ARTICLE WRITING

Types of articles:
There are three types of articles. These are Formal, Semi-formal, and informal articles.

Semi-formal and informal articles

Purpose:
There are 4 purposes for writing an article. These are
1) Giving your opinion
2) If you want to give advice or make suggestions
3) Articles can be based on a problem that you are dealing with and you are suggesting
solutions.
4) Narrative account. Here you can write about a place, or a travel-writing (travel log)

Sections:
The writing of an article has 4 sections. These are:
1) Title
2) Introduction
3) Main Body
4) Conclusion
Title:
It is needed but it is not very significant. A title should be shorter and smarter. This means that
you can write an article without a title. At times titles are given in the question paper. If you
are intending to write a title, what should you do?
Be sure that your title is not weak because effective titles make the articles interesting no
matter the information you have in your writing. Remember that the title attracts the audience.

Purpose & Audience Weak title Effective title

To advise students on how to
stay prepared before an
exam.
To persuade students on
utilizing summer holidays
To inform the view point of
teenagers about TV
How to Prepare for Exams Exam Nerve Cures
How to Make Summer Summer Holidays Loom
Holidays More Enjoyable
What Teenagers Say about T.V: Teenagers’ Viewpoint.
Television
INTRODUCTION:
It should be shorter and smarter. How can we make it smarter? It has two things inside it. These
are intro sentence and transition sentence.
What is an intro sentence?
It does not give a clear explanation of the topic. While writing an introduction, try to write
something the reader can identify with. This can be the opposite of the theme of the article.
This involves the reader and makes him or her want to continue reading.
It is your first sentence. It should be written in a way that the reader finds sufficient interest to
carry on with the reading.
If the intro sentence is written perfectly, what is the transition sentence then?
A transition sentence acts as the link between the introduction and the main body of the
article by preparing the reader to know what the article is about. Now that you have the
readers’ attention, you can bring them back to reality by beginning to introduce the serious side
of the topic.
For example, you are telling the reader that you are trying to deal with trouble and that you are
focusing on a special problem. In the transition sentence, you are going to give a hint that the
solution is also available.

Intro sentences
An intro sentence can be a question. For example:
If you are writing about a technological issue and its impact on children, then you may begin
your paragraph like this:
How do you feel the virtual reality overshadowing your children’s imaginative faculties?
Do you long to finish your homework quickly so you can collapse in front of the TV screen?

An intro sentence can be based on a quotation. Like a famous saying, said by someone or a
proverb for example:
Pen is mightier than the sword.
Alec Bourne once said: “It is possible to store the mind with million facts and still be entirely
uneducated.”
An intro sentence can be a provocative statement. It makes you think so deeply, For example:
Many students are self-confessed couch potatoes! The questions asked here are: Why are
students compared with couch potatoes?
Technology is making humans more primitive. This can create readers think about the reason
why technology would make humans primitive.
To learn intro and transition sentences, let us bond them into one paragraph and see what
happens:
Example 1:
ARTICLE on Stress!
Possible introduction

STRESS
Look, no stress! Don’t we all wish we could say this every day of our
lives— and mean it? Nowadays stress seems to be one word that is
on everybody’s mind.

Look at the intro sentence “Look, no stress! Don’t we all wish we could say this every day of our
lives— and mean it?”. It is a rhetorical question. It is creating excitement in the audience. Then
the writer brings in the solution to the stress. He says “Nowadays stress seems to be one word
that is on everybody’s mind”.
Now as a reader, you already know that the reader is telling us how to manage our stress and
live happily.

Example 2:
ARTICLE on Pollution
Possible introduction

POLLUTION: ITS WORST

Be honest. How often do you daydream about being at the wheel of
an open-topped sports car when you would be revising your
business studies? But it is high time we thought about how cars
pollute the environment.
The above example hardly gives a relation between pollution and business studies. There is no
connection. This is a successful strategy for engaging your audience. To make the audience feel
so deeply about the relationship between the two.
You are dealing with different topics but at the very beginning, you are hooking them with
something alternate. In the intro sentence above, you are talking about not focusing on revising
the business studies rather than daydreaming about sports cars. Then pollution comes in. Now
the audience gets the hint that the writer is trying to talk about pollution and its negative
impact on the environment.

Example 3:
ARTICLE on Corruption in journalism
Possible introduction

CORRUPT JOURNALIST
Pen is mightier than the sword. If that pen is of a journalist, it speaks
against injustice and corruption. But how can that be considered
mightier if the person holding it; is unethically sold to the dark
minds of corruption?

In the intro sentence, the audience gets to know that the writer is trying to tell him or her
something negative about biased journalism and how journalists are acting now days.

Example 4:
ARTICLE on studying abroad
Possible introduction

TROUBLE ABROAD
Are you among the baffled persons who are fascinated as well
hesitant about studying abroad? Stay cool! Some early attempts to
deal with the common foreign issues may get you into your
contentment.

If we have those people who are not decided yet whether they want to go and study abroad or
not? This is a perfect example of an introduction. Ask them a question and after telling them
that the solution is already sought in the next paragraph. This will be done by the transition
sentence.

BODY
This is the most important part of your writing. What is needed as a main body?
P= Personal anecdotes
E= Emotive Language
R= Rhetorical Question
F= Fact
E= Exaggeration
C= Comparison
T= Tone of three
H= Humour
I= Inclusive Pronoun
Q= Quote from expert
D= Direct Addressing
I= Idioms
S=Statistics
C= Command Sentence

DETAILS OF EACH INGREDIENT

P= Personal anecdotes
For example:

I noticed this first in myself when I was trying to decipher some notes, I
had written in a meeting only a few days earlier; parts of them I just
couldn’t read at all. It is not just creeping arthritis in my thumbs (which
doesn’t help), it is more than my fingers seem to have forgotten how to do
it perfectly.
In the personal anecdote, writers share their own experiences. Anything that happened in the
past but in short. A personal anecdote is a personal experience that is sometimes amusing.
E= Emotive Language
For example:

Certainly, I’ll miss the intimacy of letters, the nostalgia of cursive lessons in
schools, and the beautiful scrawls of a well-practiced signature written
with a pen.

Emotive language can be of happiness, anger, sadness, frustration, et cetera. The intimacy of
the words, “I’ll miss,” evoke an emotional feeling that touches the reader’s mind and the
readers will therefore feel for the writer.
R= Rhetorical Question
For example:

May new colleges graduates say that the first day of work is the hardest,
because they do not know what to expect. Will I be forced to regurgitate
everything I learned? Will my boss be a tyrant? Will I be late and forever
labelled slacker?

The rhetorical questions do not require an answer. It wants the reader to think deeply. It is for
emphasis. For example, the one above is highlighting the fear in a fresh graduate from the
university.
F= Facts
For example:

Critics say that decline of handwriting is the death of a more romantic era.

Based on tow longstanding national surveys of high school and college

students, Twenge and her colleagues found a steady decline in people’s
concerns about the environment.

Facts also mean “something true”. The writers use these things to get support for their claims.
They have a claim and they give references to strengthen their arguments. The writer is trying
to highlight how significant handwriting is. It means that someone has taken a study on that;
and that it is not wrong. It is not a writer’s opinion.

E= Exaggeration
For example:

If anything, you claimed isn’t true, it could spell disaster.

The first time I flew a helicopter solo, my knees were knocking together.

This can also be called hyperbole. It is used to intensify the depth of something. Look at the
“spelling disaster”. This is something severe. Looking at “knees were knocking together”. This
could mean that the writer was feeling afraid of flying a helicopter or the object was making a
huge sound. But remembers that knees do not create such sound. This depends on the context.
C= Comparison
For example:

Twenty years ago, a USD 300 Montblanc pen was one of the most envied
and costly graduation gifts. But today, a few people are interested in pens
anymore, even expensive ones. It turns out that they want MacBooks and
iPads — the new writing tools of the digital age.

Comparison is basically to look at the relationship between things of the same value. Look at
the comparison of twenty years ago and today.

T= Tone of three
For example:

And while some pathways in our brains will deteriorate with the decline of
handwriting, we’ll develop new ones as we swipe, double-click, and
abbreviate our way into the future.

I have stuck with them through thick and thin (let’s be real, more so the
latter) — cried for them, sacrificed sleep for them, and suffered a handful
of anxiety attacks for them.
The tone of three is also called the “list of three”. This is the term we use when we use three
verbs or adverbs to create an effect. For example, swipe double-click, and abbreviate. These are
three verbs used together to create an effect.
Look at cried, suffered, and sacrificed. This is called the tone of three. They are used with
specific intent and effect. Among which is the reader to understand the depth of the message
that the writer is trying to convey.
H= Humour
For example:

There was no sign of scippatori, the famous bad snatchers on Vespas, who
doubtless sensed that all they would get was some dirty underpants, half a
bar of chocolate and a tattered copy of H.V. Morton’s A Traveller in
Southern Italy.

You writing should make the reader smile and laugh. Sometimes the writers talk about a serious
issue. Now if you want to make your environment lighter and not tensed up, you use humour.
Give chance to your audience to laugh a little bit.

I= Idioms and colloquial language

For example:

The findings go against the widespread belief that environmental issues

have hit home with today’s young adults.

I have stuck with them through thick and thin ( let’s be real, more so the
latter)

These are informal expressions. They are needed to make the writing friendly and easily
accessible to the target audience. For example, if you are addressing young people, you must
use the language according to them. The language that they are used to in their day-to-date
life. Remember that use of idioms pulls the reader’s interest.
 Q= Quote from expert
For example:

“A lot of young people also simply don’t spend that much time exploring
nature,” said Beth Christensen, a professor who heads an environmental
studies Programme at Leads.

When you are arguing about something, trying to get a room in the reader’s mind, of course, a
quote acts as proof— it is a base.
D= Direct Addressing using the word “you”
For example:

What is more, you will never find a child who can write but can’t read.

If anything, you claimed isn’t true, it could spell disaster.

It is a good weapon to engage a sleeping audience. They feel that you are directing it to them.
Use the word, “you”. This is a hook. It draws the audience’s focus. Here the audience feels that
someone is talking to them. This makes them focus.

I= Inclusive Pronoun
For example:

However, as we become more dependent on computers, and as speech

recognition software improves accurately transcribing dictation, I begin to
have a black vision of a whole generation that can read but can’t write by
hand.
It is similar to the personal pronoun, “we”. When the writer represents himself and other
people with the word, “we”. But if the writer includes the reader, it becomes an inclusive
pronoun. The use of, “we” should always represent the writer and his or her audience. Here,
the audience will feel interested. The audience will feel that the writer is caring about them.
This is a great option to make the writing engaging.
S=Statistics
For example:

But phones do more than simply text, of course. More than 80% of phone-
owning teens also use them to take pictures. Sixty percent listen to music
on them, 46% play games, 32% swap videos, and 73% access social
networking sites, mostly Facebook — 50% more than three years ago.

Statistics give support to the writer’s claim. Statistics and facts do the same thing. They give
support to the writer’s claim. It can also be called numerical data. The information that carries
the numbers is referred to as statistics. This creates a positive vibe in the reader that the claim
may be true. This works as a reference.

C= Command Sentences
For example:

Be realistic. If your child is struggling to keep up with their school work,

are they going to be able to cope with the demands of a job?

Don’t just exist — do something!

It is another way of persuading your audience. When you use such phrases, they keep telling
the reader to do something. This feeling catches them aware as they read. This is a good option
to be used in your writing.
Note:
The following may be used:
a) Bullet points
 b) Subheadings
c) Linking words: AVOID the following linking word, to sum up. This is completely prohibited while
writing an article in a chapter of the conclusion.
d) Use topic sentences while writing. These are better than subheadings. These help the reader to
know what each paragraph is about. It is a plan sentence. It is just shifted and built up.

CONCLUSION

Like your introduction, your conclusion should be shorter and smarter. Remember that the last
impression matters as well.

State what you want. Do you want to summarise your article? Do you want to reader to think about
something? Do you want to give your own opinion? Always refer to your purpose of writing in the
conclusion chapter.

Style of an effective conclusion

 Refer back to the opening statement that you used. i.e. if journalists don’t use their pens
professionally, what will happen in the future?
 Look into the future.
 Suggest a new angle. Everything is seen by the individual from a new angle. Make suggestions
 Make an original observation. It is similar to making a new angle.
 Make a humorous comment. Leave the reader laughing. Comment something humourous.
 Quote a famous saying. Be sure that if you use a quote in the introduction, don’t use it again
because they may both look similar.
 Leave a question. It should leave the reader thinking. It may be used as suspense.

Example 1:
ARTICLE on Pollution
Possible introduction

POLLUTION: ITS WORST

Be honest. How often do you daydream about being at the wheel of
an open-topped sports car when you would be revising your
business studies? But it is high time we thought about how cars
pollute the environment.

Possible Conclusion

So, when you do actually get behind you own steering wheel, remember
to consider the environment. Happy driving!
Example 2:
ARTICLE on studying abroad
Possible introduction

TROUBLE ABROAD
Are you among the baffled persons who are fascinated as well
hesitant about studying abroad? Stay cool! Some early attempts to
deal with the common foreign issues may get you into your
contentment.

Possible Conclusion

Your sprout of dream is of ahead you. Let it not decay but flourish. Abroad
studying is going to be amazing!

The above conclusion samples are shorter and smarter. Look at the reference of, “you”. Keep
this in mind always.