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How to Write a News Story

Newspaper article outline, how to write a news story in 15 steps.

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The Purdue Owl : Journalism and Journalistic Writing: Introduction

From Scholastic: Writing a newspaper article

Article outline

I. Lead sentence

Grab and hook your reader right away.

II. Introduction

Which facts and figures will ground your story? You have to tell your readers where and when this story is happening.

III. Opening quotation 

What will give the reader a sense of the people involved and what they are thinking?

IV. Main body

What is at the heart of your story?

V. Closing quotation

Find something that sums the article up in a few words.

VI. Conclusion  (optional—the closing quote may do the job)

The following is an excerpt from The Elements of News Writing by James W. Kershner (Pearson, 2009).  This book is available for checkout at Buley Library (Call number PN 4775 .K37 2009, on the 3rd floor)

1.       Select a newsworthy story. Your goal is to give a timely account of a recent, interesting, and significant event or development.

2.       Think about your goals and objectives in writing the story. What will the readers want and need to know about the subject? How can you best tell the story?

3.       Find out who can provide the most accurate information about the subject and how to contact that person. Find out what other sources you can use to obtain relevant information.

4.       Do your homework. Do research so that you have a basic understanding of the situation before interviewing anyone about it. Check clips of stories already written on the subject.

5.       Prepare a list of questions to ask about the story.

6.       Arrange to get the needed information. This may mean scheduling an interview or locating the appropriate people to interview.

7.       Interview the source and take notes. Ask your prepared questions, plus other questions that come up in the course of the conversation. Ask the source to suggest other sources. Ask if you may call the source back for further questions later.

8.       Interview second and third sources, ask follow-up questions, and do further research until you have a understanding of the story.

9.       Ask yourself, “What’s the story?” and “What’s the point?” Be sure you have a clear focus in your mind before you start writing. Rough out a lead in your head.

10.   Make a written outline or plan of your story.

11.   Write your first draft following your plan, but changing it as necessary.

12.   Read through your first draft looking for content problems, holes, or weak spots, and revise it as necessary. Delete extra words, sentences, and paragraphs. Make every word count.

13.   Read your second draft aloud, listening for problems in logic or syntax.

14.   Copyedit your story, checking carefully for spelling, punctuation, grammar, and style problems.

15.   Deliver your finished story to the editor before deadline.

Kershner, J.W. (2009). The Elements of News Writing. Boston, MA: Pearson Education.

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  • Last Updated: Jan 23, 2024 5:13 PM
  • URL: https://libguides.southernct.edu/journalism

How to Write a News Story

Writing a news story can be intimidating, especially when you’re first starting out in the business of journalistic writing. Where do you begin? How do your phrase your sentences? How do you conduct interviews? How do you avoid committing the holy grail of all sins – telling a lie?

There are plenty of dos and don’ts in journalism. But, when it comes to actually crafting a story, you need to focus on the task at hand. Rather than worrying about what you might be doing wrong, you need to focus on what you should be doing right.

To help you, I’ve made a list of seven steps. At the end of the day, these steps are going to lead you to writing a quality, 4.0 article.

1. Choose a Recent, Newsworthy Event or Topic

There are a few points that we need to discuss when it comes to this step. The first of which is, of course, knowing when something is newsworthy and when something is not.

A newsworthy story is anything happening in your community that might interest readers. It should be unique, active, and impactful. For example, covering a business (if it isn’t new or offering any particular changes) isn’t particularly newsworthy, especially if it’s always been there. But covering a new business in the area is absolutely newsworthy, and will bring the company to the attention of your readers.

Second, we need to talk about recent events. It doesn’t do a newspaper any good to cover an event that happened a week ago. The community has already moved on. They’re talking about something else. You need to focus on the here and now, especially if you’re writing a news story. What stories can you break to the public before anyone else has the chance? Remember, you aren’t writing a feature story . You need to do something that’s happening now.

And, finally, we need to touch on the idea of “locality”. If you’re writing for a small, community newspaper, you need to focus your coverage on that community. Of course, you can touch on countrywide or worldwide events, but those stories need to take a backseat to what’s going on in your area. If you cover statewide news, the same situation applies. You should only be covering worldwide events if they have an impact on your particular audience.

With that being said, let’s talk about interviews.

2. Conduct Timely, In-Person Interviews with Witnesses

The hardest part about writing a news story is getting interviews with the right people. If there was a robbery at a local grocery store, you’d need to talk to the store manager and, if possible, the cashier or employee involved. You should not ask a family that shops at the store frequently (unless they were witnesses) or a random community member. These interviews are cop-outs; gimmicks that keeps you from asking for hard answers from key witnesses. And, as always, these interviews need to happen as soon as possible (all the while giving the interviewees time to deal with the problem/event that faces them).

3. Establish the “Four Main Ws”

Within your first paragraph, you need to establish the “who”, “what”, “when”, and “where” of your piece. The “why” and “how” can wait until the following paragraphs. Remember, a journalism piece should look like a pyramid. The most important information goes at the top. The rest is spread throughout the remaining column space.

how to write a newspaper story

4. Construct Your Piece

Now that you have the materials that you need to continue, start putting your piece together. Start with the necessary information, and let the rest trickle down. You’ll start to get a feeling for this process as you continue to write journalistically.

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5. Insert Quotations

Some writers choose to add quotations as they write. Others decide to add their quotations at specific points in the story, after it’s already been developed. Either way, place your quotes and be sure to identify key people in the story by their full name, occupation, and age.

6. Research Additional Facts and Figures

When your story is nearly done, utilize Google and find additional interesting facts and figures that will make your piece stand out from the pack. Remember, you will nearly always be competing with another news source, and you’ll both be trying to feed your information to the same audience. Add that extra touch. You’re going to need it.

7. Read your Article out Loud Before Publication

I always suggest that writers read their articles out loud before submitting to their professor or editor. It helps with sentence structure, phrasing, and the overall flow of your story.

With that being said, venture forth and find a story. And don’t worry too much about making connections – after you’ve written a couple dozen news stories, the information will come to you.

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Table of Contents

Collaboration, information literacy, writing process, news story (journalism).

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Journalism Image

JOURNALISM: Gathering Information and Writing Your Story

University of Delaware Professor Ben Yagoda defines journalism as, “uncovering timely and previously not well-known information that, according to agreed-upon standards, is important; and conveying it to the public clearly, accurately, concisely, disinterestedly, and independently.” As a journalist, the stories you write are meant to provide true facts to readers about issues or news going on in the world today. They are meant to be truthful, unbiased, and informative. According to Peter Cole, a writer for The Guardian “journalists write stories for their readers to tell them what is going on, to inform them, engage them, entertain them, shock them, amuse them, disturb them, and uplift them.”

This webtext is an overview of the necessary skill sets to be successful in journalism, specifically, gathering information through interviews and asking the right questions. Readers will also learn how to organize that information and turn it into written work that includes unbiased writing, credible sources, and proper structure.

Gathering Information

The first step to writing a story involves gathering information about your topic. In order to do so, you need people who witnessed the event first hand or have extensive knowledge on said topic. In writing, especially in journalism, the information you use is the heart of your writing. Perhaps without details, sources, evidence, one’s writing will not have the intended impact of informing your audience.

Conducting an Interview

When interviewing someone related or involved with a story, you are receiving information from primary sources. Before you begin interviewing someone, you need to make sure you know what questions to ask and how to ask them. Plan your interview as best you can and think carefully about the topics you want to cover. It would be helpful to write your questions out beforehand if you have time.

Questions to ask yourself before the interview:

  • What do you know and what do you need to know?
  • What are you trying to inform your audience about?
  • What are some of the outcomes? Not everyone will like your story or the topic you choose to write about so be prepared for negative feedback. Be aware of any ethical issues pertaining to your topic as well.

Rich Martin author of the book, “Living Journalism”, who has more than 30 years of reporting and teaching experience, offers his advice about interviewing. These are some questions adopted from his list:

  • What organizational policies or professional guidelines should you consider?
  • How can you bring people with different perspectives and ideas into your decision making?
  • Who will be affected by your decision? Think about your topic and who will be reading about it.
  • How would you feel if roles were reversed and you were the subject of the story?
  • Are there ways to minimize harm while remaining true to the facts of the story?

Once you have answered these questions and feel as though you know a lot about the subject of matter then you can consider questions that you want to find out from the person you are interviewing. It’s a given that you want to hear all sides of the story to prevent a biased opinion , but also keep in mind that there may not always be two sides to a story, so do your research. University of Delaware Professor of Journalism Ben Yagoda refers to this instance as False Equivalency. He refers to this example:

  • The flu vaccine. The question parents are asking themselves is should or shouldn’t my child get the flu vaccine? Reporters may think there are two sides of this story and the truth lies in the middle, but it doesn’t. “That would be saying that only a portion of children should get the flu vaccine when medical reports prove that all children should,” says Yagoda.

With this in mind, think carefully about your topic to your story and whether it’s apparent or not that there’s two sides to look into. If so, plan for multiple interviews because as a journalist you do not want to have a biased opinion. If there is only one side of the story then do the research and interview accordingly.

Here are a few examples of types of questions you can use (adapted from Rich Martin). We have further explained underneath each type.

  • Ask open-ended questions: This means questions that have no fixed limit or that require your subject to provide details. Example: Do you like animals and why? As opposed to a closed-ended question that only requires one word answers. Example Do you like animals?
  • Avoid charged language or loaded words: This means questions that are not biased or come across to the subject as trying to persuade them towards a particular viewpoint. Your questions should not sound tough, but they should probe and issue.
  • Keep your questions short and focused: Don’t overload them with details that will allow the subject to answer selectively.

Good questions illuminate issues and capture the personality and character of the people you’re writing about. Also when interviewing someone, you need to be sure to explain who you are and what your job is. Journalism is about directness, precision, clarity, and not about confusing people. Questions are supposed to get answers. Questions that fail to get answers are not tough enough.

Tips on questions to ask the interviewee according to Yagoda:

  • Ask follow-up questions-which are sometimes the most important: Example: Yagoda read a story and in it the reporter quoted that his interviewee, “once drank a fine wine that helped him remember a specific memory”. There was nothing further on the subject and Yagoda wanted to know more about what was stated in the quotation. He says, “This would be an example of an opportunity to ask a follow up question so the readers aren’t left with questions. What was the type of wine he drank? What was the memory?
  • Do not just read off all the questions you have prepared.
  • If something the interviewee says is surprising or not clear then ask to explain further.
  • If another topic is brought up ask about that as well.
  • Educate yourself on the general topic.

After the questions are prepared and you feel confident about them, remember these final tips about conducting your interview:

  • Be Yourself. Don’t act out of character.
  • Choose the right setting. Offices and homes are both appropriate and convenient to conduct interviews. Outdoors is also convenient if the story calls for it, but it can be noisy.
  • Tap into your subject’s ability to remember the details of the event or situation.
  • Always ask why in order to fully understand what is being said.
  • Take notes.
  • Don’t be late.
  • Dress appropriately

Interviews can be a multifaceted tool not just restricted to Journalism. They can also be used to help strengthen other forms of writing such as argumentative or research. Using interviews in this form of writing may prove to be more difficult than in Journalism due to the fact that Journalism is based on other people’s accounts of an event and stories, while other forms of writing are based on other things such as data and research. An interview adds multiple points of view to help inform the reader of the topic and allow them to create their own opinion. If you are able to conduct an interview with a reliable source, it is strongly advised to do so as this will help strengthen your writing.

Using Credible Sources

One of the most important things in any form of writing when using an outside source is to make sure they are credible. A credible source is someone or a group of people respected in their fields of study. A Harvard Law professor is going to be a more credible source than a freshman at your local community college when looking for information about law, for example. If even one of the sources that you cite in your work is not credible, every single one of the other sources in that piece will be called into question. Credible sources are not hard to come by, but you must take the extra time to make absolutely sure that nothing your sources are saying could be called into question for credibility.

According to Purdue University’s Online Writing Lab, there are a few questions you can ask yourself to determine if your sources are credible. Below, we expanded on some of these questions to better understand them.

1.     Who is the author?

A credible author is going to be someone that has extensively studied the specific field you are writing about or need information about. Not only that, but they also will cite all of their sources in which you can check those as well for validity and backing to what your original author has written. This is also a great chance to find more possible sources to further your story.

2. How recent is the source?

The time in which a certain source was published will be important depending on what your topic is. A perfect example for this is found in the Purdue OWL which states that while information on the Civil War may be very old but still accurate, more modern topics such as computers or engineering must have more recent sources to stay relevant,

3. What is the author’s purpose?

A very important thing to keep in mind when deciding to use a source or not is what the standpoint of that source is. Is it neutral or is it biased to one particular side? This can be very detrimental to your writing if you only choose sources that limit your information to one side of a debate.

4. What type of sources does your audience value?

What this question essentially means is that you need to write to your audience, so you should use sources that could be respected by your audience. Peer-reviewed journals and research logs would be a good source for academics and professionals, but people in your hometown might not value that as much as a mainstream source of information.

Writing a News Story

Now that you have asked the questions, checked the sources, and have all of your information gathered, it is time to write the story. Peter Cole says that journalistic writing is different than creative writing. A journalist’s goals are to inform readers about what’s going and to adhere to just the facts. What sets journalism apart from other forms of writing is not only the eye-catching titles and lead sentences, but also the focus on human interest that makes the reader feel close to the story. These are crucial tools to incorporate into your writing for successful journalism.

Structure of a Story

Before you begin writing your story you need make sure you organize your information. This means picking out key points and quotes from interviews, investigative notes and observation to support your story topic. Unlike an academic essay, the most important information should be in the beginning of your story and supporting facts throughout the rest of it. Matthew Speal, writer for Freelance Writing, and Jim Hall, author of “Beginning Reporting,” highlight some key points to keep in mind when writing a news story:

“The Lead” can be one to two sentences in the opening paragraph or a separate introduction. It is used to grab the reader’s attention and persuade them to keep reading, making it the most important part of the story. There are two main types of leads-direct and delayed. A direct lead, also called a summary lead, immediately reveals what the story is about. It answers the questions; who, what, where, why, and how in a couple sentences. A delayed lead sets the mood of the story rather than answering the what, where, why, and how questions right away. This lead can be used to create anticipation and gives the reader a reason to keep reading.

Heart of the Story:

When writing your story you need to be sure you’ve answered the following questions previously mentioned. Using this structure will help you to avoid any conflict pertaining to a lack of information. You also need to make sure your story flows together and is easy for the subject to read. Using quotes, an active voice, and short sentences are important as well.

Conclusion:

Two ways to end a story are with a quote and a circle ending. A circle ending means you return to a key point or idea mentioned in the lead. Find a quote that ties your story together and draw a conclusion from it.

Non-Biased Writing

One of the single most difficult things for a journalist to do is write their story without bias. Bias is the showing of favoritism towards a specific topic or view point. As a journalist, you will be faced with a wide variety of topics to write about; some of these topics you may have never heard of, while others may personally affect you or a loved one. Writing a story without bias is difficult because if that topic personally affects you, your first instinct will be to write to persuade the audience. This, however, is not the job of the journalist. A journalist’s job is to truthfully inform the public about the facts of the story.

We conducted an interview with advertising student Nikki Marini of West Virginia University who also works at The Daily Athenaeum, West Virginia’s school newspaper. During this interview, Marini was asked about her thoughts on non-biased journalism. She advises the following:

1.     Your first obligation is to the truth and your first loyalty is to the public. By this Marini means that it is up to the journalist to bring the unbiased truth to the public.

2. Avoid making generalizations with potentially controversial subjects. Instead of using the word “all” use “some,” or “often” instead of “always.”

3. As you work through the writing process, try to remind yourself of the assignment you were given. With each sentence you add, ask yourself whether you are including it to better the article or to better argue your personal opinion on the topic.

4. Collaboration is key. When working on a story, you are sure to have some form of copy editor that will look over your work when you are done writing. A copy editor is someone who checks spelling, grammar, punctuation, and overall appearance of your story. Inform this person that you feel as though you may have been biased in your writing and they will be able to take a neutral look at your writing.

Example of bias writing from The New York Times

(The example below was directly quoted from The New York Times ):

Journalism can be an incredibly informative and useful form of writing as long as the proper information gathering and writing techniques are employed. The most important thing to remember when writing is that you are writing with a goal of informing the public. Doing so requires that you include facts, not opinions, and provide as much information from both sides of any given issue as possible.

For more information regarding these topics click the links below.

  • http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp (Society of Professional Journalists)
  • http://www.thedaonline.com/ (The Daily Athenaeum, West Virginia University school newspaper).

Brevity – Say More with Less

Brevity – Say More with Less

Clarity (in Speech and Writing)

Clarity (in Speech and Writing)

Coherence – How to Achieve Coherence in Writing

Coherence – How to Achieve Coherence in Writing

Diction

Flow – How to Create Flow in Writing

Inclusivity – Inclusive Language

Inclusivity – Inclusive Language

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How to Write a News Story

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How to Write a News/Feature/Culture/Opinion

The Crossover , a Champlain College publication, showcases four different types of journalistic stories: news, features, culture, and opinion. These four pieces are distinct, and it’s important to know the differences between them and how to increase your skills in each type of story.

One of the most important parts of writing a news story is to keep it objective. Because you’re labeling it as a news piece, people are expecting all of the information to be accurate. As soon as you place any opinions into a news piece, it becomes biased and potentially inaccurate. The Crossover often includes stories about relevant happenings on campus, within our local community, or even at a national level. The goal of a news piece is to inform people about what’s going on around them, while keeping your own thoughts on the situation out of the story. Injecting opinion, even subtle shades of opinion, into a news story is known as “editorializing.” Too much editorializing and a news piece should not be called a news piece. A strong example of this type of a news story is, “ Center for Community and Social Justice Arises at Champlain College .”

Features are stories that include in-depth research, careful planning, and human interest. Often, people classify features as “soft news,” meaning they may not be as pressing as news stories but are still relevant and present different perspectives on specific topics. News stories typically address the basic questions about an event, such as who, what where, when, why and how, whereas features take a wider and deeper view or an event, offering a fuller context. Features sometimes draw relevance from a connection to a trend or news event (sometimes referred to as a “news peg,” of the answer to the question of ‘why publish a story about this now?’ See “So what?” in this resource on pitching stories .)  Editors often require features to be longer than news stories. A great feature example is, “ Amy Coney Barrett was elected to the Supreme Court. What does this mean? ”

You don’t see culture pieces in every news publication, but they definitely play a big role in The Crossover because it is the most popular story section. It allows for reporting on local happenings, as well as stories like reviews and listicles (a piece of writing executed in the form of a list, such as “ 16 Times Actors Were Intentionally Caught By Surprise For The Sake Of Getting A Great Scene ” from Buzzfeed.) Champlain students enjoy this section because it allows them to get a wide range of thoughts from students, and it allows them to engage with student events and affairs. Two solid culture examples are posted on The Crossover site: “ A Professor’s-Eye View on Fall 2020 ” and “ Six Music Videos Made During Quarantine .”

Opinion pieces express the views of the person writing them. When writing an opinion piece, it’s important to keep in mind that your argument will be stronger if it is backed up by research and other opinions. Even if those opinions are different than yours, it’s good to have a counter-argument to show why your argument is correct. Opinion pieces often stir up other commentaries and arguments, so it’s important to provide accurate supporting information. An exemplary opinion piece is: “ Attending College From My Bed .” The Crossover’s most debated and commented-on opinion piece is: “ Why It’s Not Okay to Be White .”

It’s important to understand what any publication is looking for before you submit a story. Pitching a story to an editor is a great way to gauge the kind of information the publication is looking for. It can also be a great way to ask questions and find new information about the publication and its mission.

How to Conduct an Interview

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How to Write a Newspaper Article

Last Updated: March 16, 2023 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Gerald Posner . Gerald Posner is an Author & Journalist based in Miami, Florida. With over 35 years of experience, he specializes in investigative journalism, nonfiction books, and editorials. He holds a law degree from UC College of the Law, San Francisco, and a BA in Political Science from the University of California-Berkeley. He’s the author of thirteen books, including several New York Times bestsellers, the winner of the Florida Book Award for General Nonfiction, and has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History. He was also shortlisted for the Best Business Book of 2020 by the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing. There are 11 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 326,402 times.

A newspaper article should provide an objective, factual account of an event, person, or place. Most newspaper articles are read quickly or skimmed by the reader, so the most important information should always appear first, followed by descriptive content that rounds out the story. By conducting research and following the correct organizational structure, you can create an informative newspaper article in no time.

Sample Articles

how to write a newspaper story

Conducting Interviews and Research

Step 1 Contact sources for the article.

  • Your sources should be experts in the field your article is focusing on, such as a certified professional, a professor, or an academic. You can use sources that have extensive experience or background in a field that relates to your article.
  • Sources like a witness to an event can also be useful, especially if they have first-hand experience of the topic you are covering.

Step 2 Conduct interviews with your sources.

  • You may need to conduct more than 1 interview with your sources, especially if they are a major source for the article. You can also send follow-up questions to your sources as needed.
  • You will need to transcribe your interviews by typing them up to ensure you quote your sources correctly. Having transcriptions will also make fact checking your article and backing up your sources much easier.

Step 3 Look up public information on the topic at your local library and online.

  • Make sure you cite the information properly in your article by noting the name or organization that provided the information. You should have credible sources to back up any claims or arguments made in the article.

Step 4 Fact check any statistics or numbers before you use them in the article.

  • If you are writing the newspaper article for an editor, they may require you to provide a list of your sources for the article to show you have fact checked your work.

Structuring the Article

Step 1 Create an engaging, informative headline.

  • For example, you may create a headline like, “Teen Girl Missing in Okotoks” or “Congress Stalls on Family Planning Bill.”
  • In some cases, it may be easier to save the headline for last, after you have written the article, so you know what the focus of the article is and can sum it up clearly.

Step 2 Open the article with a “lead” first sentence.

  • For example, you may write a lead like, "An outbreak of flu in San Francisco has led to 3 elementary school closings this week, according to school officials." Or, "A missing girl originally from Okotoks was found Monday in an abandoned cabin in the Minnetonka area, according to local police."

Step 3 Place information chronologically, starting with the most current, important details.

  • For example, you may write, “10-12 students have been diagnosed with the flu and health officials fear it could continue to spread if it is not contained.”

Step 4 Expand on key details in the rest of the article.

  • For example, you may write, “The teen girl was reported missing on Friday afternoon by her mother after she did not come home from a study date at a friend’s house. She is the second girl to be reported missing in the past 2 weeks from the Okotoks area.”

Step 5 Include at least 2-3 supporting quotations from sources.

  • For example, you may write, “‘The girl is shaken, but does not appear to have any serious injuries,’ stated local Police Chief Wilborn.” Or you may write, “According to a statement by school officials, ‘The shutdown will prevent the flu from spreading further and ensure the safety of our students.’”
  • Avoid using long quotes or more than 4 quotes in the article, as the reader may get confused or lost if there are too many quotations.

Step 6 End with an informative quote or a link to more information.

  • For example, you may write, “The girl’s mother expressed relief for her daughter and concern about her community, noting, ‘I just hope no other girls go missing in this area.’”
  • Or you may write, “Local health officials are urging parents to check the municipal health and wellness website, www.hw.org, for updates on when schools are able to reopen.”

Creating the Appropriate Voice and Tone

Step 1 Use specific, clear language that is easy to follow.

  • For example, rather than write, “The missing girl’s mother thought it had to do with school,” you may write, “The missing girl’s mother thought bullying at school may have caused her daughter’s absences.”

Step 2 Write in the active, third person voice.

  • For example, rather than write, “A press conference will be held by local police tomorrow to address the missing girls and the public’s concerns,” you may write, “Local police will address the missing girls and the public’s concerns in a press conference tomorrow.”

Step 3 Maintain an objective, informative tone in the article.

  • For example, if you're writing about two political candidates running against each other in an election, present both candidates in an equal light, rather than giving extra details about 1 candidate.
  • If you're writing an op-ed piece, it's okay to mix some of your opinions with the facts.

Polishing the Article

Step 1 Read the article aloud.

  • Reading the article aloud can also help you catch any spelling, grammar, or punctuation errors.

Step 2 Show the article to others for critique and feedback.

  • For example, you may ask others questions like, “Were you able to understand what happened, based on the information in the article?” “Was the language clear and easy to follow?” “Was the article well supported with sources and quotes?”

Step 3 Revise the article for voice, tone, and length.

  • If you are writing the newspaper article for a class, make sure it falls within the prescribed word limit for the assignment.

Expert Q&A

Gerald Posner

You Might Also Like

Write a News Article

Expert Interview

how to write a newspaper story

Thanks for reading our article! If you'd like to learn more about writing as a career, check out our in-depth interview with Gerald Posner .

  • ↑ https://guides.lib.vt.edu/researchmethods/interviews
  • ↑ https://www.csus.edu/indiv/o/obriene/art116/readings/guide%20for%20conducting%20interviews.pdf
  • ↑ https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2013/01/22/part-4-what-people-want-from-their-libraries/
  • ↑ https://settlement.org/ontario/daily-life/communication/ethnic-and-cultural-media/what-is-fake-news-and-how-to-stop-spreading-misinformation/
  • ↑ https://www.viasport.ca/communications-toolkit/module-4-how-write-engaging-sports-article
  • ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/subject_specific_writing/journalism_and_journalistic_writing/writing_leads.html
  • ↑ https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/735/05/
  • ↑ https://www.lib.sfu.ca/about/branches-depts/slc/writing/sources/quoting
  • ↑ https://lib.trinity.edu/in-text-citation-and-notes//
  • ↑ https://www.csus.edu/campus-safety/police-department/_internal/_documents/rwm.pdf
  • ↑ https://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/tech/evidence-based-practices/finalreport.pdf

About This Article

Gerald Posner

To write a newspaper article, gather all of your sources and verify any facts or sources you plan to use. Write an opening sentence that tells the readers the most essential details of the story. Write in third person, active voice, and maintain an authoritative tone throughout the article. Keep in mind the questions “Who,” “What,” “Where,” “When,” “Why,” and “How” when you’re writing your story, and try to answer as many of them as you can. When you’re finished writing the article, craft a short, engaging headline that tells readers what the article is about. To learn how reading your article out loud can help you proofread it, keep reading! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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Even the most confident of writers can use a few tips here and there. In fact, with the proper advice, you may never face a blank sheet of paper and fear the dreaded writer's block. That is because there are directions for penning a news article that will make the process much easier to engage in and complete. Remember, it is important for the news to be timely, otherwise, you will miss the boat, and someone else will get that scoop. So, in this article we invite you to learn all about the specifics of structuring and crafting a news story. You really are almost there – ready to enter the field of journalism with the proper education and skills that will make you a success! Remember, you are like the tens of thousands of other learners who are looking to break into journalism. You must remember that writing is a skill that will take you years to hone, but like all those before you – you are beginning at the beginning! That is, understanding the basic building blocks of writing leads and the structure of a story.

Figure Out The Lead – It Will Take Your Story in the Right Direction

A lead in news talk is the main point of a story. It's like a hook that captures your reader's attention and makes them want to delve into the rest of the story. It answers the question, "What is the point of this story and what is it about?" A direct news lead is the opening sentence or sentences in a story that give the reader the basic gist of what he or she will learn about in greater detail if her or she continues to read. It is the infamous 5 w's – who, what, where, when, and why. See if you can identify them in the following two news leads.

John Doe stole $5 million from the Bank of Canada on Wednesday, January 7 th at 2 p.m. Authorities say he took the money to support a long-time drug habit.

Who – John Doe

What – stole $5 million

Where – from the Bank of Canada

When – Wednesday, January 7 th at 2 p.m.

Why – to support a reported drug habit

The head of the Peruvian army, General Pedron, staged a military coup of the government on Friday, September 19 th , ousting Madame Sync and placing her entire cabinet under arrest. Pedron is said to have acted in response to a vote of no confidence by the Parliament for Sync's recent series of economic reforms.

Who – Pedron

What – staged a military coup

Where – in Peru

When – Friday, September 19 th

Why – after a vote of no confidence for current President Sync due to economic reforms

Do you see how easy it is to create a lead-in to a story that gives the reader the basic information that will be expounded on if he or she continues to read? The journalist should be practicing the development of leads on a regular basis. Whenever you are interviewing, note taking, or even looking for ideas for a story, you should be creating a potential lead in your mind – or on paper. Are you gathering information to write about a series of break-ins at elementary schools in the area? How's this for a lead?

Unknown assailants have illegally entered three grade school buildings in the last week, causing thousands of dollars in vandalism, and stealing electronic equipment.

Who – unknown assailants

What – staged robberies

Where – several elementary buildings

When – in the last week

Why – to cause vandalism and steal electronic equipment

Every story has a lead – as a journalist, it is your job to create it. When you do that, you are also engaged in is the process of organizing and developing your story! Now you try it. Here are the facts – create a lead yourself.

A parent-teacher organization meets monthly. The president of the group has pushed parents to work toward a higher cause – pressing families to become more involved in their children's academics. They have decided to form weekly homework clubs, where they meet at the school, the public library, and other public places to work collaboratively to help support their children's pursuit of academics. The teacher's report there has been a noticeable increase in the children's attendance, and improved grades.

Did you come up with any ideas? How about this:

Chaney Elementary School's PTO has formed a homework club for parents and students who meet weekly in public places to support their children's academic pursuits by collaborating on homework and assignments. Teachers claim there is a noticeable improvement in grades and attendance as a result.

Who – Chaney PTO

What – formed homework clubs

Where – public places

When – weekly

Why – to support their children's academic efforts

The more you practice, the better you will get at writing leads and summarizing the essence of a story into the 5 w's. You can do this while you are standing in line at the grocery store, sitting in traffic, or brushing your teeth! Before you know it – the process will be second nature and you will have mastered one of the most important basic skills of journalism.

Decide How You Want to Structure Your Story

As you prepare to bring your story to life, start by reviewing all of the notes you have taken on the subject. Then think about the ways it can be presented to your audience. Does it make more sense to present the information in a chronological order – explaining events from the beginning to the end? Or does the retelling seem best to fit in an hourglass, inverted pyramid, or narrative format?

The most popular writing format for news writing is called the inverted pyramid. This is arranging the information to appear in a descending order of importance. We will devote the remainder of this article to learning how to organize your information and present it succinctly – or without a lot of flowery language that slows the reader down. That is not to say there is not a time and place for adjectives that set the scene, only that most news stories are straight and to the point, with fancy writing relegated to the annals of fiction!

The first step in writing your news article is to get yourself organized. Start by reviewing the notes you have taken on the subject. Decide what information you think is the most important in the re-telling. Who are your most valuable resources? What is the focal point of the information?

This may be more difficult than it sounds. Consider this example. You have spent several weeks researching a tip that there has been some illegal dumping of toxic waste in a local stream. The person you interviewed expects total anonymity – so you have to find another way to confirm the story. That challenges you to determine who the sources for this story will be. Next, there are several different directions the story can take. Is it more important to uncover the culprits who are doing the illegal dumping – or should the story explain the problems this illegal dumping will cause the immediate community? How about the effect on the environment, short- and long-term? Maybe the story will turn into a series?

Getting organized means deciding the direction of your article, and you can have one or two starts before determining what fits best. Remember to use the 5 w's and this could help you frame the information. Who, what, where, when, and why – are the factors that will frame the story.

Other things to keep in mind? Well, how do you want the article to end; you have to know where you want to end up whenever you set out on a journey, and it is no different in the writing process. You might want to jot down a rudimentary outline to work from. Here is an example for the story on toxic waste dumping:

1. Illegal dumping has been discovered.

2. Unnamed sources refuse to be cited, but have identified the company involved.

3. Environmental experts called to the scene to verify presence of toxic material.

4. Feds are involved – task force formed.

5. Community should avoid using water source.

6. Keep you updated.

Now, this brief list – or outline – explains where you want to go with the story, and what information you want included. This outline can be used to drive more stories on the subject – perhaps focusing on one or two points, such as who is involved in the task force, why the sources refuse to be named, and how long the illegal dumping has been going on. It's up to you, as the journalist, to decide the direction of the story, what its focus will be, and what information is most important.

As the journalist, you should be able to cite the beginning, middle, and end -- and then add the details to fill in the story. There are conflicting opinions about whether or not to include all of the pertinent information early in the article. Some experts believe the writer should hold back some facts till later in the news story, so the reader will complete the article, while others remind the writer that they are not engaged in the art of fiction, and holding back mysterious details is not the stuff of news writing. Here you will have to decide what works best for you, and your writing style. There are simply no right or wrong answers on the issue. Keep in mind that news writing requires short paragraphs that contain a single idea in each. You are not vying for a prize in prose! You are engaged in factual recounting – and informing the public without bogging them down with unnecessary opinions and details. Also, keep all of the information on a subject together; don't jump around.

In other words, strive for clarity in everything you write. Readers will not stick with a story – nor a publisher with a journalist – if they cannot compose their thoughts clearly, and in a straight-forward manner. The reading public has an expectation of the news. Remember, readers do not pick up a newspaper or other form of journalism to be engaged for long periods of time. The entire point of news writing is to be informative and concise.

Now, there are opportunities for news journalists to compose longer pieces – such as for magazines or in-depth collections on a subject. But, as a rule, news is meant to be compact and encapsulated. If you intend to be successful in this industry – it is a skill you will need to master.

Let's Recap

Journalism demands that the writer have certain skills. The first of these, as it relates to structuring the story, is to organize the notes you have taken and the research you have done, looking for the direction the story should take. You can do this by outlining the main points of your notes, and shuffle the order until you have decided what the best direction for the article will be. Many times a story can go in several directions – and it is up to the writer to decide where to take it.

Aside from creating an outline, you can identify what you want to be the beginning, middle, and end of the story. This is very important. You have to know where you are going when you start the writing process, otherwise it could become confusing and incoherent. Journalists, more than any other type of writer, must be organized in their thinking and writing. Your readers will turn on you if you are not!

Aside from being organized, the journalist must have the ability to create a lead. This is a skill that you can become adept at with practice. The journalist need only make it a habit to think of things in terms of the 5 w's – who, what, where, when, and why. This is not necessarily the format for all other types of writing – such as fiction, non-fiction, suspense, or children's pieces. But for the journalist, it is essential. This is the skeleton for explaining to your reading audience the essence of your news article and what they will learn more about, if they read it in its entirety.

Finally, your language should be plain; you should only commit one idea to a paragraph; and you should be able to explain yourself in an organized, step-by-step fashion – otherwise you run the risk of losing your readers.

Structuring and Crafting the News Story - Part II

Every journalism school teaches beginning writers three structures for developing their news stories. You have probably read enough news in your life time that you are probably unconsciously aware of these formats, but have not had to put them to professional use just yet. By the time you have completed this section, you should be able to decide which structure you would use to write any type of article you are assigned in your career. The formats we will examine are the inverted pyramid, the narrative, the hourglass, and the chronological order pattern.

Inverted Pyramid

The inverted pyramid, as a journalistic style of writing, is said to be traced back to the Civil War in this country. When writers were attempting to telegraph their stories to people that needed to know the status of a battle, it was common for soldiers from the other side to sabotage the telegraph lines by cutting them. In order to ensure that the important news got through, writers got in the habit of putting the most important information first.

Today, the inverted pyramid is the most popular format for writing news stories. In this structure, the information is written in descending order, with the most important points appearing at the top of the article, and the lesser news written in a shorter, downward direction – ending at a fine point in the manner of a pyramid that is turned upside down. In a pyramid, the strongest, widest part is usually at the bottom, serving as a base for the rest of the shape, but in a news story, your strongest point is at the top -- or beginning -- and this forms the basis of the rest of the article.

In other words, you lead with your main ideas, and the remaining paragraphs support and explain them – giving greater detail to the classic "who, what, where, when, and why." It is not only the writer that tends to rely on this structure for framing their article, readers have come to expect it, as well, realizing that the headlines of the story will appear first, and supporting details will be delivered in descending order, with the least valuable or necessary information in the final paragraph or paragraphs.

Now, the writer should know that this does not necessarily make for good writing overall. It is not necessarily the way that other types of writing are done. However, it is the classic journalistic writing style that serves the writer and reader best.

See if you can put the following facts in an inverted pyramid order as practice for using this structure.

There will be a public forum at City Hall on November 1 st .

The city is planning on turning all four-way stops into traffic circles.

Many citizens are upset with the idea.

In inverted pyramid form it would read like this:

The city is planning on turning all four-way stops into traffic circles. Many citizens are upset with the idea. There will be a public forum at City Hall on November 1 st .

It is possible to state that all of that information is important – but the manner in which it is written makes the most sense and gives the reader the scoop in descending order of importance. To put those sentences in any other order would confuse the reader.

Let's try another one.

Snow removal will occur between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m.

It was the heaviest snowfall to hit the city this year.

Schools were closed and many people are snowed into their homes.

Fifteen inches of snow fell between the hours of 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. today.

Fifteen inches of snow fell between the hours of 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. today. It was the heaviest snowfall to hit the city this year. Schools were closed and many people are snowed into their homes. Snow removal will occur between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m.

The fact that over a foot of snow fell in a short period of time is the clincher of this story. The interesting thing about news is that even if people are experiencing it – they still like to read about it! It makes them feel that they are part of the story. The rest of the information flows and is presented in descending order – the big news is the amount of snow the area received.

We are going to try one more, and then we will look at other story structures.

The highway is expected to be closed to traffic through the end of the year.

Traffic will be rerouted to allow for construction.

As a result, six miles of the I-95 corridor is going to be rebuilt, starting June 2 nd .

The legislature has approved a $3 million expenditure for road construction.

Well, people like to stay informed about road construction and how the legislature is spending your hard earned tax dollars. So this story has merit. But how to frame it? Try this:

The legislature has approved a $3 million expenditure for road construction. As a result, six miles of the I-95 corridor is going to be rebuilt, starting June 2 nd . The highway is expected to be closed to traffic through the end of the year. Traffic will be rerouted for construction.

The story flows. You learn that the legislature is acting, and your highway will undergo construction that will last for months, causing traffic to be rerouted. The necessary information appears in descending order, but the order could be changed, depending on the focus of the story. For example – if you were doing a story that focused on all of the highway construction the area is expected to suffer through in the coming months, then you might lead with the line about I-95 and list other roads that were going to be affected. Or, maybe you might want to do a story about the fact that there are a number of roads that will be rerouted and the paths they'll take. But for now, with the information you have – the application of the inverted pyramid fits.

Remember, as a journalist your job is to get the information to the public in the most direct way possible. That is what makes the inverted pyramid so popular. It tells the reader what they want to know as quickly as possible, in the beginning of the news article, and also forces the journalist to identify what is the most important element or elements of a story – in descending order.

In journalism, the first paragraph that contains the most important information is also known as the 'lede' – and that is how it is spelled. It underscores the structure of news writing, using the inverted pyramid format, placing the most important information at the beginning – or lede – paragraph. If you are going to be a journalist, this is a writing style you must master.

Now, let us consider the narrative structure.

A narrative is storytelling. It is recounting an incident with the intent of touching the reader's heart. While it is not hard-hitting news, it is the path of most human interest stories, and quite common in journalism. The narrative takes the form of story or book writing in that it provides a beginning, middle, and end. There is no inverted pyramid to be found in this writing structure, and there is greater license to use flowery language that reaches and influences the reader. A narrative helps the reader create a mental image of the story by describing the main character, or characters, and incorporating dialogue and action. It is not the proper format if you are trying to deliver information. Rather, it is a way to share with readers an experience or event that an individual may have endured – with perhaps a lesson to be learned along the way.

For example, there are many human interest stories on people who have suffered and lived through diseases such as cancer. Human interest stories have been written on the struggles of the underdog – such as a youth who has lived through gang violence, or a mother who returned to school to finish her degree, so she could provide her children with a better life. There are simply no parameters to the human interest story, and people tend to gravitate to them as readers, because they are heartwarming and inspirational. They almost need to be sprinkled into the hard hitting news to prevent readers from turning away altogether; after all, even the hardiest of us can only take so much bad news.

See if you can choose which of the following ideas would make a good narrative.

War in Afghanistan

Supreme Court docket

Child starting lemonade stand to get money for sick sibling

Fire in a deserted warehouse

No doubt, you – the ace journalist – recognize the only one of those ideas that has the potential for a narrative is the child starting a lemonade stand.

As a journalist, one of the first lessons we discussed was gathering ideas for news stories. You should keep a separate section of ideas for human interest stories, and add to it as you go through your career. There are times when you may want, or need, to write something that inspires and uplifts your audience, and, for that matter, yourself. Writing good news is as important to the journalist as writing hard-hitting news.

Hourglass Structure

The hourglass is not as commonly used an organizational style in journalism - reserved for writing longer stories, such as feature articles for a Sunday edition. It begins by asking a broad question, then narrows it down by providing information, such as facts and figures and observations; then the scope of the story broadens again by offering conclusions and then generalizing back to the question. An hourglass structure actually incorporates several journalistic styles at the same time.

The hourglass structure is interesting, because it is actually a mix of styles. First, there is the strong lead in – typical of the inverted pyramid. But then the story turns to a more narrative style, returning to the inverted style at the end. The order follows this framework:

lead – important facts – transition – important facts – conclusion

Like an hourglass it is weighted down on either end, with a narrowing in the middle where the journalist inserts a transition point to the story.

Basics of the hourglass include the following:

Open with a lead that also summarizes where the article is headed.

Develop the story using facts in descending order of importance.

Build in a transition halfway through the article.

Again, continue the second half of the story with facts in descending order of importance.

Draw to a conclusion – that could lead back to the opening.

Use interesting language – as this is a longer article.

The hourglass structure summarizes the news, and then shifts it to narrative form. The top of the hourglass provides the most important information. Then a transitional phrase of some sort is offered – telling the reader that the format is about to change to narrative form, and this part can contain dialogue and details.

As you can tell – the hourglass structure challenges the journalist to have greater command of writing. It requires the journalist to be able to compose hard-hitting news and narratives, and blend them seamlessly for the reader's enjoyment.

Chronological order pattern

This writing structure speaks for itself. To put something in chronological order means to put it in order by the time the events occurred. Words such as first, next, and finally are apropos for this framework. A chronological structure has a place in journalism, but is not as popular as the inverted pyramid. It is common when journalists are explaining the order in which something occurred, such as a hurricane, tornado, earthquake, or other natural weather event – or, if the writer deems the most valuable way to relate the story is as it unfolded. Chronological order can be written in reverse order, as well.

Try this simple exercise: Put the events in order as they occurred.

The fire was extinguished at around 6 a.m.

An explosion rocked the building around 10 p.m. last night.

Firefighters arrived on the scene within minutes.

They battled the blaze for the next eight hours.

To put it in chronological order you would write it this way:

An explosion rocked the building around 10 p.m. last night. Firefighters were on the scene within minutes. They battled the blaze for the next eight hours. The fire was extinguished at around 6 a.m.

This same story could lend itself to an inverted pyramid, with additional facts. We know the what, when, and the where – but perhaps could use additional details to relate the who and the why. There are plenty of readers that might find telling this story via the inverted pyramid would be of more value than in chronological order.

Could you use the same information to write an hourglass structure? Certainly. Again, you would need access to some additional details – perhaps the history of the building, what people in the area experienced, what the cause of the fire could be, if there are similar incidents in the recent or distant past. There is a part of the reading public that would appreciate reading the story from this point of view, as well.

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  • Writing Tips

5 Tips for Writing a Great Lead for a News Story

5 Tips for Writing a Great Lead for a News Story

  • 5-minute read
  • 14th June 2021

A great lead (or “lede”) will set out the key points from a news story in the first lines. This helps to grab readers’ attention, as well as giving them the context they need to understand the story that follows. But how can you write a strong lead for a news or feature article? We have five simple tips to follow:

  • Consider the type of lead you want to use for your article.
  • Think about the “Five Ws and an H” to pinpoint the key details for your lead.
  • Use clear, concise language, avoiding jargon or unnecessary wordiness.
  • Resist puns and other newspaper lead clichés.
  • Test your lead by reading it out loud to see if it reads smoothly.

For more advice on writing a lead for an article , read on below.

1. Types of Leads

Article leads come in various forms. Three common examples include:

  • Summary leads are typically used when writing about current events. As the name indicates, summary leads aim to summarize the key details from a story. Usually, they are no more than one or two sentences long.
  • Anecdotal leads are two to three paragraphs long and most common in “feature” articles rather than news stories (e.g., profile or opinion pieces). They work by setting out an anecdote related to the story, helping to make it feel more personal or emotive. This is then followed by a nut graph , where you will explain how the anecdote relates to the main topic of the article.
  • Question leads start a story with a question, posed to the reader, about the topic of the article. This would then be followed by a summary.

The key here is to choose a type of lead paragraph that will work best for your news story. Traditionally, news focused stories start with a factual summary lead. Anecdotal and question leads, meanwhile, are great for more personal stories.

2. The Five Ws and H

In journalism, the Five Ws and H refer to six questions you should ask about the story you’re writing. These are also helpful when writing a lead for a story:

  • Who is involved or affected? Who will benefit or be harmed?
  • What happened? What is the article about in simple terms?
  • Where does/did/will it happen? Does the location affect what happened?
  • When does/did/will it happen? Is it relevant to the story?
  • Why did this happen? Why is it important?
  • How did it happen? How does it affect those involved?

Answering the questions above will help you pick out the most important details for the story, which you can then use as the basis for your lead. The story will then cover the other details in the rest of the story, starting with the most relevant points .

Even if you’re not writing a summary lead, considering the Five Ws and H is a good exercise! Picking out the most important details means you can then plan your lead to fit the story, as well as helping you to structure the overall article.

3. Use Clear, Concise Language

Article leads, especially summary leads, need to communicate the key details of a story in as few words as possible. This will usually mean:

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  • Using everyday language rather than jargon or buzzwords.
  • Writing in the active voice where possible.
  • Keeping sentences short (ideally, no more than 15 to 20 words).
  • Avoiding various forms of wordiness .
  • Omitting unnecessary details (e.g., if you know your readers will be familiar with the background information on a story, you can leave it out of the lead).

This is essential for summary leads, which may only be a few sentences long. But clear, concise language is valuable no matter what type of lead you’re writing.

4. Resist Puns and Other Clichés

Puns are a common trope in tabloid headlines . It may even be tempting to include one in your lead, but try to resist this urge! If nothing else, puns suggest a lack of seriousness, which could undermine the tone of the rest of the story.

But puns are also a cliché in article leads, so they should be avoided on that count, too. In fact, there are several clichéd leads you might want to avoid, including:

  • Dictionary leads (e.g., The dictionary defines X as… )
  • Time-related phrases (e.g., Since the beginning of time… )
  • “Good news, bad news” leads (e.g., The good news is… )
  • “Thanks to” leads (e.g., Thanks to the internet, we now… )

There are occasions where a pun or cliché might be appropriate. But it’s always worth thinking carefully about how such things will affect the tone of your story.

5. Test and Revise Your Lead

Finally, test your lead by reading it out loud. It should read clearly and smoothly. If you find yourself stumbling, look for minor changes you can make to improve it. This might mean cutting a few words or rephrasing the sentence slightly.

Don’t forget, too, that your lead is just part of a story! It is thus wise to revisit your lead once you’ve written the full article and tweak it to fit what you’ve written.

Expert Proofreading Services

If you are writing a news story or article, make sure to get it proofread! Our expert editors can help you polish and perfect your writing – leads and all – so submit a free trial document today to find out how our services work.

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How to Write a News Story: Definition, Structure, Types of the News Story

  • by Anastasiya Yakubovska
  • 21.06.2022 12.05.2023
  • How to write ...

The news story refers to the journalistic writing style that is used in the mass media: television, the Internet, newspapers, magazines, and radio.

Table of Contents

  • What Is a News Story 

Features of the News Story

Main functions of news.

  • The Inverted Pyramid Structure 
  • News Story Structure 

According to the method of writing, news stories are:

  • According to the scope, there are the following types of news:
  • According to the sequence:

According to the source ofinformation news stories are:

  • According to the content:
  • Minor forms of news stories:

What Is a News Story

News stories are widely used by the media to inform the audience about current, significant, and interesting events.

A news story is a journalistic presentation of a new event or fact.

Most often this is a short message. 

The news function is to answer the questions: what, where, and when happened.

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The features of the news stories are:

  • reliability of information;
  • minimal details;
  • news stories must be clear and easy to read;
  • attractive to all classes;
  • widely known terms ( exchange, broker, exchange rate, transaction, market );
  • the use of words and figures of speech that are typical for business writing style ( have activities, during the reporting period, take into consideration );
  • noun predominance;
  • sentences are usually complex. 

Example of News Story

News story “March For Our Lives: Tens of thousands rally for stricter US gun laws” (excerpt) :

Thousands of protesters are gathering across the US to call for stricter gun laws in the wake of last month’s mass shooting in Texas . Gun safety group March For Our Lives – founded by survivors of the 2018 Parkland school shooting – said some 450 rallies were planned for Saturday. It said it would not let politicians “sit back” as people continue to die. US President Joe Biden backed the protests, calling on Congress to “pass common sense gun safety legislation”. Nineteen children and two adults were killed in the 24 May shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas. That attack, and another days earlier in Buffalo, New York, in which 10 people were killed, has led to renewed calls for action on gun control in the US. bbc.com

The major function of the news stories , just like other texts related to journalism, is to provide information about some socially significant event. In addition, the news may contain assumptions, hypotheses, forecasts, recommendations, and regulatory and evaluation information.

The purpose of a news story is not only a detailed analysis of an event. The most important thing is to inform the mass addressee about an event that has happened or will only happen in the future. 

If the news needs to be covered in more detail, then the journalist can indicate the sources of information, add quotes and provide statistics.

How to Write A New Story: The Structure and Method of Writing

The inverted pyramid structure.

To write a news story, journalists use the traditional structure that is typical for the journalistic writing style: information is presented in descending order, that is, its value and importance decrease from the beginning of the text to its end. This way of writing news is called the inverted pyramid .

Inverted Pyramid structure in journalism

A news story written using the inverted pyramid structure consists of 4 parts:

  • Headline . The headlines of new stories in the media are most often quite informative – within 10 words. The heading itself usually illustrates the main idea of the news. 

For example:

“ Global markets fall after rough week on Wall Street; yen hits two-decade-low” 

2. Lead . The lead is the first or leading paragraph of the news story, the chapeau or abstract of the article, which outlines the main idea of the text, only the most valuable information.

“ Hong Kong/London (CNN Business)Global markets and US stock futures fell early Monday, indicating a downbeat start to the trading week after a broad sell-off on Wall Street following surprisingly strong US inflation data.”

3. The body of the text . It is a description of the event, details, evidence, photographs, quotes, etc.:

“ The Dow (INDU) plunged 880 points, or 2.5%, on Friday. The S&P 500 (SPX) shed 2.7% and the Nasdaq (NDX) dropped about 3%. The US consumer price index rose by 8.6% in May, raising fears that the Federal Reserve will have to act even more aggressively to try to tame price rises. The shockwaves were felt most acutely in Asia on Monday. Japan’s Nikkei (N225) closed down 3%, and the yen weakened to the lowest level in more than 20 years. The Japanese currency has declined rapidly in recent months because of a strong greenback and ultra-loose Japanese monetary policy. The Japanese central bank and government warned in a rare joint statement on Friday that they are concerned about the sharp falls, suggesting a potential intervention by Tokyo to stem the decline. The yen wasn’t the only Asian currency seeing a steep fall. The Indian rupee fell to an all-time low of 78.2 against the US dollar in early trade. Elsewhere in Asia, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng (HSI) fell 3.4% on Monday. Korea’s Kospi fell 3.5%. China’s Shanghai Composite (SHCOMP) was down 0.9%. In Europe, France’s CAC 40 (CAC40) dropped 2.47% in early trade, while Germany’s DAX 30 (DAX) was down 2.3%. The FTSE 100 (UKX) slipped 1.8%, while the pound slipped to $1.22 after new data showed the UK economy contracting for a second consecutive month in April. In the US, Dow futures were down 1.9% at 5.20 am ET. S&P 500 futures were down around 2.3%, while Nasdaq futures were down about 2.9%.

4. Ending . The final part of the news story is additional information, similar, interesting materials, and journalistic assessment. This part is optional. 

“The hangover from Friday’s US CPI data isn’t helped by concern about China walking back some of its economic reopening, or more dire economic data in the UK,” Societe Generale strategist Kit Juckes said in a research note. A number of neighborhoods in Shanghai faced another temporary lockdown at the weekend, as authorities launched mass testing just days after Covid restrictions were eased for most of its 25 million residents. Authorities in Beijing’s largest Chaoyang district announced Thursday the closure of all entertainment venues, just days after allowing their reopening. https://edition.cnn.com/2022/06/12/investing/global-stocks/index.html

News Story Structure

Usually, the journalist tells the reader:

  • About the event – what happened?
  • About time – when?
  • About the place – where?
  • About participants – who?
  • About the circumstances – how?
  • About the source of information – how is it known?
  • About the predicted development of the event – what happens next?

Which of these questions the journalist will answer in the text of the news story and the number of these questions will depend on the amount of information that he has and on the purpose of the news. These questions can be arranged in the most varied order, at the author’s discretion.

Another thing to keep in mind regarding whether the new event needs to be related to others that have already happened before and are widely known to the audience. In this case, the structure of the news story will be more complex, because it is necessary not only to talk about the event but also to connect this fact with the information already available.

How to Write a News Story: Types of News

Before you start writing, you need to decide in which genre you need to write, and what type of news story is suitable specifically for this news event.

So that you can quickly navigate and make the right choice, further in the article we will consider the types of news stories. 

There are two general types of news stories according to structure :

  • Informative or straight news. The aim is to give the facts of the news. 
  • Feature or human interest news story. The aim is to take material of little or no news value and make it interesting for the audience. 
  • Descriptive.
  • Expository.
  • Combination of these types. 

According to the scope , there are the following types of news:

  • Local: news story takes place within the immediate locality. 
  • National: news takes place within a country. 
  • Foreign: the event takes place out of the country. 
  • Dateline: news preceded by date and place of origin or the place when it was written. 

According to the sequence :

  • Anticipated news or announcement. An announcement is a message about upcoming events (for example, about the construction of new buildings).

Such news stories attract the public to visit various cultural events.

The main purpose of the announcement is to give brief but objective information about the time and aspects of the planned event, about its most important prerequisites and stages.

  • Spot news. News that gathered and reported on the spot. The journalist is the eyewitness to the event. Such type of news is reported immediately. 
  • Coverage news. News has been written from the given beat. 
  • Follow-up news. A sequel to the previous news story.
  • Interview story. 
  • Speech story. 
  • Quote story. Information is presented primarily through quotes. These news stories are based almost entirely on an interview or a speech. 
  • Fact story. 
  • Action story. A description of an event that involved a lot of motion. For example, war reports, competitions, and sports games reports. 

According to the content :

  • Science news. 
  • Police reports. 
  • Developmental news. 
  • Sports stories. 
  • Routine stories: celebrations, graduations, election stories reported year in and year out. 

Minor forms of news stories :

  • News brief. It is a short news broadcast. News briefs are a good way to describe events that do not need in-depth treatment. 
  • News bulletin. It aims to give the gist of the news. 
  • Flash news. Flash news is a bulletin that conveys the first word of the event. 
  • News-featurette. It is a short news feature usually used as filler. 

Used sources of information:

  • Types of News Writing. Willard Grosvenor Bleyer.
  • Campus Journalism and School Paper Advising Fourth Edition 1997. Ceciliano J. Cruz.
  • Style Palette. Textbook on Russian language style for foreigners. Authors: Nina Afanasyeva, Tatyana Popova .
  • Literary editing strategies. Authors: Zueva T. A., Ivanova E. N.
  • Russian language and speech culture. Authors: Tatyana Balykhina, Mikhail Rybakov, Marina Lysyakova.
  • Image: freepik.com

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Expert Commentary

How to write better business stories

Six tips for writing more compelling business stories

Republish this article

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License .

by Chris Roush, The Journalist's Resource August 22, 2011

This <a target="_blank" href="https://journalistsresource.org/home/writin-better-business-stories/">article</a> first appeared on <a target="_blank" href="https://journalistsresource.org">The Journalist's Resource</a> and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.<img src="https://journalistsresource.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/cropped-jr-favicon-150x150.png" style="width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;">

Many people don’t read business news, and for good reason. There’s nothing more boring than a story that uses a bunch of numbers in the lead without explaining what’s actually going on. But business news writing doesn’t have to be boring, or laden with numbers.

Like any other news article, the best business journalism tells a good story and entices the reader with a compelling lead. The best business journalists may use numbers in their leads, but they primarily use words to explain what’s going on. They write a story, not a balance sheet. The numbers are only there to support the thesis of the writing.

Here’s my advice to anyone writing business and economics story leads and wanting to make their prose sing:

  • Avoid an overabundance of numbers in one sentence or paragraph . My limit is usually two, but I sometimes will use three if they are simple concepts to understand. And avoid numbers in the lead. Instead, explain what’s happening with the company, or unemployment, in the lead, and then use the numbers in the second paragraph to back up what you wrote.
  • Use short sentences . No more than 35 words should be used in the lead of a business story. When I wrote about the embarrassing typo printed on two million 12-packs of Coca-Cola right before the 1996 Summer Olympics, the lead was, “What a difference one letter makes.” That’s only six words, but it got the point across.
  • Always lead with the “what,” be it a company, executive or product . That strategy forces you to write your lead using an active verb, and results in a direct sentence for the reader to understand. It also lets the reader know up front who or what the story is about.
  • Never put the time element before the verb in the lead . The verb tells the reader what the action is, and that’s what the reader wants. If you tell them when the action happened before the action has taken place in the sentence, then you just confuse them.
  • Avoid using names in the lead unless the person is well known . For example, this works best for the Atlanta media: “Doug Ivester, the chief executive officer of Coca-Cola Co., resigned Sunday amid disagreements with the board about the future direction of the company.” For everyone else, go with something shorter: “Coca-Cola Co.’s CEO resigned Sunday amid disagreements about the future direction of the company.”
  • Don’t use “funky” punctuation . You’re already asking a reader or listener to pay attention to something that may be foreign. A semi-colon, parentheses or a colon might just confuse them enough to make them stop reading and find something else to read. For example, don’t write this: “The CFO of a Fayetteville mining company resigned his job Tuesday; the company did not name a replacement.” Instead, go with this: “The CFO of a Fayetteville mining company resigned Tuesday amid allegations of inflated earnings.”

You can be the greatest business reporter of all time and find all kinds of amazing facts about companies or the economy. But unless you know how to put those facts together in a compelling series of words and sentences, your work will have gone to waste.

Chris Roush is the Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Scholar in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He can be reached at [email protected] .

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How to Write a News Article: Article Format/Narrative

  • What Is News?
  • How to Interview
  • The Intro or Lede
  • Article Format/Narrative
  • How To Write A Review
  • Writing News Style
  • Naming Sources
  • Revising/Proofreading
  • Photos/Graphics
  • The Future of News?

Article Formats

While some writers feel inhibited following a standard format, these forms help organize information so the reader can easily understand the topic even if they're just skimming the paper or website. They also help entice the reader to read further.

The Inverted Pyramid - First developed and widely used during the Civil War, the inverted pyramid is best suited for hard news stories. The article begins with the lede and presents information in order of descending importance. The most important information comes first, followed by less important details.

  • Pros and Cons of the Inverted Pyramid
  • The Inverted Pyramid Structure

The Hourglass - builds on the inverted pyramid and combines a narrative. It delivers breaking news and tells a story. The first 4-6 paragraphs contain a summary lede and answer the most pressing questions. Then a transitional phrase cites the source of the upcoming story - "Police say the incident occurred after closing last night." The article concludes with the chronological story.

  • The Hourglass: Serving the News, Serving the Reader
  • The Hourglass - Narratives  

The Nut Graph - developed by the Wall Street Journal in the 1940s, it includes an anecdotal lede that gets the reader's attention, followed by a paragraph that provides larger context for the story and moves the article in that direction. This form lets the reporter explore larger issues behind an incident. For example, a nutgraph article might begin with the story of a fire, then move into a discussion of budget cuts that lead to delays in fighting the fire.

  • The Nut Graf, Part I
  • Keys to Creating an Effective Nut Graph
  • More on the Nut Graph

The Narrative - has a beginning, middle, and end just like a story. One famous example, Truman Capote's In Cold Blood , was actually published as a novel. But for most news articles, narratives should be short and to the point and used only where telling a personal story helps to convey the point of the article. The New Yorker is noted for using narrative form.

  • Narrative Journalism
  • 10 hurdles to narrative journalism
  • Articles about Narrative Journalism
  • The Future of Narrative Journalism
  • Why Narrative Matters

The Five Boxes Story - combines the forms listed above. Useful when you have a lot of data to sort through. Box 1 contains the lede, Box 2 contains the nutgraph, Box 3 tells the story begun in Box 1, Box 4 contains supplemental details such as statistics or expert opinions, and Box 5 contains the "kicker" or the quote, image, or comment that ends the story on a strong note.

  • Five Boxes to Build a Story Fast
  • A Writing Guide: The Four Boxes

SPC's 5-Box Form

  • Article Critique Form

More on Format

  • 11 Types of Articles to Write for Magazines
  • How to Write Book Review
  • LQTQTQ Construction
  • News Writing
  • Prewriting Questions for Book, Movie, or Play Reviews
  • Requirements and Structure of a Review
  • Reviving the Feature Story
  • Writing Sports Profiles
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  • Next: How To Write A Review >>
  • Last Updated: Oct 23, 2023 11:28 AM
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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.

how to write a newspaper story

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.”

Icfj

How to write broadcast news stories

How to write a memoir, according to retirees who have actually done it

Morey stettner, collect compelling life stories, organize them around a theme and finish what you start, memoirs aren’t just for celebrities — lots of non-famous retirees want to write their life stories, too..

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At age 80, Sly Stone has written a memoir. The musician reflects on his ups and downs with brutal honesty, recalling his early fame, drug abuse, arrests and failed comeback attempts.

Celebrity memoirs are nothing new. Their often-harrowing content can offer cautionary tales while educating and inspiring readers. Last year, we saw a flood of celebrity memoirs published, including by Stone, Jada Pinkett Smith, Patrick Stewart, Dolly Parton and Kerry Washington.

What’s new is how many non-famous retirees are writing memoirs. Eager to document their life and enrich their legacy, they reflect on how they lived, whom they loved and what they’ve learned.

Read: How chocolate master Jacques Torres nails it as a chef, father of young kids and retirement saver at 65

It helps if you’ve laid the groundwork. That’s better than waking up one day and declaring, “I’m going to write 270 pages about my life.”

If you’ve kept a journal for years or filled a file with occasional musings, colorful anecdotes and newspaper clippings, you already have a head start.

“I started parts of my memoir years ago,” said Denis Ledoux, 77, a writing coach who specializes in memoirs. “Only in the last two or three years did I get serious about it.” His memoir, titled “French Boy: A 1950s Franco-American Childhood,” was independently published in October.

The key to memoir writing is to proceed in stages, Ledoux says: Rather than start from scratch after you retire, pave the way by telling one story at a time throughout your life.

“Think of your memoir as an anthology of stories,” said Ledoux, who lives in Lisbon Falls, Maine. “The stories can be about a seminal experience, a relationship you had or any other specific memory.”

To shape your narrative, choose a central theme. This guides your organizational structure and lends purpose to every page.

“I wanted my memoir to make a statement about my background,” Ledoux said. “Writing it was therapeutic and helped me come to an understanding and acceptance of hard events.”

Even if you’ve assembled years of stories as a starting point for your memoir, the process of integrating the stories into a coherent whole takes lots of effort. Muster your discipline to stick with it and finish the job.

To make progress, set aside time each day to write. Even if you commit to just 30 minutes per day, keep it up.

“Once you get in the habit, it’s very nurturing,” Ledoux said. “Otherwise, people might give up or think, ‘I don’t have time to do this.’”

If you’re not accustomed to writing, consider joining a writers group. See if your local library, university or adult education center offers such a program.

Read: Why cassette tapes are making a comeback — and it’s not just a fad

After retiring as a theater professor at Wright State University, Abe Bassett joined a writers group led by a colleague. This led him to collect dozens of stories, which he then categorized under various headings (growing up with Dad, a stint in the Army, etc.).

“The best stories reveal something about the writer,” said Bassett, 93, author of “Abe, Son of Abraham.” “The stories have to be on point and interesting” — not just to you, but also to readers.

Like Ledoux and Bassett, Dorothy Lazard relied on a patchwork of written stories as the basis for her 2023 memoir, “What You Don’t Know Will Make a Whole New World.”

“I wrote it all along about key moments in my life,” Lazard said. “I’ve been journaling since I was a kid.”

Eager to mark 50 years of living in California, she wrote her memoir to trace her experiences and how they empowered her to grow and gain wisdom.

Like many memoir writers, Lazard came to realize that reaching a wider audience took a leap of faith.

“I saw I was writing for someone else, not just for myself to satisfy a private need,” she said. “That can be stultifying. Knowing it will be looked at by strangers can be really difficult. It can cause external pressures and external judgment” that can lead you to self-censor your work.

Lazard, 64, overcame this challenge by heeding memoirist Tobias Wolff’s observation that memory has its own story to tell.

“I wanted to tell stories that clung to me,” she said. “I tell people, ‘This is a story my memory had to tell.’”

If you’re thinking of revealing intimate details about family and friends, Lazard says, you should prepare to be asked, “What did they think of what you wrote?”

As a precaution, you can invite them to review your manuscript and give feedback. But think twice before you bend over backward to accommodate them.

“Don’t compromise your voice by telling a story from someone else’s perspective,” Lazard said. “Be committed to the story you want to tell.”

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About the Author

how to write a newspaper story

Morey Stettner is a personal-finance columnist for MarketWatch. He is the author of " Skills for New Managers” (McGraw-Hill) and other books.

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February 21, 2024

Why Writing by Hand Is Better for Memory and Learning

Engaging the fine motor system to produce letters by hand has positive effects on learning and memory

By Charlotte Hu

Student handwriting notes in class

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Handwriting notes in class might seem like an anachronism as smartphones and other digital technology subsume every aspect of learning across schools and universities. But a steady stream of research continues to suggest that taking notes the traditional way—with pen and paper or even stylus and tablet—is still the best way to learn, especially for young children. And now scientists are finally zeroing in on why.

A recent study in Frontiers in Psychology monitored brain activity in students taking notes and found that those writing by hand had higher levels of electrical activity across a wide range of interconnected brain regions responsible for movement, vision, sensory processing and memory. The findings add to a growing body of evidence that has many experts speaking up about the importance of teaching children to handwrite words and draw pictures.

Differences in Brain Activity

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The new research, by Audrey van der Meer and Ruud van der Weel at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), builds on a foundational 2014 study . That work suggested that people taking notes by computer were typing without thinking, says van der Meer , a professor of neuropsychology at NTNU. “It’s very tempting to type down everything that the lecturer is saying,” she says. “It kind of goes in through your ears and comes out through your fingertips, but you don’t process the incoming information.” But when taking notes by hand, it’s often impossible to write everything down; students have to actively pay attention to the incoming information and process it—prioritize it, consolidate it and try to relate it to things they’ve learned before. This conscious action of building onto existing knowledge can make it easier to stay engaged and grasp new concepts .

To understand specific brain activity differences during the two note-taking approaches, the NTNU researchers tweaked the 2014 study’s basic setup. They sewed electrodes into a hairnet with 256 sensors that recorded the brain activity of 36 students as they wrote or typed 15 words from the game Pictionary that were displayed on a screen.

When students wrote the words by hand, the sensors picked up widespread connectivity across many brain regions. Typing, however, led to minimal activity, if any, in the same areas. Handwriting activated connection patterns spanning visual regions, regions that receive and process sensory information and the motor cortex. The latter handles body movement and sensorimotor integration, which helps the brain use environmental inputs to inform a person’s next action.

“When you are typing, the same simple movement of your fingers is involved in producing every letter, whereas when you’re writing by hand, you immediately feel that the bodily feeling of producing A is entirely different from producing a B,” van der Meer says. She notes that children who have learned to read and write by tapping on a digital tablet “often have difficulty distinguishing letters that look a lot like each other or that are mirror images of each other, like the b and the d.”

Reinforcing Memory and Learning Pathways

Sophia Vinci-Booher , an assistant professor of educational neuroscience at Vanderbilt University who was not involved in the new study, says its findings are exciting and consistent with past research. “You can see that in tasks that really lock the motor and sensory systems together, such as in handwriting, there’s this really clear tie between this motor action being accomplished and the visual and conceptual recognition being created,” she says. “As you’re drawing a letter or writing a word, you’re taking this perceptual understanding of something and using your motor system to create it.” That creation is then fed back into the visual system, where it’s processed again—strengthening the connection between an action and the images or words associated with it. It’s similar to imagining something and then creating it: when you materialize something from your imagination (by writing it, drawing it or building it), this reinforces the imagined concept and helps it stick in your memory.

The phenomenon of boosting memory by producing something tangible has been well studied. Previous research has found that when people are asked to write, draw or act out a word that they’re reading, they have to focus more on what they’re doing with the received information. Transferring verbal information to a different form, such as a written format, also involves activating motor programs in the brain to create a specific sequence of hand motions, explains Yadurshana Sivashankar , a cognitive neuroscience graduate student at the University of Waterloo in Ontario who studies movement and memory. But handwriting requires more of the brain’s motor programs than typing. “When you’re writing the word ‘the,’ the actual movements of the hand relate to the structures of the word to some extent,” says Sivashankar, who was not involved in the new study.

For example, participants in a 2021 study by Sivashankar memorized a list of action verbs more accurately if they performed the corresponding action than if they performed an unrelated action or none at all. “Drawing information and enacting information is helpful because you have to think about information and you have to produce something that’s meaningful,” she says. And by transforming the information, you pave and deepen these interconnections across the brain’s vast neural networks, making it “much easier to access that information.”

The Importance of Handwriting Lessons for Kids

Across many contexts, studies have shown that kids appear to learn better when they’re asked to produce letters or other visual items using their fingers and hands in a coordinated way—one that can’t be replicated by clicking a mouse or tapping buttons on a screen or keyboard. Vinci-Booher’s research has also found that the action of handwriting appears to engage different brain regions at different levels than other standard learning experiences, such as reading or observing. Her work has also shown that handwriting improves letter recognition in preschool children, and the effects of learning through writing “last longer than other learning experiences that might engage attention at a similar level,” Vinci-Booher says. Additionally, she thinks it’s possible that engaging the motor system is how children learn how to break “ mirror invariance ” (registering mirror images as identical) and begin to decipher things such as the difference between the lowercase b and p.

Vinci-Booher says the new study opens up bigger questions about the way we learn, such as how brain region connections change over time and when these connections are most important in learning. She and other experts say, however, that the new findings don’t mean technology is a disadvantage in the classroom. Laptops, smartphones and other such devices can be more efficient for writing essays or conducting research and can offer more equitable access to educational resources. Problems occur when people rely on technology too much , Sivashankar says. People are increasingly delegating thought processes to digital devices, an act called “ cognitive offloading ”—using smartphones to remember tasks, taking a photo instead of memorizing information or depending on a GPS to navigate. “It’s helpful, but we think the constant offloading means it’s less work for the brain,” Sivashankar says. “If we’re not actively using these areas, then they are going to deteriorate over time, whether it’s memory or motor skills.”

Van der Meer says some officials in Norway are inching toward implementing completely digital schools . She claims first grade teachers there have told her their incoming students barely know how to hold a pencil now—which suggests they weren’t coloring pictures or assembling puzzles in nursery school. Van der Meer says they’re missing out on opportunities that can help stimulate their growing brains.

“I think there’s a very strong case for engaging children in drawing and handwriting activities, especially in preschool and kindergarten when they’re first learning about letters,” Vinci-Booher says. “There’s something about engaging the fine motor system and production activities that really impacts learning.”

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17 Tips to Take Your ChatGPT Prompts to the Next Level

5 blue balls riding on 5 randomly arranged curved black tubes against a bright green backdrop

ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and other tools like them are making artificial intelligence available to the masses. We can now get all sorts of responses back on almost any topic imaginable. These chatbots can compose sonnets, write code, get philosophical, and automate tasks.

However, while you can just type anything you like into ChatGPT and get it to understand you. There are ways of getting more interesting and useful results out of the bot. This "prompt engineering" is becoming a specialized skill of its own.

Sometimes all it takes is the addition of a few more words or an extra line of instruction and you can get ChatGPT responses that are a level above what everyone else is seeing—and we've included several examples below.

While there's lots you can do with the free version of ChatGPT, a few of these prompts require a paid ChatGPT Plus subscription —where that's the case, we've noted it in the tip.

ChatGPT can give you responses in the form of a table if you ask. This is particularly helpful for getting information or creative ideas. For example, you could tabulate meal ideas and ingredients, or game ideas and equipment, or the days of the week and how they're said in a few different languages.

Using follow-up prompts and natural language, you can have ChatGPT make changes to the tables it has drawn and even produce the tables in a standard format that can be understood by another program (such as Microsoft Excel).

If you provide ChatGPT with a typed list of information, it can respond in a variety of ways. Maybe you want it to create anagrams from a list of names, or sort a list of products into alphabetical order, or turn all the items in a list into upper case. If needed, you can then click the copy icon (the small clipboard) at the end of an answer to have the processed text sent to the system clipboard.

Screenshot of ChatGPT

Get ChatGPT to respond as your favorite author.

With some careful prompting, you can get ChatGPT out of its rather dull, matter-of-fact, default tone and into something much more interesting—such as the style of your favorite author, perhaps.

You could go for the searing simplicity of an Ernest Hemingway or Raymond Carver story, the lyrical rhythm of a Shakespearean play, or the density of a Dickens novel. The resulting prose won't come close to the genius of the actual authors themselves, but it's another way of getting more creative with the output you generate.

ChatGPT can really impress when it's given restrictions to work within, so don't be shy when it comes to telling the bot to limit its responses to a certain number of words or a certain number of paragraphs.

It could be everything from condensing the information in four paragraphs down into one, or even asking for answers with words of seven characters or fewer (just to keep it simple). If ChatGPT doesn't follow your responses properly, you can correct it, and it'll try again.

Another way of tweaking the way ChatGPT responds is to tell it who the intended audience is for its output. You might have seen WIRED's videos in which complex subjects are explained to people with different levels of understanding. This works in a similar way.

For example, you can tell ChatGPT that you are speaking to a bunch of 10-year-olds or to an audience of business entrepreneurs and it will respond accordingly. It works well for generating multiple outputs along the same theme.

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Screenshot of ChatGPT

Tell ChatGPT the audience it's writing for.

ChatGPT is a very capable prompt engineer itself. If you ask it to come up with creative and effective inputs for artificial intelligence engines such as Dall-E and Midjourney , you'll get text you can then input into other AI tools you're playing around with. You're even able to ask for tips with prompts for ChatGPT itself.

When it comes to generating prompts, the more detailed and specific you are about what you're looking for the better: You can get the chatbot to extend and add more detail to your sentences, you can get it to role-play as a prompt generator for a specific AI tool, and you can tell it to refine its answers as you add more and more information.

While ChatGPT is based around text, you can get it to produce pictures of a sort by asking for ASCII art. That's the art made up of characters and symbols rather than colors. The results won't win you any prizes, but it's pretty fun to play around with.

The usual ChatGPT rules apply, in that the more specific you are in your prompt the better, and you can get the bot to add new elements and take elements away as you go. Remember the limitations of the ASCII art format though—this isn't a full-blown image editor.

Screenshot of ChatGPT

A ChatGPT Plus subscription comes with image generation.

If you use ChatGPT Plus , it's got the DALL-E image generator right inside it, so you can ask for any kind of photo, drawing, or illustration you like. As with text, try to be as explicit as possible about what it is you want to see, and how it's shown; do you want something that looks like a watercolor painting, or like it was taken by a DSLR camera? You can have some real fun with this: Put Columbo in a cyberpunk setting, or see how Jurassic Park would look in the Victorian era. The possibilities are almost endless.

You don't have to do all the typing yourself when it comes to ChatGPT. Copy and paste is your friend, and there's no problem with pasting in text from other sources. While the input limit tops out at around 4,000 words, you can easily split the text you're sending the bot into several sections and get it to remember what you've previously sent.

Perhaps one of the best ways of using this approach is to get ChatGPT to simplify text that you don't understand—the explanation of a difficult scientific concept, for instance. You can also get it to translate text into different languages, write it in a more engaging or fluid style, and so on.

If you want to go exploring, ask ChatGPT to create a text-based choose-your-own adventure game. You can specify the theme and the setting of the adventure, as well as any other ground rules to put in place. When we tried this out, we found ourselves wandering through a spooky castle, with something sinister apparently hiding in the shadows.

Screenshot of ChatGPT

ChatGPT is able to create text-based games for you to play.

Another way to improve the responses you get from ChatGPT is to give it some data to work with before you ask your question. For instance, you could give it a list of book summaries together with their genre, then ask it to apply the correct genre label to a new summary. Another option would be to tell ChatGPT about activities you enjoy and then get a new suggestion.

There's no magic combination of words you have to use here. Just use natural language as always, and ChatGPT will understand what you're getting at. Specify that you're providing examples at the start of your prompt, then tell the bot that you want a response with those examples in mind.

You can ask ChatGPT for feedback on any of your own writing, from the emails you're sending to friends, to the short story you're submitting to a competition, to the prompts you're typing into the AI bot. Ask for pointers on spelling, grammar, tone, readability, or anything else you want to scrutinize.

ChatGPT cleared the above paragraph as being clear and effective, but said it could use a call to action at the end. Try this prompt today!

Screenshot of ChatGPT

Get ChatGPT to give you feedback on your own writing.

In the same way that ChatGPT can mimic the style of certain authors that it knows about, it can also play a role: a frustrated salesman, an excitable teenager (you'll most likely get a lot of emoji and abbreviations back), or the iconic western film star John Wayne.

There are countless roles you can play around with. These prompts might not score highly in terms of practical applications, but they're definitely a useful insight into the potential of these AI chatbots.

You can type queries into ChatGPT that you might otherwise type into Google, looking for answers: Think "how much should I budget for a day of sightseeing in London?" or "what are the best ways to prepare for a job interview?" for example. Almost anything will get a response of some sort—though as always, don't take AI responses as being 100 percent accurate 100 percent of the time.

If you're using the paid ChatGPT Plus tool, it will actually search the web (with Bing) and provide link references for the answers it gives. If you're using the free version of ChatGPT, it'll mine the data its been trained on for answers, so they might be a little out of date or less reliable.

Your answers can be seriously improved if you give ChatGPT some ingredients to work with before asking for a response. They could be literal ingredients—suggest a dish from what's left in the fridge—or they could be anything else.

So don't just ask for a murder mystery scenario. Also list out the characters who are going to appear. Don't just ask for ideas of where to go in a city; specify the city you're going to, the types of places you want to see, and the people you'll have with you.

Your prompts don't always have to get ChatGPT to generate something from scratch: You can start it off with something, and then let the AI finish it off. The model will take clues from what you've already written and build on it.

This can come in handy for everything from coding a website to composing a poem—and you can then get ChatGPT to go back and refine its answer as well.

You've no doubt noticed how online arguments have tended toward the binary in recent years, so get ChatGPT to help add some gray between the black and the white. It's able to argue both sides of an argument if you ask it to, including both pros and cons.

From politics and philosophy to sports and the arts, ChatGPT is able to sit on the fence quite impressively—not in a vague way, but in a way that can help you understand tricky issues from multiple perspectives.

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Voting in SC's Republican primary Saturday? How to check registration, find voting locations

how to write a newspaper story

The South Carolina Republican presidential primary is Saturday with Palmetto state native and former governor Nikki Haley, former President Donald Trump and equity group CEO Ryan Binkley all on the ballot.

The state operates an open primary system where voters can cast ballots for any of the three potential candidates regardless of party affiliation if they did not vote in South Carolina Democratic Primary earlier this month.

Polls will open Saturday from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m. To ensure you are registered to vote, check the website scVOTES.gov for your designated voting location and registry confirmation.

Where can I vote on Saturday?

Polling locations throughout Greenville, Spartanburg and Anderson counties can be found by visiting  scVOTES.gov or by contacting a local  county elections office. Voting locations can also be found on all sample ballots.

Prep for the polls: See who is running for president and compare where they stand on key issues in our Voter Guide

What do I need to bring to vote Saturday?

• SC Driver's License

• SC Department of Motor Vehicles ID Card (including SC concealed weapons permit)

• SC Voter Registration Card with Photo

• US Passport

• Federal Military ID (includes all Department of Defense Photo IDs and the Department of Veterans Affairs Benefits Card)

Election guide: More information on Donald Trump ahead of South Carolina's GOP primary election

Be Informed: More information on Nikki Haley ahead of South Carolina's GOP primary election

On the issues: More information on Ryan Binkley ahead of South Carolina's GOP primary election

– A.J. Jackson covers the food & dining scene, along with arts, entertainment and downtown culture for The Greenville News. Contact him by email at [email protected], and follow him on X (formally Twitter) @ajhappened.  

10 Important Steps for Producing a Quality News Story

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Do you want to produce your first news story , but aren't sure where to begin or what to do along the way? Creating a news story is a series of tasks that involve both reporting and writing . Here are the things you'll need to accomplish to produce quality work that's ready for publication.

Find Something to Write About

Journalism isn't about writing essays or fiction—you can't create stories from your imagination. You have to find newsworthy topics worth reporting. Check out the places where news often happens—your city hall, police precinct or courthouse. Attend a city council or school board meeting. Want to cover sports? High school football and basketball games can be exciting and provide a great experience for the aspiring sportswriter. Or interview your city's merchants for their take on the state of the economy.

Do Interviews

Now that you've decided what to write about, you need to hit the streets (or the phone or your email) and start interviewing sources. Do some research about those you plan to interview, prepare some questions and make sure you're equipped with a reporter's notepad, pen, and pencil. Remember that the best interviews are more like conversations. Put your source at ease, and you'll get more revealing information.

Report, Report, Report

Good, clean news-writing is important, but all the writing skills in the world can't replace thorough, solid reporting . Good reporting means answering all the questions a reader might have and then some. It also means double-checking the information you get to make sure it's accurate. And don't forget to check the spelling of your source's name. It's Murphy's Law —just when you assume your source's name is spelled John Smith, it'll be Jon Smythe.

Choose the Best Quotes to Use in Your Story

You might fill your notebook with quotes from interviews, but when you write your story, you'll only be able to use a fraction of what you've gathered. Not all quotes are created equal—some are compelling, and others fall flat. Pick the quotes that grab your attention and expand the story, and chances are they'll grab your reader's attention as well.

Be Objective and Fair

Hard news stories are not the place to for opinion-spewing. Even if you have strong feelings about the issue you're covering, you must learn to set those feelings aside and become a dispassionate observer who does objective reporting . Remember, a news story isn't about what you think—it's about what your sources have to say.

Craft a Great Lede That Will Draw Readers In

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So you've done your reporting and are ready to write. But the most interesting story in the world isn't worth much if no one reads it, and if you don't write a knock-their-socks-off lede , chances are no one will give your story a second glance. To craft a great lede, think about what makes your story unique and what you find interesting about it. Then find a way to convey that interest to your readers.

After the Lede, Structure the Rest of the Story

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Crafting a great lede is the first order of business, but you still have to write the rest of the story. Newswriting is based on the idea of conveying as much information as possible, as quickly, efficiently and clearly as possible. The inverted pyramid format means you put the most important information at the top of your story, the least important at the bottom.

Attribute the Information You Get From Sources

It's important in news stories to be clear about where the information comes from. Attributing the information in your story makes it more credible and builds trust with your readers. Whenever possible, use on-the-record attribution.

Check AP Style

 Associated Press

Now you've reported and written a terrific story. But all that hard work will be for nothing if you send your editor a story filled with Associated Press style errors. AP style is the gold standard for print journalism usage in the U.S., which is why you need to learn it. Get used to checking your AP Stylebook whenever you write a story. Pretty soon, you'll have some of the most common style points down cold.

Get Started on a Follow-up Story

You've finished your article and sent it to your editor, who praises it profusely. Then she says, "OK, we'll need a follow-up story ." Developing a follow-up can be tricky at first, but some simple methods can help you along. For instance, think about the causes and consequences of the story you're covering. Doing so is bound to produce at least a few good follow-up ideas.

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COMMENTS

  1. Learn How to Write a Professional News Story

    The "5 W's and the H" One way to figure out what goes into a lede is to use the " five W's and the H :" who, what, where, when, why, and how. Who is the story about? What is it about? Where did it occur? And so on. Answer those questions in your lede and you'll cover all your bases.

  2. How to Write a News Article

    Regardless of the type of news article you're writing, it should always include the facts of the story, a catchy but informative headline, a summary of events in paragraph form, and interview quotes from expert sources or of public sentiment about the event.

  3. How to Write a News Story

    1. Select a newsworthy story. Your goal is to give a timely account of a recent, interesting, and significant event or development. 2. Think about your goals and objectives in writing the story. What will the readers want and need to know about the subject? How can you best tell the story? 3.

  4. How to Write a News Story

    1. Choose a Recent, Newsworthy Event or Topic There are a few points that we need to discuss when it comes to this step. The first of which is, of course, knowing when something is newsworthy and when something is not. A newsworthy story is anything happening in your community that might interest readers. It should be unique, active, and impactful.

  5. How to Write a News Article: 14 Steps (with Pictures)

    1 Research your topic. To begin writing a news article, you need to research the topic you will be writing about extensively. In order to have a credible, well written, well-structured article, you have to know the topic well. If you've ever written a research paper you understand the work that goes into learning about your topic.

  6. The Writing Center

    Journalists commonly use six values to determine how newsworthy a story or elements of a story are. Knowing the news values can help a journalist make many decisions, including: What information to give first in a news article, and in the lede Which articles to display on a newspaper's front page What questions to ask in an interview

  7. News Story (Journalism)

    The first step to writing a story involves gathering information about your topic. In order to do so, you need people who witnessed the event first hand or have extensive knowledge on said topic. In writing, especially in journalism, the information you use is the heart of your writing.

  8. 15 News Writing Rules for Beginning Journalism Students

    Tips for News Writing Generally speaking, the lede, or introduction to the story, should be a single sentence of 35 to 45 words that summarizes the main points of the story, not a seven-sentence monstrosity that looks like it's out of a Jane Austen novel. The lede should summarize the story from start to finish.

  9. How to Write a News Story

    An exemplary opinion piece is: " Attending College From My Bed ." The Crossover's most debated and commented-on opinion piece is: " Why It's Not Okay to Be White ." It's important to understand what any publication is looking for before you submit a story.

  10. Tips for Writing News Stories That Will Grab a Reader

    Write a Great Lede. The lede is your best shot to get readers' attention. Write a great introduction and they're likely to read on; write a boring one and they'll turn the page. The lede must convey the main points of the story in 35 to 40 words and be interesting enough to make readers want more. 02.

  11. Good Writing Tips

    Repeat the main idea or message at least 3 times in your news story — in the headline, first paragraph, and last paragraph. For example: Let's say you are writing a story about forest fires in ...

  12. How to Write a Newspaper Article (with Pictures)

    1 Contact sources for the article. Contact your sources as far in advance as possible, as this will make arranging interviews with them easier. Try to have at least 2-3 primary sources for the article. Go for sources that are on opposite sides of a topic or subject so your article is well-rounded. [1]

  13. Crafting and Structuring the News Story in Journalism

    A direct news lead is the opening sentence or sentences in a story that give the reader the basic gist of what he or she will learn about in greater detail if her or she continues to read. It is the infamous 5 w's - who, what, where, when, and why. See if you can identify them in the following two news leads. #1.

  14. LibGuides: How to Write a News Article: The Intro or Lede

    About Ledes. The introduction to a news article is called the 'lede' and is usually in the first paragraph as in an essay. The 'lede' is a deliberate misspelling of 'lead' to prevent confusion in the days when printing was done with lead type. The lede not only tells what the story is about, it also invites the reader to read further.

  15. 5 Tips for Writing a Great Lead for a News Story

    Picking out the most important details means you can then plan your lead to fit the story, as well as helping you to structure the overall article. 3. Use Clear, Concise Language. Article leads, especially summary leads, need to communicate the key details of a story in as few words as possible. This will usually mean:

  16. How to Write a News Story: Structure and Example

    21.06.2022 How to write ... The news story refers to the journalistic writing style that is used in the mass media: television, the Internet, newspapers, magazines, and radio. Table of Contents What Is a News Story Features of the News Story Example of News Story Main Functions of News How to Write A New Story: The Structure and Method of Writing

  17. How to write better business stories

    Like any other news article, the best business journalism tells a good story and entices the reader with a compelling lead. The best business journalists may use numbers in their leads, but they primarily use words to explain what's going on. They write a story, not a balance sheet. The numbers are only there to support the thesis of the writing.

  18. LibGuides: How to Write a News Article: Article Format/Narrative

    The article begins with the lede and presents information in order of descending importance. The most important information comes first, followed by less important details. The Hourglass - builds on the inverted pyramid and combines a narrative. It delivers breaking news and tells a story. The first 4-6 paragraphs contain a summary lede and ...

  19. A Reporter Explains His Approach to Writing News and Features

    1 Shreya Gupta By Sarah Bahr March 24, 2022 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...

  20. How to Write an Effective News Article

    "Panel chooses 3 essay winners" Byline The byline is the name of the writer—your name, in this case. Lead (sometimes written "lede") The lead is the first sentence or paragraph, written to provide a preview of the entire article. It summarizes the story and includes many of the basic facts.

  21. How to write broadcast news stories

    Tell stories in a logical order: Make sure that your content has a beginning, a middle and an ending. Don't bury the lead; state the news near the top, without too much buildup. Use the present tense and active voice: You're writing for flow and to express what is going on now. Broadcast strives for immediacy.

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    At age 80, Sly Stone has written a memoir. The musician reflects on his ups and downs with brutal honesty, recalling his early fame, drug abuse, arrests and failed comeback attempts. Celebrity ...

  23. Why Writing by Hand Is Better for Memory and Learning

    Charlotte Hu is a science and technology journalist based in Brooklyn, N.Y. She's interested in stories at the intersection of science and society. Her work has appeared in Popular Science ...

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