students will be asked to write and report only four specific stories this semester, two shorter ones, one at the beginning of the semester and one at the end, and two longer ones, a feature looking behind or beyond a news development, and an institutional or personal profile.

They will, however, be engaged in substantial writing, much of it focused on applying aspects of the writing-process method suggested herein. Throughout the class, assignments and exercises will attempt to show how approaching writing as a process that starts with a story’s inception can lead to sharper story themes, stronger story reporting and more clearly defined story organization. As they report and then revise and redraft the semester’s two longer assignments, students will craft theme or focus statements, write memos that help the class troubleshoot reporting weaknesses, outline, build interior scenes, workshop drafts and workshop revisions. Finally, in an attempt to place at least one of their pieces in a professional publication, an important lesson in audience and outlet, the students will draft query letters.

Methodology

This course proceeds under the assumption that students learn to report and write not only through practice (which is essential), but also by deconstructing and critiquing award-winning professional work and by reading and critiquing the work of classmates.

These workshops work best when certain rules are established:

• Every student will read his or her work aloud to the class at some point during the semester. It is best that these works be distributed in advance of class.
• Every student should respond to the work honestly but constructively. It is best for students to first identify what they like best about a story and then to raise questions and suggestions.
• All work will be revised after it is workshopped.

Weekly schedule and exercises (13-week course)

We encourage faculty to assign students to read on their own at least the first 92 pages of William Zinsser’s On Writing Well before the first class. The book is something of a contemporary gold standard for clear, consistent writing and what Zinsser calls the contract between writer and reader.

The assumption for this syllabus is that the class meets twice weekly.

Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 Week 8 | Week 9 | Week 10 | Week 11 | Week 12 | Week 13

Week 1: What makes feature stories different?

Previous week | Next week | Back to top

Class 1: News reports versus stories

The words “dispassionate,” “factual” and “front-loaded” might best describe the traditional news story. It is written to convey information quickly to the hurried reader. Features, on the other hand, are structured and told so that readers engage in and experience a story — with a beginning, middle and end — even as they absorb new information. It is features that often are the stories emailed to friends or linked on their Facebook pages. Nothing provides more pleasure than a “good read” a story that goes beyond basic information to transport audiences to another place, to engage an audience in others’ lives, to coax a smile or a tear.

This class will begin with a discussion of the differences in how journalists approach both the reporting and writing of features. In news, for example, reporters quote sources. In features, they describe characters, sometimes capturing their interaction through dialogue instead of through disembodied quotes. Other differences between news and story are summarized eloquently in the essays “Writing to Inform, Writing to Engage” and “Writing with ‘Gold Coins'” on pages 302 to 304 of Clark and Scanlan’s America’s Best Newspaper Writing . These two essays will be incorporated in class discussion.

The second part of the introductory class will focus on writing as a continuum that begins with the inception of an idea. In its cover blurb, William Blundell’s book is described as “a step-by-step guide to reporting and writing as a continuous, interrelated process.”

Notes Blundell: “Before flying out the door, a reporter should consider the range of his story, its central message, the approach that appears to best fit the tale, and even the tone he should take as a storyteller.” Such forethought defines not only how a story will be reported and written but the scope of both. This discussion will emphasize that framing and focusing early allows a reporter to report less broadly and more deeply, assuring a livelier and more authoritative story.

READING (assignments always are for the next class unless otherwise noted):

• Blundell, Chapter 1
• Clark/Scanlan, “The Process of Writing and Reporting,” pages 290-294.

ASSIGNMENT:

Before journalists can capture telling details and create scenes in their feature stories, they need to get these details and scenes in their notebooks. They need, as Blundell says, to be keen observers “of the innocuous.” In reporting news, journalists generally gather specific facts and elucidating quotes from sources. Rarely, however, do they paint a picture of place, or take the time to explore the emotions, the motives and the events that led up to the news. Later this semester, students will discuss and practice interviewing for story. This first assignment is designed to make them more aware of the importance of the senses in feature reporting and, ultimately, writing.

Students should read the lead five paragraphs of Hal Lancaster’s piece on page 56 of Blundell and the lead of Blundell’s own story on page 114. They should come prepared to discuss what each reporter needed to do to cast them, paying close attention to those parts based on pure observation and those based on interviewing.

Finally, they should differentiate between those parts of the lead that likely were based on pure observation and those that required interviewing and research. This can be done in a brief memo.

Class 2: Building observational and listening skills

Writing coach Don Fry, formerly of the Poynter Institute, used the term “gold coins” to describe those shiny nuggets of information or passages within stories that keep readers reading, even through sections based on weighty material. A gold coin can be something as simple as a carefully selected detail that surprises or charms. Or it can be an interior vignette, a small story within a larger story that gives the reader a sense of place or re-engages the reader in the story’s characters.

Given the feature’s propensity to apply the craft of “showing” rather than merely “telling,” reporters need to expand their reporting skill set. They need to become keen observers and listeners, to boil down what they observe to what really matters, and to describe not for description’s sake but to move a story forward. To use all the senses to build a tight, compelling scene takes both practice and restraint. It is neither license to write a prose-poem nor to record everything that’s seen, smelled or heard. Such overwriting serves as a neon exit sign to almost any reader. Yet features that don’t take readers to what Blundell calls “street level” lack vibrancy. They recount events and measure impact in the words of experts instead of in the actions of those either affected by policy, events or discovery of those who propel it.

In this session, students will analyze and then apply the skill sets of the observer, the reporter who takes his place as a fly on the wall to record and recount the scene. First students will discuss the passive observation at the heart of the stories assigned above. Why did the writers select the details they did? Are they the right ones? Why or why not?

Then students will be asked to report for about 30 to 45 minutes, to take a perch someplace — a cafeteria, a pool hall, a skateboard park, a playground, a bus stop — where they can observe and record a small scene that they will be asked to recapture in no more than 150 to 170 words. This vignette should be written in an hour or less and either handed in by the end of class or the following day.

Four fundamental rules apply:

• The student reporters can only write what they observe or hear. They can’t ask questions. They certainly can’t make anything up.
• The students should avoid all opinion. “I” should not be part of this story, either explicitly or implicitly.
• The scene, which may record something as slight as a one-minute exchange, should waste no words. Students should choose words and details that show but to avoid words and details that show off or merely clutter.
• Reporters should bring their lens in tight. They should write, for example, not about a playground but about the jockeying between two boys on its jungle gym.

Reading: Blundell, Chapter 1, Stepp, pages 64 to 67. Students will be assigned to read one or more feature articles built on the context of recently released research or data. The story might be told from the perspective of someone who carried out the research, someone representative of its findings or someone affected by those findings. One Pulitzer Prize-winning example is Matt Richtel’s “Dismissing the Risks of a Deadly Habit,” which began a series for which The New York Times won a Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 2010. Richtel told of the dangers of cell phones and driving through the experiences of Christopher Hill, a young Oklahoma driver with a clean record who ran a light and killed someone while talking on the phone. Dan Barry’s piece in The Times , “From an Oyster in the Gulf, a Domino Effect,” tells the story of the BP oil spill and its impact from the perspective of one oysterman, placing his livelihood into the context of those who both service and are served by his boat.

• Finish passive observational exercise (see above).
• Applying Blundell’s criteria in Chapter 1 (extrapolation, synthesis, localization and projection), students should write a short memo that establishes what relationship, if any, exists between the features they were assigned to read and the news or research developments that preceded them. They should consider whether the reporter approached the feature from a particular point of view or perspective. If so, whose? If not, how is the story structured? And what is its main theme? Finally, students should try to identify three other ways feature writers might have framed a story based on the same research.

Week 2: The crucial early stages: Conceiving and backgrounding the story

Class 1: Finding fresh ideas

In the first half of class, several students should be asked to read their observed scenes. Writing is meant to be heard, not merely read. After each student reads a piece, the student should be asked what he or she would do to make it better. Then classmates should be encouraged to make constructive suggestions. All students should be given the opportunity to revise.

In the second half of class, students will analyze the origins of the features they were assigned to read. The class might be asked to form teams and to identify other ways of approaching the material thematically by using Blundell’s methods of looking at an issue.

Feature writers, the author writes, are expected to find and frame their own ideas.

“The feature writer who doesn’t have two or three projects bubbling on his own stove is doing only half a job,” he writes.

Conceiving stories, Blundell notes, involves more than clear and original thought. Reporters need idea files and source files. They need to read prolifically in areas about which they know little. They need to look for areas that are under covered by their publications. They need to walk through their communities with the wonderment of tourists who have just landed in a foreign city.

This degree of organization and engagement assures reporters far greater success in applying some of Blundell’s other tools of analysis.

These include:

• Extrapolation — Looking for the “why” or principal cause of a story. After the explosion that killed BP workers and spewed oil into the Gulf of Mexico, some feature stories likely told the dramatic, but relatively narrow, story of the night things went bad. Others, based on much weightier investigation, traced the series of bad decisions BP made that ultimately led to catastrophe. Both, in their way, would have been considered backgrounders to the news development.
• Synthesis — Looking for common threads that can broaden a story’s impact. Blundell offers the example of a series of mishaps in the city of San Diego that made the city ripe for a feature on its dubious claim to being the American capital of civic embarrassment.
• Localization — Examining big events or developments in smaller ways — either by taking a national or global event and examining its impact within the writer’s local area or by viewing a broad, thematic problem — post-traumatic stress disorder in the military, for example — through the experiences of an individual whose story represents the more universal experience. (In his book, Writing for Your Readers , Donald Murray writes: “Most good stories say one thing. They tell the story not of a battle, but of a soldier: they talk not about governance, but a deal; they discuss not a socioeconomic group, but reveal a person and a life.” Blundell writes that it is easier for most feature writers to be miniaturists than muralists.)
• Projection — Looking beyond the news development by writing a story that considers how the news affects a person or group of people. In Richtel’s story about the dangers of cell phones and driving, he builds the story around one young man whose life was shaken when he ran a stop light and took a life while talking on the phone.

Conceiving a story is only the first step. The reporter must go deep to report and write the story well. “To me,” Blundell writes, “the most important part of reporting is knowing what you need to make the story go.”

Reading: Blundell Chapter 3 and 4

Assignment: Students should either use materials posted on the Journalist’s Resource web site at the Shorenstein Center or developed at a research center at their university to identify and background a news or research development that can serve as the basis for developing a unique feature angle or approach. This feature should not profile, or tell the story of, either of an institution or an individual. Profiles will be assigned later in the semester. Instead students should look for features that either look behind a news development, such as the BP backgrounders described earlier, or features that look at the impact of a news development on those most directly affected by it or those who would be expected to translate it into policy. Students should keep in mind that they are conceiving and finding a thematic thread for a feature, not reporting a policy story filled with expert voices only. For example, if the Department of Defense releases data showing that suicides have increased in the military, the student might propose a feature like one published on page 1 of The New York Times in July 2010. It told the story of those working on a suicide hotline to keep anguished members of the military alive. The stories that grow out of this assignment should be substantial in their research and be worthy of between 1,300 and 1,500 words. They will be due in four weeks (Class 2 or Week 6).

By the second class of Week 3 students will be expected to have identified a topic and a way of approaching it that allows each to:

• Craft a single-sentence theme statement establishing its focus.
• Identify and obtain research-based material that will provide a specific contextual foundation for the story.
• Provide at least four sources, with their contact information, and an explanation of why the student has chosen them.
• Provide a brief reporting plan.

Class 2: The importance of backgrounding (starting the reporting process)

Too many students mistake reporting for a journalistic version of a police dragnet: They pull in everything they can find and then try to figure out what the story is. Such an approach results in stories riddled with holes and lacking any dominant focus. Reporting always demands lots of legwork. But that legwork must be informed by forethought, which, in turn, is informed by the process of backgrounding. Backgrounding moves a story from the conceptual stage to the point at which a reporter can draw up a well-established working thesis or plan, a focus which, while it might still change, sets the direction of future reporting and writing.

“The good writers I know always do some kind of planning before they report,” writes Blundell.

Part of that planning means to review what’s been written about the topic before, both to find useful information and to see what hasn’t been broached. It means identifying and locating documents to help establish a line of questioning and lend authority to the story. It means identifying different kinds of sources, from the “rabbis,” who point the way but rarely are quoted to “wise men,” who can offer a big picture overview of the landscape; and from authorities who can give the official version of things to what Blundell calls the “street-level” people who live the story and among whom the reporter likely will find a central character.

In this class, students will begin with a discussion of the steps needed to background a story well and then apply those steps to the individual stories they have begun researching. Among the issues that will be discussed are: Where to look for authoritative sources and digital or print documents, how to distinguish between different kinds of sources, and how to use background material to establish a line of questioning, identify potential sources and narrow the story’s focus.

READING/ASSIGNMENT:

• Agree with Blundell’s assessment of the theme of the story as expressed on page 116
• Find that the story stays tightly focused on the thematic Blundell describes. In each case, students should explain why the agree or disagree.
• Continue background work on first feature.

Week 3: Honing the story’s approach

Class 1: Focus or theme statements

Nearly every effective and interesting story is built around a single, dominant theme, using varied types of material to develop it. Writers who fill stories with exhaustive documentation but fail to establish a clear storyline file copy that reads like a government report. Writers who cobble together a series of colorful scenes that are not connected by a clear story spine run the risk of confusing readers to the point at which they will turn away.

The best features engross or entertain readers as they inform them. They offer content, structure and style, or, as Carl Sessions Stepp writes, “typically … share the following three virtues: 1. storyline: a special idea 2. Surprise: compelling material and 3. Stylishness: engaging writing.

To arrive at 2 and 3, the writer must first establish 1, the storyline. “A limited tale well told has more impact and persuasiveness than a sweeping story that can’t be adequately illustrated,” Blundell writes.

It is difficult to write that limited tale, however, unless the reporter sets out on a course to report it. That usually means narrowing and sharpening the story’s concept to the point at which the writer can express it in a clear and specific theme or focus statement. (For example, on page 116, Blundell gives this theme statement for the profile he deconstructs in the same chapter: “My theme statement for this story was simple — the life and work of a real cowboy in an age of cowboy hype.”)

Most serious storytellers would agree with Blundell that writing such a theme sentence must precede the bulk of reporting. This does not suggest the journalist embarks on his reporting with a bias. It suggests he is reporting with purpose. If the reporter finds a better story along the way, he can recast the theme statement. But entering the reporting process without one is like running through brambles instead of along a clearly marked path. The reporter who chooses the brambles may still get to the end, but only with multiple nicks and cuts.

As students sharpen their stories’ themes, they should consider some of the questions Blundell raises in Chapter 4 (assigned earlier). They also might ask themselves these questions, among others:

• Is the story’s scope too broad?
• Do I have time to report and write a story of the scale I’m proposing?
• Am I getting down to street level in my reporting?
• Can I establish an element of suspense or anticipation at the outset of the story that isn’t answered until near the end?
• Does something happen in the story? Does something change? (Action often informs character and stories are easier to construct if they arrive at a resolution. In his excellent book on narrative nonfiction, Writing for Story , author Jon Franklin notes that the best stories are built around sympathetic characters forced to confront and resolve a conflict or complication in their lives. “A story,” he writes, “consists of a sequence of actions that occur when a sympathetic character encounters a complicating situation that he confronts and solves.”)
• Does the story’s contemporary context or its past make it more interesting to tell?

To help internalize the process of writing theme statements, students can be asked to select an article from the Journalist’s Resource web site, to deconstruct it and to craft a single theme sentence that captures its purpose. They then should compare their efforts, either in small groups or a discussion of the entire class.

Class 2: Pitching the story

Students will read their theme or focus statements aloud in class. These will be critiqued by the instructor and class. Using the memos submitted by students, the instructor should work with them to sharpen the focus of their stories and troubleshoot the direction of their reporting.

Reading: Blundell, page 95 (four stages), 126 to 140 and 148 to 152; Zinsser, pages 55 to 58; Stepp, 99 to 101 and 149 to 153.

• The first draft of the 1,500-word public affairs feature article described above will be assigned for the second class of Week 5 (in two weeks).
• Those students with a weak focus statement will be expected to recast them for the following class.
• Students should come prepared to discuss which lead in Appendix 2 of Blundell’s book they consider most effective and why. They also should consider which ending they consider most effective and why.

Week 4: Organizing stories

Class 1: Leads and endings

Journalism textbooks love to categorize lead types. Among the feature leads they’ll list are anecdotal leads , short vignettes that exemplify or show what the main point of the story will tell; scene setters , that paint a picture and create a mood of a place central to a story’s central theme; zingers , short, sharp leads that pull readers in with a quick turn of phrase or sharp contrast; and narrative leads , which foreshadow what’s to come and build suspense without giving away the story’s ending.

Categories aside, though, every lead serves the same purpose and has the same mission: To engage readers immediately and to do so well enough to keep them reading.

Reporters, particularly those writing for newspapers or web sites, don’t have the time or space to luxuriate in the scenes they create. They cannot afford to waste space or words. They must, in the words of E.B. White, “make every word tell.” This is as true in writing features as in writing news. The forms and style change. The mission remains the same.

In his book, On Writing Well , William Zinsser puts it like this: “The most important sentence in any article is the first one. If it doesn’t induce the reader to proceed to the second sentence, your article is dead.”

He notes that leads must not only force the reader to keep reading but that to do so, each sentence must do “real work.” It needs to build on the sentence before, to introduce information even as it entices or draws the reader in.

Leads must do something else: They must be honest. A lead about a shark surfacing a few feet from a swimmer off Cape Cod likely would draw the reader to the next sentence. But if the story had nothing to do with sharks other than they were swimming in the waters near a controversial site where offshore windmills will soon be built, the lead would be deceptive and tangential to the story. A lead must fit the story — in its content, its tone and its direction. Readers will resent the writer who deceives.

The second most important sentence in a good feature is its last. It should leave the reader with a sense of finality or resolution, a strong image, a reminder of the story’s main theme. The best endings both surprise and resonate. This is not the long windup of the college English essay. Students are urged to leave out their editorial opinions and to eschew that dreadful term-paper transition: “in conclusion.” Instead, the best stories stop, sometimes abruptly, often before the reader is quite ready.

When an opening anecdote or scene introduces a broader theme, the writer often circles back or bookends the story to where it began. Stories that return to where they began offer a sense of symmetry, a sense of completion. Other stories end by looking ahead, to the future. Or, in the case of narrative, they reach the solution readers have been seeking since they were enticed into the story in the opening scene.

The best way to learn to write different kinds of leads and endings is to (a) read many writers and take note of their approaches and (b) to try multiple leads and endings to the same story.

In this session, the class should discuss Blundell’s four stages on page 95. The first. “tease me, you devil” is the anecdotal or scene-setter lead of the conventional public affairs feature and, perhaps, the first chapter of the pure narrative. The second stage, “tell me what you’re up to” is the nut graph , the paragraph or two in traditional features that resolves the anecdote before it by telling what it showed and then, by placing it in broader context. The second stage is a theme or focus statement with a bit more muscle on the bone. The third stage, “I’m from Missouri. You’ll have to prove what you just said,” is the story’s middle, its evidence and its story development, often woven together. And the last, “I’ll buy it. Help me remember,” is the ending.

In addition to critiquing the leads and endings in Blundell’s Appendix B, the class, time permitting, might either evaluate how well one piece meets these four stages and/or recast the lead for one of the stories, a means of matching their wits against a master and also, perhaps, proving to themselves that no story has a single right lead.

Reading: Blundell, Chapter 5; Stepp, pages 141 to 149, 182 to 192; 52 to 54

Class 2: Managing the middle

Good organization can’t rectify weak content. That’s why students should start this class by playing close heed to Blundell’s “rule of threes” (page 54), a means of layering strong reporting into story. The author notes that readers need repetition to understand ideas and concepts. But, he adds, that repetition should take different forms. So, for example, if a sentence says the catch of Gulf oystermen has been cut by a third since the BP oil spill, the next sentence should give a specific example, perhaps showing the diminished haul of the story’s main character on a specific day. The third sentence might be a salty quote from that main character on how bad things have become.

Fact, followed by example, followed by quote: That is one application of the rule of threes. Working in tandem, these different kinds of story “proofs” build knowledge and entertain the reader. The rule of threes also can apply to multiple examples from different places. If, for example, new research shows a rise in foreclosures in more states, the reporter might give examples from three of them.

Regardless of their structure, stories work well when like ideas are kept together. Those ideas might be related material, as in the rule of threes, or related themes. A feature about preparations to enforce Arizona’s harsh new immigration law would have one section that looks at the efforts of those interested in enforcing the law and another that examines efforts of opponents to block that enforcement. It would not whipsaw back and forth from one group to the other.

Since we all live by the clock — 24 hours a day, seven days in a week, four weeks in a month, and so forth — writing often works well if at some point it returns to the beginning and progresses to the end. The story, in other words, is organized chronologically . When explanatory passages or sections are needed, writers can step back from this chronological framework by alternating expository “chapters” with the personal narrative ones.

In class, students should analyze Blundell’s story about the loss of farmland in Chapter 5 (it begins on page 103), reviewing not only its structure but the content he musters. Does he apply the rule of threes? In what ways? Does he keep like ideas together? In what way? Contrast this story to the story that begins on page 114. This story relies heavily on chronology for its structure.

Reading: Review Blundell, Chapter 4; Read Stepp, page 72 to 76, 138 to 139

Assignment: Students should come prepared to discuss the following:

• William Blundell writes: “The story is happening on streets where there are no PR men strewing palms in the reporter’s path, no computers disgorging blocks of seductive statistics, and a lot of people who have nothing to gain from doing pirouettes for the press. This territory can be tough on strangers, but we have to go there to gather details and direct experiences that show the reader what we’re talking about.”Students should discuss what he means by this. Blundell further suggests that a good half of reporting can be spent seeking the right person to talk to at that street level. Students should discuss how close to that street level they’ve gotten in their reporting and what else they might do to close the gap.
• Students also should consider whether and how they’ve used Blundell’s method of planning and execution to inform their reporting and come prepared to discuss this. Has it helped them? Confused them? Have they applied it or ignored it? Why?

Each student should weigh:

• What gaps remain in reporting his or her story.
• Whether the reporting has unearthed sound, research-based data at the story’s foundation.
• Whether or not the data is recent.
• Whether sources interviewed carry authority.
• Whether they show a range and balance.
• Whether they take the story to street level.

Week 5: Working through the reporting process

Class 1: Reporting at ground level

This class will be run like a newsroom in which the instructor, as editor, coaches students through the latter stages of their reporting process. Students should be challenged to defend their initial theme statement. Does it still stand up? Should it be tweaked in any way? They should be pressed on what data they’ve gathered to support that premise. And they should be asked to explain and, if necessary, defend their choice and breadth of sources.

Reading: Stepp, pages 85-88

Assignment: Each student should craft a two- to three-page memo containing the following:

• An updated theme or focus statement
• A list of primary points that support that focus, tied, if possible, to Blundell’s six question areas on pages 70-75.
• A lead that shows (or, as Blundell says, teases)
• A nut graph (or graphs) that establishes the story and summarizes its main point.
• A contextual section that places the story into a broader perspective and reinforces its main point
• Sections or chapters built around like ideas
• Anecdote or scenes interspersed as examples. These support the ideas and reintroduce the main character.
• A closing section that circles back to the main character.
• An example to support each primary story point.
• A summary of research-based evidence that supports the story’s main thesis.
• An assessment of what reporting gaps remain and how they might be filled.

Class 2: Outlining the story

Students, working in teams of two, should read each other their revised theme statements (and consult the instructor on an as-needed basis). Teammates should listen as readers and coach as editors. Each should ask his or her teammate to talk through the story. What did he/she find most interesting? What alternative leads has he/she attempted? What gaps does the story have?

After finishing the critiques, each student should:

• Read through notes and mark key facts, key quotes and key examples
• Fast-draft a rough lead through the nut graph
• Identify contextual material that would enhance the story
• Order key points/facts that should be in the story
• Identify interior scenes that belong in the story
• Highlight any information that needs to be verified or double-checked.

In organizing key points, students should remember to keep like ideas together. They should seek examples that support all general statements. Some long-form feature writers work with a master chronology that sets all facts and scenes in a timeline of when they took place. This helps with fact checking and with chronological organization.

Reading: Blundell, Chapter 7; Stepp, 51-57 and 176-192

Week 6: The roots of good writing

Class 1: Using language with style and precision

This class will review the elements of good journalistic writing, from active, right-branching sentences to specificity and simplicity of language. Among the issues instructors might touch on and model are:

• The cadence, pace and rhythm of good writing. It should become second nature for students to read their work aloud.
• Selective detail and its use. (Using Journalist’s Resource or news web sites, students might look for examples of selective detail that are enhanced by features and examples that detract because they don’t reinforce storyline.)
• Specificity versus generality. How does Blundell’s rule of threes ensure specificity?
• The use of analogy in translation and definition. (The value of comparing the unfamiliar to what we know.)
• The importance of consistency of tone, person, tense and style.

After the discussion, students should draft either a lead anecdote or an interior scene from their stories. Some of these will be critiqued in class.

DUE: First draft of 1,500-word backgrounder or impact feature. Selected stories will be due the night before class so they can be distributed to the entire class in advance.

Class 2: Workshopping first drafts

Selected students should read their stories aloud, discuss obstacles they faced in drafting them, explain how they tried to overcome these obstacles, and identify what they liked best about their stories and what they lacked confidence in. Classmates then will weigh in with their critiques.

Reading: pages 76 and 77 (Blundell’s profile outline) and these stories in his book: pages 44 to 47 and 242 to 248 (personal profiles), 248 to 254 (institutional profile) and 114 to 119 (occupational profile).

Assignment: Students weigh the differences between a profile, a depth interview with a subject and story about their background. What does Blundell mean when he says that profiles, like other stories, need a clear theme? Students also should try to determine some of the ways that Blundell’s outline on page 76 and 77 helped define the structure of his own work.

Week 7: The profile (personal and institutional)

Class 1: Finding a subject, finding a theme, finding out information

Few aspects of journalism are more interesting and challenging than to write about someone else, — to capture what motivates that individual, what makes that person “tick.” Profiles can be written as well about organizations and about what makes them distinctive or unusual. Good profiles demand backgrounding, patience, legwork, independent engagement and curiosity.

First, however, the reporter has to answer the questions, “Whom should I profile and why?” Sometimes those answers can be found in the news: Who has surfaced as an interesting figure? Sometimes the answers can be found in something interesting that a subject does, or doesn’t do (note the profiles in Blundell’s book of the Disney corporation, still living in the shadow of its deceased founder.) Or the answers can be found by looking for someone who exemplifies a larger group or population in the news, a veteran with PTSD, for example. Whomever or whatever the subject, writers don’t merely want to catalogue that individual’s or company’s accomplishments. Corporate biographies and resumes serve that purpose. Profiles dig beneath the surface, capture the subject complete with quirks and blemishes. They help readers understand what makes someone “tick” and what lies behind that person’s passions.

As with other features, backgrounding plays a central role in establishing the profile’s theme. Backgrounding can help the reporter identify how a subject has changed and uncover inherent contradictions between the subject’s words and actions. It allows the writer to separate what has been written about someone from what hasn’t. And it can open doors. For example, when Pulitzer Prize-winner Tracy Breton of The Providence Journal interviewed two actresses co-starring in a theatrical performance, she had done “her homework.” She knew that decades earlier one had understudied for the other, a fact the actresses had forgotten until reminded and one that helped Breton break the ice.

The patience to gather information in varied ways often comes into play in reporting. Profiles require multiple interviews with a subject, preferably in a setting that shows who the person is.

Profiles also benefit from the times the reporter can simply observe. Author Gay Talese, one of the most respected of a generation in the 1960s that experimented with forms of narrative nonfiction storytelling, has written and spoken about “the art of hanging out,” of observing a subject and capturing the scenes that reflect that person’s manner and personality.

To learn about subjects, reporters don’t only interview them and read what they’ve written or what has been written about them. Reporters also interview others who can provide insight — family and friends, competitors and former employees, customers and patients. That’s legwork. Whom they seek out depends largely on what the story’s focus is. A profile of a Las Vegas card shark might lead to the subject’s high school or college math teacher, his mother and his competitors around the table. It likely wouldn’t call for an interview with his former piano teacher or swim coach.

To win a subject’s trust, reporters must show sincere interest in that individual. At the same time, the reporter has to maintain his or her independence. Good profiles reveal some aspect of a subject’s life. They are neither intended to promote nor diminish, simply show the subject as he or she really is.

Finally, reporters must be curious enough to delve beneath the surface. Most people have a public persona and a more private one. The profile writer wants to tap into both.

During this class, students will critique the profiles published in Blundell’s book and the elements of framing, reporting and writing interesting, informative profiles.

Assignment: In teams of three or four, students should research their professor, then draft a tentative focus or theme statement for a profile. It might focus on the professor’s research, a hobby or passion, his or her teaching style, some recent notable achievement (a book, for example) or something else. Teams should prepare to interview the professor “for story” during the next class, developing whatever themes their focus statements outline.

Class 2: Carrying out and critiquing an interview with the professor

A member of each team should read that team’s theme statement and other members should explain how the team decided on its focus. After all teams have finished, students will vote on which story offers the most promise. (Team members cannot vote for their own idea.) When the vote and subsequent discussion are finished, the winning team will interview the professor. Certain rules apply.

• Questions cannot be read.
• Team members should listen closely to the answer and try to build on each question in their subsequent question.
• Students on the other teams, meanwhile, should observe, take notes, and evaluate the content and quality of their classmates’ interview. (They might consider, for example, how well each questioner engages, whether they are asking “open-ended” or “close-ended” questions, whether they are probing for emotion and insight as well as fact, and whether they appeared to be listening and taking cues for follow-up.)

After the interview and discussion about its effectiveness, the class should reflect on what steps would be needed to finish the profile.

Assignment: During the second class of next week, students will be expected to propose a profile subject and submit a theme or focus statement that identifies their approach. They should contact the subjects before preparing their pitches. They should also thoroughly background their subjects and identify at least two other people whom they can interview to develop the story further.

Reading: Article, “The Power of Listening,” Scanlan, Poynter Institute; “Rules to Interview By,” Rubinkowski, Poynter; Zinsser, pages 100 to 116; Stepp, 68 to 72; “Frank Sinatra has a Cold,” a Gay Talese profile, published in Esquire and available in full online. Finally, students should read Anna Quindlen’s essay from The New York Times “Hers” column on April 10, 1986. It begins with the words, “For most of my adult life, I have been a emotional hit-and-run driver, that is, a reporter.” The essay is an excellent starting point for a discussion of the ethics of depth reporting and interviewing.

Week 8: Interviewing for story

Class 1: Logistical and ethical considerations in interviewing for story

Successful interviews start with strong preparation and curiosity. Reporters who know next to nothing about their subject, who seem bored or hurried, who work off a set list of questions instead of listening to answers, who seek facts rather than knowledge or understanding, will leave with little.

Jacqui Banaszynski, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and now a Knight professor at the University of Missouri, says at times the most effective question can be a sympathetic nod or an interjection, such as “really.” This keeps the subject talking. Granted. It is not wise to start an interview this way. But often reporters are so intent on their questions that they don’t hear the answers and don’t encourage subjects to say more, to elaborate.

The first step in interviewing for story is to choose the right setting, a place that shows something about the subject and a place in which the subject feels comfortable. Then, says Banaszynski, the reporter’s job is to “peel back the layers of the onion,” to get to the story behind the story, to engage the real subject not the public persona. This takes time, patience, lots of directed yet open-ended questions, and genuine interest in what the subject has to say. Bored reporters conduct boring interviews.

It’s no small matter for a green reporter to park the jitters before knocking on the door. Several things help:

• Know as much as possible about the subject beforehand.
• Prepare questions in advance, but never read them. Preparation helps the reporter think through the interview’s purpose. Their questions shouldn’t be obvious — or left sitting on the table.
• Ask permission to tape as well as take notes. It can ease the anxiety of keeping up. But do take notes, listening for details and quotes and hints that bear follow-up.
• Ease in with questions that relax the subject and establish rapport. The props of setting can help. Ask why the subject has chosen a particular meeting place. Comment on pictures on the wall.
• Listen. The reporter’s job is not to ask brilliant questions but to get brilliant answers.

This class discussion should focus on the techniques and pitfalls of interviewing for story. It is a skill that requires instinct and humanity as well as thoughtful preparation. (Banaszynski describes it as a dance in which the reporter must lead, but the interview subject gets to choose the music.)

At times reporters don’t get the opportunity to interview a profile’s central character. Such was the case in Talese’s “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold.” Students should discuss how Talese compensated for this.

This session should end with a discussion of Quindlen’s essay. What are the ethical dilemmas raised by interviewing for story and emotion as well as for information? What are the ethical responsibilities of the reporter in setting out on a project that will involve considerable revelation on the part of the subject (for example, a profile of a family caring for an Alzheimer’s patient)?

Assignment: Students should prepare a memo for pitching their profiles, which should be roughly 1,500 words in length. The memo should include:

• A theme or focus statement
• Key background information about the subject.
• Key contacts and contact information for the subject and other people the student will interview to gain insight.
• A few reflective paragraphs considering the story’s approach in the context of Blundell’s story development criteria on pages 76 and 77.

Class 2: Pitching profile ideas

Students will read their theme statements aloud and explain why they’ve proposed specific profile approaches. Students and instructor should react to each theme statement and offer constructive criticism. Those students lacking clear themes will be expected to recast their theme statements for the following class.

Week 9: The writer’s voice

Class 1: How voice emerges

Inexperienced writers frequently make the mistake of approaching “voice” as something that can be superimposed. They overwrite, laboring to create something that neither sounds like them nor reflects their style. In On Writing Well , Zinsser cautions that his students seem determined to “create an act of literature,” only relaxing paragraphs into a story to emerge as themselves.

Students should rest assured. For the writer who reads widely and writes frequently, voice emerges naturally over time. It is not a construct of big words and fancy phrases, nor is it an affected effort to sound carefree and breezy. It is not a celebration of the writer’s opinion. It comes from within, something akin to a slightly more polished version of the writer’s spoken voice.

Writes Stepp: “Voice probably comes more naturally than most writers believe. Many writers describe the struggle to ‘find’ their voice, but most writers’ voices will emerge spontaneously if they just clear away some of the obstructing professional underbrush: the artificial constraints, expectations, and hobgoblins that haunt many newsrooms, writing studios, and writer-editor collaborations. Writers who are steeped in good material, relaxed and enthusiastic about their assignment, comfortable in their surroundings, and encouraged to be original and inventive do not have to find a voice It rings out intuitively.”

In this class, students should discuss what concerns they have about voice and how they believe they should and have gone about developing it. They should then take a scene or section of their revised first features and write through it as they might tell a friend. The class should listen to a few of these and critique them.

Class 2: Workshopping the revised first feature

The instructor should identify two or three students who will be asked in advance to distribute their work to the class. They should read their stories aloud in class, be given the opportunity to discuss what worked for them and where they struggled. Then classmates should weigh in with a discussion of these stories, starting with what they liked best and then making suggestions for improvement.

Week 10: Working through the reporting process

Class 1: Sharpening the story’s angle and content

Both classes in this week largely replicate the critiquing and outlining goals set in Week 5, with the instructor acting as coach to shepherd students through the latter stages of their reporting process.

Students should be asked whether their initial focus holds up; what facts, examples, quotes and scenes they have to support it; who they’ve interviewed (in addition to their profile subject) and what these individuals have to add. Much class time will be spent troubleshooting obstacles to reporting.

Each student should craft a two- to three-page memo containing the following:

• A brief summary of key details, anecdotes and examples that give support to the theme.
• A structural design for the story (at some point within most profiles, the writer moves chronologically through at least a portion of the subject’s life)
• A summary of key insights into the subject provided by other sources.

Class 2: Building an outline

Week 11: Workshop profile drafts

The instructor should keep a list throughout the semester of which students have read their work in front of the class. All students should have their work subjected to class-wide critique before any individual is given a second opportunity.

Class 1: Workshop profile drafts

Assignment: Bring a local newspaper and The New York Times to the next class.

Class 2: Finding stories off the news

Reporters need to be nimble. The best, it is said, can “speed” as well as “bleed.” The feature writer often does not have the luxury to report and write depth public affairs stories. She’s given a day to find, report and write a story, not a week or two. This places even more weight on the challenge of conceiving something interesting and narrowing its scope. Writing stories on deadline can be a high-wire act. The reporter must gather fact and push for scene, show patience and interest in interview subjects yet race the clock, write and revise, but on the same afternoon.

Next week, the class will be expected to pitch and then write a feature off the news in the two to three days between classes. This class is designed to help students identify stories off the news.

Asking a number of questions of the news can help:

• Who is left out?
• Who is affected? How?
• What’s behind the news? (An 85-year-old becomes a citizen or graduates. Why?)
• How does the past inform the story? (The calendar and unusual anniversaries suggest stories daily.)
• What led up to the news?
• What’s the reaction to the news? (Blundell’s moves and counter-moves.)
• Who is the person behind the newsmaker?
• How can the reporter localize a national or international event?
• Do a number of similar actions — beaches closed for a high bacteria count — constitute a trend?
• Can the reporter show this, or other developments, by taking readers to a place?

In teams, reporters should scour the day’s paper, drawing up and prioritizing a list of possible features that might be turned quickly. The class will critique and respond to each team’s ideas.

Assignment: Background and write theme statements for two stories off the news. Students will be assigned one during the next class to turn in 48 hours.

Week 12: Pouring it on

Class 1: Pitching the feature off the news

In this class, the instructor should coach students toward features they can reasonably report and write in a day or two. This discussion should reinforce the importance of ingenuity and scope in turning features fast.

Class 2: Workshop features off the news

This class should begin with a discussion of the challenges of turning features fast. As time permits, students should workshop these efforts.

Week 13: Finding a niche

Class 1: Researching publications, framing queries

The topsy-turvy pace of technological changes makes this an extraordinary time to start a career in journalism. In some ways, it has never been easier to be published: Register for a blog at WordPress or Blogspot and write. It’s that easy. In other ways, it’s rarely been harder to get noticed and paid. Students interested in doing serious journalism should pursue a few parallel paths. Even in college, they can begin building their “brand,” a word that still makes older journalists shudder (their job was to cover the news, not market themselves or be the news). Students can build brand by building a website, preferably one named after them. This should be linked to blogs, a Facebook account, Twitter accounts, a resume and examples of their writing that they hope someone significant in the world will visit and read.

If today’s journalism students should act aggressively in asserting a voice and marketing their work, they also should be smart and circumspect about what they post. Too many horror stories circulate today about students denied jobs because of ill-advised party pictures posted on social media accounts. As a rule of thumb, students should sleep on anything they are tempted to post in the glow of the moment.

Marketing freelance work has been streamlined in the digital age. Most newspapers and some magazines today prefer emailed query letters pitching an article to letters sent by post.

Again, however, speed can kill rather than enhance. Sizable percentages of pitches never make it past the first gatekeeper (often an intern) for a variety of reasons:

• A misspelled name
• A letter sent to the wrong editor
• A letter sent to the right editor at the wrong publication
• Grammatical errors
• Spelling errors
• Ill-conceived or boastful ideas
• Efforts to negotiate price before a piece is sold
• Offers to write for free

Once again in journalism, the query begins with research. Reporters need to research not only stories and story ideas but which publications serve an audience that would read them. They can learn a great deal about publications, their freelance guidelines and their freelance rates in the library’s most recent edition of Writer’s Market or by subscribing online to WritersMarket.com.

As a rule, query letters should be a single page long. At their best, they show a writer’s talent and sell a clearly conceived and substantive story that fits the publication’s style and audience.

The query’s first paragraph tries to hook the reader very much like the first sentence of a feature does. This, however, is not the place for elegant anecdotes. It is best to settle for a quick turn lead, one that grabs the reader’s attention. The second paragraph pitches the story’s particulars. How long is the piece the writer is proposing? How will it develop? What’s its purpose? The third paragraph introduces the writer and answers the question “why me — why this writer?” This is where writers talk about special qualities — expertise, access to the subject, experience. The final or closing paragraph makes clear that the writer will follow up.

The entire letter should be businesslike. Pleading or begging editors for a chance does not work. One more tip: Always call the publication before sending a query to check whether an editor still works there, what the editor’s title is, and how to spell his or her name.

In addition to discussing queries, instructors should consider inviting in a local newspaper or magazine editor to talk about the queries they’ve received, which queries they liked and which ones they discarded immediately. Such visits give students a chance to network, a significant aspect of building a niche.

Assignment: Students should research a publication to which they will pitch one of their articles from the semester. They should come to the next class knowing the appropriate editor’s name and title, the submission guidelines of the publication, and the nature of the articles it publishes.

Class 2: Writing and revising the query

Students will spend this class crafting and revising query letters for one of their stories from the semester. In most cases, these should be ready to email to the publication by the end of class.

Exam week: Revised profiles are due

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Behind the Headlines

Feature and opinion writing resources.

Research widely - facts, statistics, different sides of the story and quotes.

Spend time planning your feature article and organise your ideas.

Don’t reveal everything at the beginning. Features have a narrative structure and draw in the reader gradually.

The key paragraph is the nutgraph, usually the second or third paragraph, where the feature is put in context and its significance is explained.

Reveal a key piece of information, quote or statistic in each paragraph and use quotes from a range of people to give a rounded view.

Think about the ending of the feature. It should not be a summary. A good final paragraph might include a powerful quote, a call to action or leave the reader in a different place from where you started.

Be passionate and opinionated - choose a subject you feel strongly about, and then work on communicating that passion to your readers.

Start with what you know - you will probably write a stronger piece if you have some awareness in, or experience of, your subject. What is the point of your article? You should be able to sum it up in a couple of sentences.

Do your research - a strong argument is important, so too is a grasp of the facts. Your task is to persuade others, so you need to make the strongest possible case for your opinion – strong enough to persuade your opponents.

Construct a clear argument - reflect your opinion on your chosen subject. Remember to persuade your reader by including evidence, addressing other perspectives directly, presenting a conclusion and structuring your writing in a way that is easy to follow.

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Writing a Feature Article? Here's Everything You Need to Know

• 10-Mar-2022

There is no one formula for writing a great feature article. However, there are some important tips that you can follow to make sure your article stands out from the rest. You actually don't need to be a professional feature article writer to know how to write great feature articles that leave a lasting impression on your readers-- like these ones. 

All you need is a little of this and that and you'll be on your way to bringing your story to life.   

Tag along and get to learn what makes a great feature article. But first...

What is a Feature Article?

A feature article is an in-depth exploration of a specific topic. It provides the reader with analysis and opinion about issues that are important to them. The purpose of this type of article is to give readers more insight into a subject matter than would normally be found in other forms of reporting such as news stories or editorials. 

Feature articles are also aimed to persuade and entertain readers. 

Feature articles are typically written for magazines and newspapers, but they can also appear on websites or blogs as well. They're often longer than traditional pieces of journalism (around 1000 words) because it takes time to fully explore a subject matter without rushing through the process. While there are no set rules about how long your piece should be, it's important to make sure that every sentence is essential to your argument as well as relevant and relatable to your audience. 

Now, take that knowledge a little bit further and explore article writing in all its enterity. Here's our detailed guide on article writing .

Types of Feature Articles

There are a number of different types of feature articles. Here are examples of a few of them. 

• Profiles- An in-depth look at a person or place that relates to a current newsworthy event or issue that allows readers to get more insight of the person or place. E.g  What we know of the life of Vladimir Putin
• Human interest story - A story that focuses on someone’s experience. It can be an achievement or a problem that evokes emotions and can teach the audience a lesson or raise awareness. E.g How George Floyd Was Killed in Police Custody
• Instructional- An article that provides information or advice on a particular topic. They give a step-by-step guide on how to do something. E.g How to Kiss
• Personal- A story about the writer's own experiences or someone they know. E.g My BeyondBlue personal story
• Seasonal- A story that is tied to a specific time of year, often holidays or special events. E.g History behind thanksgiving 
• Behind the Scenes- A look at how something is made or the people who are involved in making it happen. This can be anything from a movie to a sporting event. E.g Money Heist behind the scene

How to Write a Captivating Feature Article

Now that you know what a feature article is and the different types we have, let's discuss some tips on how to write either of them and ensure it's captivating to your audience.

1. Start With a Strong Lead

Your lead is the opening paragraph of your article, and it's important to make sure that it grabs the reader's attention. You want to introduce your audience to your topic in an interesting way so that they will be compelled to read on. Make sure your lead is clear, concise, and to the point. How? 

• Have something unique to say about the topic (you can use statistics here), 
• State the importance of the article
• Create tension or speculation by setting up a question as to why that particular feature article is worth reading
• Speak directly to the reader (use "you" at least once)
• Don't repeat the title
• Keep the first sentence short. 

2. Do Your Research

As we mentioned earlier, feature articles are in-depth explorations of a specific topic. This means that you need to do your research and ideation in order to gather all of the relevant information. Make sure you know as much as possible about the topic at hand and be prepared to answer any questions that may come up. How? 

• Talk to experts, 
• Read up on previous articles about the subject
• Make sure that you have a well-rounded understanding of what you're writing about. 

Here are some 11 insanely helpful ways to come up with topics for your blog.

The more knowledgeable you are about your subject, the more credible you will appear to readers.

3. Use Quotes From Experts or People Involved in the Story

Include direct quotes from experts or those who are directly impacted by your topic. This is a great way to strengthen your argument and give it some real-life context.

It's important that these quotes aren't too long, - try to keep them between one and two sentences. 

4. Provide Sufficient Evidence for Your Claims or Arguments

Make sure you provide adequate proof of any factual statements in your article. You don't want readers leaving your article with doubts about the credibility of what they just read. That's why it's important to include sources at all times. Also aim to connect the dots. Discuss the essential elements of who, when, what, how, and why. 

5. Be Objective

An amazing feature article should maintain objectivity. This means that you should present all of the facts about your subject matter and let the reader make their own judgment.

Don't try to sway them in one direction or another; simply provide them with the information they need to make an informed decision. At the same time don't be afraid to present a perspective or an angle on the topic. After all, your readers need to feel like it pays off to read your article. 

6. Write for Your Audience

When writing a feature article, it's important to remember who your target audience is.  

What are they interested in reading about this topic? What questions about the subject would they want answered? How much time do they have to spend on your article? 

These questions will help determine what kind of content you should include and how long it should be. 

7. Personalize Your Style of Writing

Use straightforward language that's easy for people to understand. How?

• Don't use jargon or technical terms unless it's absolutely necessary.
• Use a conversational tone. Picture you're talking directly to your reader as if they were sitting down next to you on the couch. 
• Avoid using passive voice and excessive adverbs like "very" or "really." Instead, try using strong verbs like "said" and "asked."
• Get to the point: Don't get caught up in long-winded explanations or flowery prose; instead, just get straight to the heart of what you want your reader to know!

Let Zoey Writers Write Your Feature Articles

Zoey Writers can help you write great feature articles that will capture your readers' attention. We know what makes a great article and how to present your story in a way that is both informative and engaging.

We are a professional writing and editing company that offers high-quality content writing services to businesses and individuals. We have years of experience in creating well-written, captivating content that can help you reach your target audience and achieve your desired results.

Visit our website today to learn more about our services, or contact us to discuss your specific needs. We would be happy to help you get started on your next project!

Photo by  Vlada Karpovich  from  Pexels: Thanks Vlada

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TIMES INSIDER

A Reporter Explains His Approach to Writing News and Features

Brooks Barnes, a correspondent who covers Hollywood for The Times, explains how his writing process changes depending on the type of article he is working on.

By Sarah Bahr

Times Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.

Brooks Barnes’s head is constantly on a swivel.

As a domestic correspondent covering Hollywood’s leading celebrities, companies and executives for The New York Times, he writes both daily news articles about media companies and long-lead features about subjects such as Walt Disney World’s animatronic robot crew and the Polo Lounge , a Hollywood hot spot that attracts the who’s who of the film industry.

Those two types of articles — news and features — are the yin and yang of journalism. As the name suggests, news articles provide readers with new information about important events, often as they unfold. They can cover nearly any topic, are generally 500 to 1,000 words long and are packed with the need-to-know facts of a given situation. Features, which need not be tied to a specific event, dive deep into a particular topic or person, are usually longer than news articles and often offer more comprehensive context about their subjects.

Every day, The Times publishes both. While many journalists specialize in writing news or feature articles, Mr. Barnes flips between the two.

“I have eight to 10 features on the assembly line at any given time,” Mr. Barnes said, adding that he often has to drop what he’s working on to chase the news and that he focuses on writing features when the news is slow. Generally, he can finish a news article in a couple of hours or less; a major feature can take upward of six months.

For Mr. Barnes, the main difference between a news article and a feature isn’t the word count, the number of interviews involved or how long he spends drafting it: “The writing process changes,” he says.

Interviewing Sources

A news article is all about gathering the essential information and publishing quickly.

He begins working on a news article by making calls to sources, often contacts he has built up over more than 20 years of reporting. He says he jots down his most important questions before he calls a source, even if he’s on a deadline and knows the conversation will only last a few minutes.

For a feature, Mr. Barnes said he will do around 10 interviews, not all of which may appear in the final article. If he’s writing a profile, he aims to spend a few hours with his subject on a Friday or Saturday, when the person is more relaxed and available.

As with news articles, he writes out his interview questions in advance, though he tries not to do too much research before meeting a profile subject for the first time so that he won’t come into the interview with a preconceived idea of what the subject might say.

“You want to report, not interview your thumb,” he said.

Getting Down to Writing

Mr. Barnes never outlines his news or feature articles, but instead works off his notes, which he’ll consult as he’s writing.

He gathers all of his notes from his interviews and research, both typed and handwritten, and inputs the best quotes, facts and figures into a Microsoft Word document. Unlike a news article, a feature may involve several attempts at a compelling first few sentences — known as the lede — and lots of rewriting. “I’ve been known to fixate on a lede for much longer than I should,” he said.

Structurally, a news article is much more straightforward than a feature: In a news article, the most important and timely information appears in the first few sentences, with the remaining facts generally provided in descending order of importance. In a feature, by contrast, the writer often delays the revelation of certain details in order to build suspense.

Landing on the Voice

Another difference, Mr. Barnes said, is the voice that he interjects — or doesn’t — into an article. A news article is usually devoid of personal flavor, while a feature can be saturated with it. He says he sometimes tries to “self-censor” his voice in a news article. In a feature, there is room for more lyrical description; Mr. Barnes is able to dwell on how a subject dresses, talks and reacts to his questions.

Working on Edits

The editing process also differs. With features, it can involve lots of fine-tuning: Ledes may be thrown out and paragraphs rewritten. With a news article, an editor acts more like a safety net than a pruner or a polisher, ensuring that reporters on deadline aren’t overlooking important information or relevant questions, and that they aren’t committing any obvious factual errors.

Enjoying Both Forms

The greatest challenge in writing a news article, in Mr. Barnes’s opinion, is achieving both speed and accuracy on deadline. Features present a different conundrum: A writer must carefully condense hours of interviews and research into a gripping-yet-accurate narrative that doesn’t get bogged down with superfluous information.

Though Mr. Barnes says he enjoys both forms, he’s always had a clear preference.

“I’m a feature writer who’s somehow managed not to get fired as a business reporter for 20 years,” he said.

He added: “I like luxuriating over words and trying different stuff. I could tinker with a story forever.”

What Are The Different Features Of An Article – A Comprehensive Study

Let’s start with what is an article is it like a longer version of a blog is it a features write-up does it just provide information or entertains the reader or all of the above and what features of an article contribute to being the best ones .

The basic thing to understand is that whenever you wish to start writing an article, you must first do the follows: 

• Make a list of why you are writing the said article.
• What should be the heading and sub-headings?
• What should be included in the body?
• What should be the tone of the article?
• If any examples or mentions of any names are important. 
• Do you wish to answer any questions or provide a solution via your article?
• If you have taken reference from someone’s article or write-up, then you have to mention their name or give them credit. 
• How to end the article/ conclusion.

After you answer these questions, make it an important point to research the given topic, thoroughly. As there is always a matter of plagiarism and that can really get you into trouble. Nonetheless, researching doesn’t mean that you are copying someone’s ideas. It means you wish to use the idea in your own words. 

How to write the perfect article?

Writing is always a tricky concept. Even if you have the idea and wish to share it with a bunch of readers, who you wish would become your followers! Every time you yourself would read it would find something to change or edit. Think of the avid readers! Therefore, what may seem perfect one day may have flaws the next. So just admit it, perfection lies in the eye of the beholder and not the writer. Although, there are ways to create a masterpiece that will just crack on. 

10 features of an article that will create new horizons for the writer: 

1.topic selection : .

Say you have to write about the best restaurants in town or write about the IPL session and which team is playing well or you have been given a topic on the latest loafer shoes and their features. To get the best article out of your system, choose the topic that will make you happy as a writer. And then select that one, on which you can write wholeheartedly. 

Here’s a hook: as soon as you hear the topic, and on whichever topic, your mind starts to give you more and more ideas, go for that one. Try not to write out of your comfort zone. 

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2. An Exhaustive Research :

As mentioned above copying someone else’s hard work may get you through the day but might get you into trouble later. Even if you wish to believe that spinning the content or changing some words with their fancier synonyms may work. They might until you are caught.

• You have to understand that we live in the golden age of Google and everything ever is written can be researched and found on the internet. Therefore spinning may also not work.
• If you are getting paid to write it or you wish to write it for a future project, then don’t waste time on copying. Rather invest the time on researching.
• Wikipedia is a friend that can be referred to, to gain knowledge, but know this, the minute you copy their entire text, they get a warning notification and may or may not wish to charge you with it. 
• After you have researched the given topic, you must jot it down into points. As that reduces the chance of copying. 
• Statistics and Surveys always help to impress the audience. 
• Mentioning the line, that, “According to a recent survey” or “As per the statistics taken”; will grab the reader’s eye, for sure.
• Mentioning a few anecdotes, jokes, examples from real life, examples from a movie, examples of a music band, also attracts the reader. As then the reader can relate to those examples and places himself in those examples.

3.Select the Title and jot down the sub-headings before starting to write : 

The more headings and subheadings come to mind, the better. Even after you have written the article, and when you read it again, you can replace the title with another one, which you jotted down before. 

The title that makes it to your favorite list, can make a sub-heading as well. So, nothing is wasted! Even if the topic doesn’t interest you, you should cut down the fat and focus on what you know. Or in some cases, add the fat of fluff to make it appear bolder and more attractive.

Some writers have made the mistake of just writing fluff on a given topic and nothing concrete in it that actually helped. Like just smoke that doesn’t have any solid material in it. Ask yourself that did it really help anyone or if it just a piece of fuzz. 

4. Focus the audience : 

It is obvious that you are not writing to amuse yourself, or that would be a diary entry.

• If you are investing your time, energy, and intellect, then there has to be something there! Focus on the targeted audience. Say, you are writing on the ‘latest brewery in town’, then you wish to reach the right people, for example, the people who love to try out freshly brewed beer or the competitors of the product or someone wishing to invest in the business.
• To attain that, one must make a list in their heads, that who will remove time and read their article. Then, whether the targeted people are, students or businessmen! And whether the language of the article has to be B2B or B2C i.e. Business to Business or Business to Customer.
• After the audience is imagined and the language is decided, then the matter of the region or country comes in. Like certain countries or states have rules on certain topics and their limitations. For example, writing about the local government and its current workings can create some issues. And certain countries are more open towards providing sex education to children while some countries like to keep it hush-hush. 
• Certain household-related articles tend to shift focus from providing information about a certain product and start selling the product. Make sure that you are just providing the information and writing a sales pitch. Although mentioning the brands that deal in those products also counts as providing info. As a sales pitch will soon be categorized and lose its potential. 

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5. The Body : 

To make sure that your audience is still glued to your article and hasn’t shifted perspective, make the body interesting. By adding in bullet points and numbering the points that you wish to share. 

• The Body has to be precise and not dodgy: One has to be very clear on what they are writing. Creating examples and sharing facts can keep the reader interested. But having unnecessary stories will only make them bored. 
• Make sure you provide information along with those examples and statistics. As mentioned above, fluff is not enough to make the article worthwhile. No matter how fancy your language is if you fail to provide the information your title claims to have, the reader will be bored.  
• Use easy-to-understand language: As it is highlighted above, the target audience has to be known to power through with the written words. For that to succeed, the language has to be grammatically correct and easy to understand. You may use fancy and heavy words in those articles, which are to be published in Business Magazines or Websites. 

Otherwise, if you try to use heavy vocabulary in places where the reader is just looking for such basic information, then no reader will open the dictionary, to search for the meaning of the words you have written. That will result in, the boredom of the reader.

6. Relevancy

Make sure that what you write is relevant and you do justice to the title. By just providing examples and stories about the given topic might grab the readers’ eye, but if you shift from the topic at hand, then the purpose of writing the article will too be lost. 

7. The Plot  

Be it any kind of write-up, a blog, a short story, a press release, or an article, be sure to create a plot beforehand. Otherwise, you may start to write the article but get lost mid-way. By keeping the plot in your mind, will help you to stay in check. Try not to wander off from the plotline, while giving those examples. 

Many writers have made this mistake, they started fine and after mentioning a few examples and scenarios in between, they lost their way and by the end, the entire tone of the article was changed. That is just bad writing. 

8. Size Matters

Being original is important but the size of the article matters as well. That doesn’t mean that you go on and on. Write long ones but make sure to be relevant. The short ones do not count as articles, they would classify into the blog category or a features article. 

9. Repetition is a big No-No

If you wish to write a lengthy piece, then do not repeat your points. Even if change the language and words, the point still stands. That can make the reader lose interest. 

Even if you only have a limited point to elaborate on, for example, if you are writing about a product say, a cold cream, you will mention its features and elaborate on them in a very profound manner, you will mention why to use it and how it can benefit, what then? To fill the space, you may rephrase those points and sound like a parrot. That can cause plagiarism in your content. 

10.Conclude in style

The conclusion doesn’t mean abruptly finishing the content. You can make it like a summary of the entire write-up or state why you decided to write on the given topic or you can also mention the brand’s name or company’s name at the end. 

Whichever the case may be, conclude in  either  manner:

• By setting an example.
• Leaving with an expression.
• Leaving with a question that will create curiosity and make the reader want to come to your page and find out more. 

Apart from these points, it creates an impressive article. One must have an over-the-top idea of creating a wondrous article. Do not write on something you may not want to read yourself. If you get bored while proofreading then does not put someone else through the pain of reading and appreciating your work. 

If you are putting in your hard work to create something that you may want to feel proud about, even years later, then keep the following points in your mind: 

Go old school:.

Writers for centuries used a notebook and a pencil/pen. This enables you to keep a hard copy of your work that may come in handy, years later. This also helps to prove that you had the idea before anyone tries to steal it. Apart from that, jotting down ideas before starting to write them, will guide me through writer’s block. Even if you fall out of the plot line or lose a sense of why you started to write it, then those points will help you get back on track.

This also enables you to check off what points you have mentioned and not repeat them. This will save you time and energy. At times, notes made for one topic, also help in another one. For example, if you are writing about ‘How to cook chicken noodles without sticking them on the pan’; you will research and make notes about different kinds of noodles and sauces and how not to get them stuck. These notes can help you to write about ‘different kinds of noodles’ or ‘assorted sauces used to cook noodles’, etc.

Stay updated:

Be agile and up-to-date on current affairs and news. Giving old-time advice and examples can help but when you mention the current facts, which will prove that the writer is well-informed and updated to recent times. 

It is not a story or a script :  

Please don’t go daydreaming that your article will be chosen by the next Director of the movies and made into a blockbuster movie. As you are not writing a story or script. You are providing information and sharing news with the readers. The motive of the article is to be as an informant as possible. This means, stick to business and give the information that the reader wishes to receive. 

Stay focussed:

Do not just write about what interests you or which you prefer. As the readers are there to gain knowledge and not know about your preference. Although, narrowing down to the exact information can be helpful like if you are writing about the ’10 best Ice-cream shops in the City, then you have to mention them by name and obviously you will put them in the preference of your choice. But don’t go on about one option, which you liked, and be brief about the one, which you didn’t. That will send a clear message to the reader, that the writer is forcing his choice on the reader. 

Always proof-read

Make sure that you proofread your work before submitting it or publishing it. As there might be small grammatical mistakes that you may not notice at the time but might catch your eye as soon as you publish them. Then, there will not be any way of getting it back. As they say, words and arrows cannot come back once released. So, even if you have to spend some time, do read your content. 

Be Neutral:

Do not try to be too formal nor too casual in your approach. That may not be well-received by many. Some people might find your language whimsical while some might find it too out there. So, try not to be judgmental and neutral. 

You can’t impress everyone:

Understand one thing that there are critics everywhere. And you can’t impress everyone with your writing style. So do your job well and hope for the best. 

Being negative is acceptable:

You cannot always write about what is good and what stands out. You can also be critical and go all complaining about someone or some issue. You can also write negative points but just remember you cannot mention yourself in the article. You are reporting something, so provide the information. Be a critic, yourself, go ahead and write about someone else’s work or behavior. That all is acceptable.

Catchy words and lines help

The tone of the article can be decided by the writer. Therefore, writing in any tense, language, person, etc. is the writer’s choice. Using catchy lines and words will grab the reader’s attention and can create a lasting impression as well. 

Use Images/ videos:

This is optional but can help in getting the reader to stay longer. Use relevant images or videos, especially the ones that are free or created by yourself. Do not violate someone’s copyright and use their work. Or take permission. 

Invest in your content:

If you wish to get acknowledged for your hard work, then invest in a portal or domain name that can get you good views. Even if you have to buy the license for the same or spend money on a video or image or music, do it, as your hard work is not cheap. 

Try to cover much ground as possible:

You are not the only one writing about a particular topic, there have many before you and there will be more after you. So, if your article covers the maximum ground, then the reader will not feel the need to go to others.

Accept Criticism:

Know this, where your work is published, will have a comment section and people will express their feelings towards the same. To make the comment section public or not, can be chosen on some websites, but at least you will read them. Some intellectuals in the world actually know better, so don’t ignore the advice or criticism that comes down your way. 

If your article is short and precise, then that is fine, too. Just remember the above points. The main motive behind spending the amount of time on creating it has to be achieved by making your point across the room. 

Handle the pressure and do not let that affect your writing style. Most of the time, writers get deadlines for submitting their content. That may create a good amount of pressure and can shift the writer’s focus. That will cause the tense of the person in the article to change. 

Sticking to one tense, person, language, and format will always be rewarding. Don’t change either of them, even if you write half of the content one day and then the rest, some other time. 

Before you submit your work and have proofread it thoroughly, make it a point to see that if you answered the questions and if the information provided by you will be understood by the majority of readers. Some readers may only be browsing through and may not have your capabilities. Some might not even follow the plotline and jump to the bullet points. As we already established that most readers only wish to read the highlighted points, be prepared for it. Make the content as user-friendly as possible. 

Conclusion on Features of an article    : 

This article is about the features of an article. The features that make an article can make even the most dump-worthy content into a worth-reading one have been highlighted in this content. When a reader decides to spend their time reading an article and not a short blog that means the content of the said article has to be mind-boggling. The article has to be worth the time, of the reader and the writer as well. 

Q. What are the skills required for article writing?

Article writing is no rocket science, but it requires lot of brainstorming skills such as lot of research, SEO knowledge, Imagination and creativity, quality content, quality the meet the deadlines, stay focused, excelling communication in writing and speaking etc.

Q. Does article writing also requires technical skills?

Yes. Article writing is a way of communicating and connecting with the audience. So today been a digital world you can deliver your content to your audience through digital platform so that it reaches the maximum readers.

Q. Which is the best platform to learn content writing?

IIM SKILLS is the most highly recommended ed-tech company that offers wide range of skill development courses. And they are very popular for offering best content writing course online.

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How to Write an Article

 THE CRAFT OF ARTICLE WRITING

Writing is a complex skill. A very complex skill.

Not only do we put students under pressure to master the inconsistent spelling patterns and complex grammar of the English language, but we require them to know how to write for a variety of purposes in both fiction and nonfiction genres.

On top of this, writing is just one aspect of one subject among many.

The best way to help our students to overcome the challenge of writing in any genre is to help them to break things down into their component parts and give them a basic formula to follow.

In this article, we will break article writing down into its components and present a formulaic approach that will provide a basic structure for our students to follow.

Once this structure is mastered, students can, of course, begin to play with things.

But, until then, there is plenty of room within the discipline of the basic structure for students to express themselves in the article form.

A COMPLETE UNIT ON TEACHING NEWS REPORTING

With over  FORTY GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS in this  ENGAGING   UNIT, you can complete a  WEEKLY  journalistic / Newspaper reporting task  ALL YEAR LONG   as classwork or homework.

These templates take students through a  PROVEN  four-step article writing process on some  AMAZING  images. Students will learn how to.

WHAT IS AN ARTICLE?

The Cambridge Dictionary defines an article as, “a piece of writing on a particular subject in a newspaper or magazine, or on the internet.”

An article’s shape and structure will vary depending on whether it’s intended for publication in a newspaper, magazine, or online.

Each of these media has its own requirements. For example, a magazine feature article may go into great depth on a topic, allowing for long, evocative paragraphs of exposition, while an online blog article may be full of lots of short paragraphs that get to the point without too much fanfare.

Each of these forms makes different demands on the writer, and it’s for this reason that most newspapers, magazines, and big websites provide writers with specific submission guidelines.

So, with such diverse demands placed on article writers, how do we go about teaching the diverse skill required to our students?

Luckily, we can break most types of articles down into some common key features.

Below we’ll take a look at the most important of these, along with an activity to get your students practicing each aspect right away.

Finally, we’ll take a look at a few general tips on article writing.

KEY WRITTEN FEATURES OF AN ARTICLE

The headline.

The purpose of the headline is to capture the reader’s attention and let them know what the article is about. All of this in usually no more than 4 or 5 words!

There is an art to good headline writing and all sorts of literary devices (e.g alliteration and metaphor) can be used to create an eye-catching and intriguing headline.

The best way for students to learn how headlines work is to view some historical samples.

Newspaper headlines especially are known for being short and pithy. Here are just a few examples to whet the appetite:

• Hitler Is Dead
• Lincoln Shot
• Men Walk On The Moon
• Berlin Wall Crumbles

You could encourage students to find some pithy examples of their own. It’s amazing how much information can be condensed into so few words – this is the essence of good headline writing.

Headlines Practice Activity:

Give students opportunities to practice headline writing in isolation from article writing itself. For example, take sample stories from newspapers and magazines and challenge students to write new headlines for them. Set a word limit appropriate to the skills and age of the students. For example, younger, more inexperienced students might write 9-word headlines, while older, more skilled students might thrive with the challenge of a 4-word limit.

THE SUBHEADING

Subheadings give the reader more information on what the article is about. For this reason, they’re often a little longer than headlines and use a smaller font, though still larger (or in bold) than the font used in the body of the text.

Subheadings provide a little more of the necessary detail to inform readers what’s going on. If a headline is a jab, the subheading is the cross.

In magazines and online articles especially, there are often subheadings throughout the article. In this context, they let the reader know what each paragraph/section is about.

Subheadings also help the reader’s eye to scan the article and quickly get a sense of the story, for the writer they help immensely to organize the structure of the story.

Practice Activity:

One way to help organize paragraphs in an article is to use parallel structure.

Parallel structure is when we use similar words, phrases, and grammar structures. We might see this being used in a series of subheadings in a ‘How to’ article where the subheadings all start with an imperative such as choose , attach , cut , etc.

Have you noticed how all the sections in this ‘Key Features’ part of this article start simply with the word ‘The’? This is another example of a parallel structure.

Yet another example of parallel structure is when all the subheadings appear in the form of a question.

Whichever type of parallel structure students use, they need to be sure that they all in some way relate to the original title of the article.

To give students a chance to practice writing subheadings using parallel structure, instruct them to write subheadings for a piece of text that doesn’t already have them.

THE BODY PARAGRAPHS

Writing good, solid paragraphs is an art in itself. Luckily, you’ll find comprehensive guidance on this aspect of writing articles elsewhere on this site.

But, for now, let’s take a look at some general considerations for students when writing articles.

The length of the paragraphs will depend on the medium. For example, for online articles paragraphs are generally brief and to the point. Usually no more than a sentence or two and rarely more than five.

This style is often replicated in newspapers and magazines of a more tabloid nature.

Short paragraphs allow for more white space on the page or screen. This is much less daunting for the reader and makes it easier for them to focus their attention on what’s being said – a crucial advantage in these attention-hungry times.

Lots of white space makes articles much more readable on devices with smaller screens such as phones and tablets. Chunking information into brief paragraphs enables online readers to scan articles more quickly too, which is how much of the information on the internet is consumed – I do hope you’re not scanning this!

Conversely, articles that are written more formally, for example, academic articles, can benefit from longer paragraphs which allow for more space to provide supporting evidence for the topic sentence.

Deciding on the length of paragraphs in an article can be done by first thinking about the intended audience, the purpose of the article, as well as the nature of the information to be communicated.

A fun activity to practice paragraphing is to organize your students into groups and provide them with a copy of an article with the original paragraph breaks removed. In their groups, students read the article and decide on where they think the paragraphs should go.

To do this successfully, they’ll need to consider the type of publication they think the article is intended for, the purpose of the article, the language level, and the nature of the information.

When the groups have finished adding in their paragraph breaks they can share and compare their decisions with the other groups before you finally reveal where the breaks were in the original article.

Article Photos and Captions

Photos and captions aren’t always necessary in articles, but when they are, our students must understand how to make the most of them.

Just like the previous key features on our list, there are specific things students need to know to make the most of this specific aspect of article writing.

  The internet has given us the gift of access to innumerable copyright-free images to accompany our articles, but what criteria should students use when choosing an image?

To choose the perfect accompanying image/s for their article, students need to identify images that match the tone of their article.

Quirky or risque images won’t match the more serious tone of an academic article well, but they might work perfectly for that feature of tattoo artists.

Photos are meant to bring value to an article – they speak a thousand words after all. It’s important then that the image is of a high enough resolution that the detail of those ‘thousand words’ is clearly visible to the reader.

Just as the tone of the photo should match the tone of the article, the tone of the caption should match the tone of the photo.

Captions should be informative and engaging. Often, the first thing a reader will look at in an article is the photos and then the caption. Frequently, they’ll use the information therein to decide whether or not they’ll continue to read.

When writing captions, students must avoid redundancy. They need to add information to that which is already available to the reader by looking at the image.

There’s no point merely describing in words what the reader can clearly see with their own two eyes. Students should describe things that are not immediately obvious, such as date, location, or the name of the event.

One last point, captions should be written in the present tense. By definition, the photo will show something that has happened already. Despite this, students should write as if the action in the image is happening right now.

Remind students that their captions should be brief; they must be careful not to waste words with such a tight format.

For this fun activity, you’ll need some old magazines and newspapers. Cut some of the photos out minus their captions. All the accompanying captions should be cut out and jumbled up. It’s the students’ job to match each image with the correct accompanying caption.

Students can present their decisions and explanations when they’ve finished.

A good extension exercise would be to challenge the students to write a superior caption for each of the images they’ve worked on.

TOP 5 TIPS FOR ARTICLE WRITING

Now your students have the key features of article writing sewn up tightly, let’s take a look at a few quick and easy tips to help them polish up their general article writing skills.

1. Read Widely – Reading widely, all manner of articles, is the best way students can internalize some of the habits of good article writing. Luckily, with the internet, it’s easy to find articles on any topic of interest at the click of a mouse.

2. Choose Interesting Topics – It’s hard to engage the reader when the writer is not themselves engaged. Be sure students choose article topics that pique their own interest (as far as possible!).

3. Research and Outline – Regardless of the type of article the student is writing, some research will be required. The research will help an article take shape in the form of an outline. Without these two crucial stages, articles run the danger of wandering aimlessly and, worse still, of containing inaccurate information and details.

4. Keep Things Simple – All articles are about communicating information in one form or another. The most effective way of doing this is to keep things easily understood by the reader. This is especially true when the topic is complex.

5. Edit and Proofread – This can be said of any type of writing, but it still bears repeating. Students need to ensure they comprehensively proofread and edit their work when they’ve ‘finished’. The importance of this part of the writing process can’t be overstated.

And to Conclude…

With time and plenty of practice, students will soon internalize the formula as outlined above.

This will enable students to efficiently research, outline, and structure their ideas before writing.

This ability, along with the general tips mentioned, will soon enable your students to produce well-written articles on a wide range of topics to meet the needs of a diverse range of audiences.

HUGE WRITING CHECKLIST & RUBRIC BUNDLE

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TUTORIAL VIDEO ON HOW TO WRITE AN ARTICLE

Steps of Article Writing

Article Writing Format: Suppose you have some opinions regarding a topic and you want to tell people about it. How will you do so? You can tell the opinions to persons near you. But what if you want to tell not only those people but, say, the world? How will you do so? You will write those opinions, isn’t it?

Many a time you have seen some writers or people write their problems and suggestions in some newspapers, magazines, and journals or in their blogs. They are writing their opinions and beliefs in the form of an article. In this section, we will get ourselves familiar with article writing and the article writing format.

An article is a piece of writing written for a large audience. The main motive behind writing an article is that it should be published in either newspapers or magazines or journals so as to make some difference to the world.

It may be the topics of interest of the writer or it may be related to some current issues. The topic can either be serious or not-so-serious; Same goes for its tone and language.

Browse more Topics under Article Writing

• Definition, Essential Elements of Article Writing

Objectives of Article Writing

An article is written with the following objectives

• It brings out the topics or the matter of interest in the limelight
• The article provides information on the topics
• It offers suggestions and pieces of advice
• It influences the readers and urges them to think
• The article discusses various stories, persons, locations, rising-issues, and technical developments

The Format of Article Writing

An article must be organized in a proper way so as to draw the attention of the readers. The basic outline for an article writing format is

• Heading / Title
• A line having the writer’s name
• Body (the main part of the article, 2 – 3 paragraphs)
• Conclusion (Ending paragraph of the article with the opinion or recommendation, anticipation or an appeal)

Steps for Article Writing Format

Think of the topic you want to write the article about. Only after you’ve decided your topic you can go ahead and undertake the further steps in the process one by one:

• Target Audience: Identify the concerning reading group
• Purpose: Find the objective or aim of writing the article
• Collect & Select: Gather as such information as possible. Also, identify the details that are most significant
• Organize:  Arrange the information and the facts in a logical way

Once you’ve taken care of all the Above steps you move forward to the final step- Writing.

• While writing an article, always use proper grammar , spelling , and proper punctuations
• Use vocabulary skill
• Keep the introduction of the topic catching, interesting, and short
• Discuss the opinion and the matter in an organized and descriptive manner

Common Mistakes in the Article Writing Format

Now that you know the steps of article writing and the article writing format, the occurrence of mistakes becomes obvious. Some of the common mistakes are:

• Not using facts or quotes or similar cases
• The language should not be too formal
• The article must be in easy language for better understanding
• The title of the article must be catchy and clearly understandable
• No use of paragraphs
• Expressing personal views is fine but the author must never talk about himself/herself

Points to Keep in Mind for the Article Writing Format

• The topics of the articles should be unique and relevant
• The article has to get attention
• It has to be interesting
• It has to be easy to read
• The reader is identified
• Find the main goal of writing an article. The goal can be anything from providing information, entertainment, and advice or for comparing, etc.
• The title must be eye-catching, clear, and interesting
• The introduction or the starting paragraph must be highly attentive. Use your vocabulary skills or try to use some interrogative words for the start
• Use clear statements and make assertions
• Avoid repetition and over the top logic and reasons
• Use the style of paragraph writing and write the contents uniquely and unambiguously
• Avoid using the points which interest you only and not for the general public
• Write a good and logical ending

Solved Example on Steps of Article Writing

Problem: Classify the following into Do’s and Don’ts in article writing.

• Write very lengthy articles
• Add the writer’s name
• The title should be lengthy and clear
• The heading of the article should be short, clear and informative
• Only the introduction and the conclusion should be attractive and attention seeking
• Target the audience
• One can advise, suggest and give the solutions to a problem in any paragraph other than the starting one
• The language and the style of writing should be according to the concerning readers
• There must be only three paragraphs in an article – introduction, middle one, and conclusion
• Use proper punctuations
• Use any tense , person, voice, as many abbreviations , and self-made words while writing an article

Customize your course in 30 seconds

How to get Google's new AI tool to write your emails

• Google is launching "Help me write" an AI-tool that can generate responses to emails in Gmail. 
• Users can deploy the tool to request a refund for a cancelled flight, for example.
• The tool also includes a "Refine" feature that can tweak the generated message's length and tone. 

Writing emails is about to get a lot easier.

During 2023 Google's I/O conference on Wednesday, Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google, announced that the search giant is launching "Help me write," an AI-powered feature part of Gmail that can generate responses to emails.

In a demonstration of the tool, Pichai used "Help me write" to respond to an email saying that the recipient's flight got cancelled. The demonstrator selected the tool's icon and entered "ask for a full refund for this cancelled flight" in the prompt box. A response draft was generated in moments that included all the relevant details from the airline's note and requested the desired refund. 

Related stories

Not happy with the result? The tool has a button that allows users "refine" the letter, with prompts like "formalize", "elaborate," and "shorten." 

During the demo, Pichai selected the "elaborate" option to "increase the chances of getting a refund," and the tool added lines like "I believe that a full refund is the only fair way to compensate me for the problems I experienced." 

The feature, which was launched to "trusted testers" in March, is among the generative AI functions that Google is using to update its existing tools in the Workspace suite, Google's Aparna Pappu said at Wednesday's event. In addition to "Help me write," Google will integrate AI-features that can brainstorm and proofread text in Docs; generate images, audio, and video in Slides; and analyze data in Sheets, to name a few. 

These features, which will be available to "trusted testers," will eventually be part of Google's " Duet AI for Workspace " service, according to Pappu. Google did not comment on when the tool will be available to the general public.

The new tool comes months after Google first launched the beta version of Bard , a ChatGPT rival, to select users as the AI competition grows among Big Tech companies.

Bard, however, did not launch smoothly: Google employees who tested Bard didn't think the chatbot was ready for launch, calling it "cringeworthy" and a "pathological liar." When Google demoed its chatbot in February, it made a factual error . 

On February 28, Axel Springer, Business Insider's parent company, joined 31 other media groups and filed a $2.3 billion suit against Google in Dutch court, alleging losses suffered due to the company's advertising practices.

Watch: What is ChatGPT, and should we be afraid of AI chatbots?

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These four new Copilot for Microsoft 365 features make prompt writing like a pro even easier

With Copilot for Microsoft 365 , working professionals can get AI assistance directly in their Microsoft 365 apps and workflow. To ensure that you're maximizing Copilot's help within Microsoft 365 applications, Microsoft is adding new features that make writing optimal prompts much easier.

On Wednesday, Microsoft unveiled its 2024 Work Trend Index on the State of AI at Work , and with the report launch, the company also snuck in some news about Copilot for Microsoft 365 updates arriving in the coming months. 

Also: What is Copilot? Here's everything you need to know

The new features -- auto-complete, rewrite, catch-up, and Copilot Labs upgrade -- all optimize prompt writing, making it easier to include the right words and context to get your desired output while still taking less time to formulate the perfect command. 

For starters, Copilot will soon offer a new "autocomplete" feature that, as the name implies, completes a prompt when you start typing one out, suggesting more details to ensure you get the intended outcome. The suggestions also help you find other ways to leverage the AI assistant.

To further help improve the quality of your prompts while minimizing effort, Microsoft is also adding a "rewrite" feature that takes a basic prompt and revamps it to be more thorough, "turning everyone into a prompt engineer," according to the company. 

Perhaps the biggest highlight of the launch is the new "catch-up" chat interface that presents you with "responsive recommendations" based on your recent activity. Microsoft shares an example: "You have a meeting with the sales VP on Thursday. Let's get you prepared -- click here to get detailed notes."

This feature reinforces Copilot as an AI assistant that goes beyond an average AI chatbot's capabilities and is integrated deeply into the user's workflow.

Lastly, Microsoft has updated  Copilot Lab , its resource hub to help you get the most out of your Copilot experience, letting you create, publish, and manage your own prompts, and making it easier for teams to collaborate on prompts that suit their exact workflow.

Also: 5 ways college students can use Copilot for Microsoft 365  

Microsoft did not detail when the features would be available, saying only that it would be in the "coming months."

Businesses can start taking advantage of Copilot for Microsoft 365 by paying $30 per user per month on top of their Microsoft 365 license. Individual users can experience Copilot in their favorite apps, such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook, with a Copilot Pro subscription, which costs $20 per user per month.

Artificial Intelligence

Microsoft copilot vs. copilot pro: is the subscription fee worth it, what are microsoft's different copilots here's what they are and how you can use them, you can upgrade to windows 11 pro for $40 right now.

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• Tech Tips News
• ChatGPT users are getting GPT-4'o' free: What are new features, availability and more

ChatGPT users are getting GPT-4'o' free: What are new features, availability and more

What is 'o' in GPT-4o

• Peace Nmachi Wosah   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-7776-6982 1 ,
• Qublai Ali Mirza 1 &
• Will Sayers 1  

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The high-volume usage of email has attracted cybercriminals to the platform and criminals are aware of difficulties users often have in separating legitimate from illegitimate emails and seek to take advantage of those difficulties by impersonating staff of a trusted organisation to persuade users into divulging their private information. To help users overcome the difficulty in detecting phishing attacks, a system is proposed. Recent advancement uses: stylometric features, gender features and personality features to carry out a sender verification process. The existing approaches are more complex and if the system fails to detect bad email, and it gets to users, the possibility of becoming a victim becomes high if not detected by the user. The proposed framework adds Colour Code to Email Verification (CCEV). It conducts sender’s verification at the recipients’ end based on 3-features related with senders, writing pattern, gender, and header.

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Data availability.

The dataset utilised was obtained from the web page of William Cohen, which can be accessed at http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~enron/

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Wosah, P.N., Ali Mirza, Q. & Sayers, W. Analysing the email data using stylometric method and deep learning to mitigate phishing attack. Int. j. inf. tecnol. (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41870-024-01839-5

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Published : 05 May 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s41870-024-01839-5

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Logitech announces Combo Touch keyboard case for M2 iPad Air and M4 iPad Pro

Following the announcement of new iPads on Tuesday , Logitech today announced a new version of its popular Combo Touch keyboard case for the latest M2 iPad Air and M4 iPad Pro. The accessory works as a great alternative to Apple’s Magic Keyboard, as it also features a full-size keyboard and multi-touch trackpad.

Logitech Combo Touch for M2 iPad Air and M4 iPad Pro

“Logitech Combo Touch is now available with the redesigned new iPad Air and thin and light new iPad Pro. Made with sustainable and premium materials, the new Combo Touch models are the thinnest and lightest models yet,” the company said in a press release.

For those unfamiliar, Logitech Combo Touch is an iPad case with its own keyboard and trackpad. It stands out due to its versatility as the keyboard is detachable and there is a kickstand that enables multiple modes of use. You can adjust the case to your preferred angle for writing, sketching, reading and, watching videos.

The accessory doesn’t need to be paired and recharged as it uses the iPad’s power through the Smart Connector. It’s worth noting that its keyboard features backlighting and shortcut keys. It also supports Apple Pencil. Logitech has made the accessory thinner and lighter, while it also has the largest trackpad in a Combo Touch case.

The Combo Touch for the new M2 iPad Air and M4 iPad Pro is available in both 11-inch and 13-inch sizes, and they come in Graphite (for iPad Pro) and Oxford Grey (for iPad Air).

Prices and availability

• Combo Touch for iPad Pro 13-inch: $259.99
• Combo Touch for iPad Pro 11-inch: $229.99
• Combo Touch for iPad Air 13-inch: $229.99
• Combo Touch for iPad Air 11-inch: $199.99

Customers can now order them through the Logitech online store or Apple.com . You can also find Logitech Combo Touch for other iPad models on Amazon .

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.

Check out 9to5Mac on YouTube for more Apple news:

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Filipe Espósito is a Brazilian tech Journalist who started covering Apple news on iHelp BR with some exclusive scoops — including the reveal of the new Apple Watch Series 5 models in titanium and ceramic. He joined 9to5Mac to share even more tech news around the world.

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Kendrick Vs. Drake Was the Post-Truth Beef. But There’s One Thing That’s Undeniable.

Writing the final word on the Great Rap Feud of 2024 and what it means for Kendrick’s legacy

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They’re bumping “Not Like Us” on commercial breaks for Western Conference semifinal slaughters . It’s ringing out of candy-painted lowriders and souped-up Challengers and every one of those damn wheelie-loving ATVs. Play it by the right patch of palm shade out West and these fools are liable to start C-walking on cumulous concrete, with the bassline lifting their immaculate Chucks like golden wings . A day after it went up on streaming, I heard it reverberating out of a delivery van in New York.

Wasn’t even noon. Wouldn’t be the last time.

Only two men can declare the most public, costly, and rapidly descending rap beef in history truly over—but we’ve got eyes, and what they spy is a Canadian floating, belly-up, in the deep fryer. There are many paths through which the shrewd multi-conglomerate creation known as Drake might sabotage his enemy, and none of them involve finding a way to rhyme another clause with the words “ this Epstein angle was the shit I expected .” Fair, unfair, and in between, in the audience’s mind, The Boy appears stuffed like an attic rug: covered in dust and rolled on up.

Kendrick Lamar won. We’ll get back to what that means later, how it ebbs and flows around all of the rotten things that have already come out of this, and may continue to. Given the urgency and force displayed over Lamar’s four-songs-in-five-days outburst, the finality in this declaration isn’t the thing that jumps out most, but it is the kind of mythmaking that whispers in the wind. K-Dot’s battle plans were plain: He circled, warned, pounced, and conquered; head cleaved from collar, mind from spirit, body from soul .

The people have spoken. Even for streaming gods, that’s a Herculean thing to undo. And so, in the words of October’s very own, nothing will ever really be the same . What we’ve seen—the nature of it all, the bottomless scope, the contradictions smeared all over everything—has ensconced how this collision will be remembered, in ways that will stretch beyond the mere conflict alone, and into the realms of legacy and moral appraisal. This affects both combatants, but for the immediate victor it holds doubly true: This collision and its fallout will stick to Lamar from these times forward, in places where it ought to, and also in places where it probably shouldn’t.

More than standing or heritage or even ideology, Kendrick was motivated by a populist mandate in this dispute, and he wielded hip-hop tribalism as a cudgel against his opponent. As the forays escalated, Kendrick armed himself with common weaponry to dissuade, counter, and eventually hammer home the brand of misdeed gossip that now envelops the entire dispute. If Drake’s swipes on his four disses boiled down to a series of personalized, individual affronts (“ You gon’ feel the aftermath of what I write down ”), Kendrick’s were often communal (“ Notice, I said ‘ we ,’ it’s not just me, I’m what the culture feelin’ ”), even when shrouded in the artifice of a more personalized attack .

On “Euphoria” he paints Drake as a composite, pilfering accents and lingo , hairstyles , and origin stories from across the diaspora. In a battle royale stuffed with rap’s most audacious deceivers , Kendrick brands Drake as the “master manipulator,” unparalleled in the lack of trust he should engender in listeners. Like Pusha T before him, he attempts to erode perceptions of Drake’s sense of self and identity , while highlighting his cultural faux pas . “6:16 in LA,” the second bombardment in K-Dot’s offensive, is basically an incantation on Drake’s dopey-ness and affected street sense over peak Al Green croons —a sample of a song that features Drake’s actual uncle on the original .

By the time that “Meet the Grahams” dropped before midnight last Friday, Kendrick wasn’t just making the argument that the Toronto pop maven was a fundamentally “ horrible person ”; he was connecting that moral rot to the decay of the rap industry in general . When Lamar ends the track with the hypothetical “Why believe you? You never gave us nothing to believe in,” the trick isn’t that he’s brought Drake’s reliability into question; it’s that he’s put up a wall between Drake and the listener while, at the same time, eroding the distance between those same listeners and himself.

This makes “Not Like Us” not only the catchy culmination of all of this groundwork but a distillation of each of these themes in a tribal form . The digs themselves are actually pretty limited: Drake’s general lameness, his proclivity toward cultural theft, his unabated seediness (sorry), and the haymaker, of course, of his supposed proximity to underage women and outright pedophilia. Truth matters less than the breadth and tinge of its shadow in this theater. That last claim is a clear lunge toward mutually assured destruction after Drake hinted at—and then blurted out—abuse and “crisis management team” accusations on his own intended knockout, the carefully curated “Family Matters.”

There’s been a strain of pearl-clutching in the reaction to these maneuvers that would frame them as something beyond the pale of rap beef mudslinging, but this elides the uncomfortable truth that rappers have been calling each other everything but a child of God since they first picked up microphones. (Is the act, for instance, of branding a fellow MC gay , in a time in which homesexuality was treated as a disease and mental illness by heterosexual society, any less craven than any of the bullshit these two boys are doing right now? What about Pac raging “ I fucked your wife ” to Biggie on “Hit ’Em Up”? Or the hydrochloric acid Ice Cube belched all over Eazy-E in “No Vaseline”?) For Lamar there is certainly a cost to going Bossip meets #MeToo, and it is not merely the act of using an unknown number of potential underage female victims of sexual violence in a scorched-earth tactic on what’s not inconsequentially the best-streaming debut of his career.

It’s the cumulative toll of choosing this route on top of all of the other semi-questionable stands and positions that mark the underbelly of his career, recently and in a wider sense. Featuring Kodak Black—who previously took a plea deal in a sexual assault case —on Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers might’ve had more to do with Kenny trying to prove that anyone is capable of some version of pseudo-religious redemption in his new self-help-inflected world, but it’s the kind of creative choice that hamstrings him in his current crusade. How you talk about “ real women ,” or who can be a “ bad bitch ,” or who should or shouldn’t complain about “ sugar daddies in the club ” obfuscates and might even soften your concern about raising your daughter “ knowin’ there’s predators,” like your opponent, “lurking.” Doesn’t mean Cornrow Kenny doesn’t care about it, but it does mean he doesn’t just care about it, if you catch my drift.

He’s never been as one-note as his detractors, Drake included, would like to believe. That R. Kelly–XXXTentacion kerfuffle, where Spotify was pressured to reverse a decision to remove both artists’ music as part of an ultimately revised “hateful conduct” policy , didn’t actually involve Kendrick directly. (Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith, Lamar’s then–label head, was the one who threatened to pull TDE’s music from the platform, and he said he didn’t do it out of loyalty to either Kelly or XXX but, rather, because he was concerned about the “slippery slope if you start censoring music.”) It doesn’t take much of a leap to criticize K-Dot’s early work with Dr. Dre, whose history of violence against women is well documented —a fair point in the abstract, but much dicier when you’re in the shoes of a 25-year-old attempting to successfully launch a solo rap career out of the same barbed and snare-loaded former suburb turned ghetto that Dre put on the map in the first place.

In 2015, when Lamar told Billboard that social change is partly dependent on Black communities showing more “respect for ourselves,” folks were quick to rightly brand it generally wack (no amount of respect sedates empire) but also just as quick to unduly connect it to his incendiary trunk rattler “The Blacker the Berry,” a song that’s less political manifesto than journal entry about Lamar’s internal struggles over guilt and resistance. Lamar’s track record of actual social activism stretches as long as he’s been in the public eye: over a million in donations to his childhood school district in Compton, multiple charity tours , holiday concerts and toy drives , to say nothing of protest work like his unannounced participation in the 2020 Black Lives Matter marches in L.A. If there’s a unifying ethic that binds Kendrick in every period of his public-facing life, it’s that he’s a Black male evangelical who’s centered his music on his quest to conquer his own imperfections. (Dude literally asked whether we’d believe if he told us he “killed a n---- at 16” on his official debut.) He’s not telling us how we should get free; he’s only ever said that he’s trying to do that for himself and his folks.

All of that is now caught squarely within the blast radius of this radioactive tête-à-tête with Drake—doubly so until there’s some level of clarity on the validity of the most pernicious clay hurled on either side. Hip-hop, that indefinable, enduring godbody, is going to remember what went down, into its very psyche. It is also going to remember how it went down, and that “how” has the potency, consequences, and appeal to engulf belief, output, nuance, and even truth. In the rap beef to end all rap beefs, no one’s coming out clean, not even the one coming out on top.

Whether this is ultimately worth it or not to Lamar is probably beside the point. Professionally, dominance in this style of lyrical trench warfare was basically the final obstacle left for him to big-step over and through. Given his general lack of personal disclosure, we’ll probably never find out how it all sits with K-Dot, unless he waits another half decade and opens his mouth on another instant-Grammy-nominated album. His regional and non-regional peers seem to have almost universally sided with him—circled and solidified their wagons around the crown. The beef is over, but if the things Drake said about Kendrick prove to have even a little bit of traction, you’d hope that’d recast everything in a different, harsher light. Best hint as to the future might be putting an ear to the streets. With beefs like this it’s the crowd that sees all, says all, and heralds the evident-if-not-absolute truth of who and what really is or ain’t bumping.

Next Up In Rap

• Hypocrisy in Hip-Hop, the End of a Grifter, and Ceasefire Talks
• Six Reasons Drake Lost
• Elle Duncan’s Meteoric Rise in Sports Media
• Dissecting the Genius Strategy of Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us”
• New Legislation, a Shift in the Rap Beef, and a Visit From Mayor Sharon Weston Broome
• The Greatest Diss Tracks of All Time, Ranked

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