Page 209 - Dive the Seas and More-2

Coral Reef Teacher’s Guide Benefits, Threats, and Solutions
JOURNALISTIC WRITING STYLE

Writing a newspaper or magazine article rquires “5 W’s”
a different style than you would use to write an
essay, a short story, or a biography. The report- Who? – Who is involved? Who did it? Who is
er must keep in mind the purpose of the article affected?
and the readers’ needs. The purpose of the ar- What? – What happened? What was the out‐
ticle might be to convey information, to expose come? What is it?
corruption, or to portray all sides of an issue. Where? – Is the location important?
Entertainment would probably not be the pri-
mary purpose of the article, unless it were part When? – Is this story about the past, present,
of the entertainment section of the newspaper. future, or all three?
The article can be humorous, as long as Why? – Why did the people act the way they
that serves the main purpose of the article. did? Why did it happen here? Why is this
The readers need to have answers to their ques- happening here? Why is this a problem? Why
tions. There are five questions which tradi- should we care about this?
tionally form the basis for the journalistic style Another characteristic of journalistic writing
of writing. They are: Who?, What?, Where?, involves writing in an inverted pyramid style.
When?, and Why? Answering these questions Think of it in terms of putting the most im‐
in your article will allow you to be thorough, portant information first, the second most
precise, and concise. The writer must de- important information next, and so on. This is
cide in which order to answer these questions, a good idea for two reasons: 1) the reader gets
whether the topic is about who is involved, or hooked into the story right away and is more
what is happening, or one of the other “5 W’s.” likely to keep reading, 2) the editor is often
Following are the “5 W’s” and some examples of forced to cut articles because of space, and this
other questions you might ask to clarify your allows cuts to be made from the bottom up
writing . Apply these questions, or others you without deleting the important information.
may think of, to the topic of your article.

Most important information

Lessimportantinformation

Leastimportant
information

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