Fiction Case

Newspaper Articles

Newspaper articles fall into several categories, including (1) news articles, (2) feature articles, (3) columns, and (4) op-eds.

1. News articles generally follow an "inverted pyramid" structure for conveying information about a current event, incident, or issue of public interest. The first sentence of the article, or lead, gives the most important facts (who, what, when, where), and the following paragraphs present, in descending order of importance, the details of the event, incident, or issue (how, why). A news article should strive to remain objective and should use neutral language while presenting a diversity of opinions, voices, and perspectives of the event, incident, or issue under discussion. You should quote sources knowledgeable about the topic of the article, and most of your research will involve interviewing people rather than reading through written sources.

2. Feature articles are less time-sensitive than news articles, and may describe people, places, or events of general interest to the public. They also tend to be longer than news articles. Feature articles often begin with a "hook" that is meant to catch the reader's attention, and go on to describe interesting aspects of the topic under consideration without necessarily following the "inverted pyramid" structure. As in news articles, you should quote sources knowledgeable about the topic, and most of your research will involve personal interviews.

3. Columns give the opinion of the writer on a topic of his or her interest and may range from stories about private or public individuals to statements of the writer's position on an issue of public concern. The writer, or columnist, writes these articles as a regular feature of his/her newspaper, and they appear in the same place in every issue of the newspaper, usually filling one entire column of text (hence the name).

4. Op-eds (an abbreviation representing the words "opinion" and "editorial") are written for newspaper publication and present the writer's opinion on an issue of current public interest. They are concise enough to appear in 2-3 columns of a standard newspaper, and therefore need to be sharply focused. When writing an op-ed, you should present your opinion and relevant facts to support your position. These facts usually should be drawn from your own expertise or from research using relevant sources, including interviews and current statistics.

Note: Letters to the editor, like op-eds, present the writer's opinion on a current topic, and may be based on personal expertise or on research. However, because they are allotted much less space in an average large-circulation newspaper, letters to the editor are much briefer, sometimes only 1-2 sentences.