An article is a written work published in a print or electronic medium. It may be for the purpose of propagating the news, research results, academic analysis or debate.
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A news article discusses current or recent news of either general interest (i.e. daily newspapers) or of a specific topic (i.e. political or trade news magazines, club newsletters, or technology news websites).
A news article can include accounts of eye witnesses to the happening event. It can contain photographs, accounts, statistics, graphs, recollections, interviews, polls, debates on the topic, etc. Headlines can be used to focus the reader’s attention on a particular (or main) part of the article. The writer can also give facts and detailed information following answers to general questions like who, what, when, where, why and how.
Quoted references can also be helpful. References to people can also be made through written accounts of interviews and debates confirming the factuality of the writer’s information and the reliability of his source. The writer can use redirection to ensure that the reader keeps reading the article and to draw her attention to other articles. For example, phrases like "Continued on page 3” redirect the reader to a page where the article is continued.
While a good conclusion is an important ingredient for newspaper articles, the immediacy of a deadline environment means that copy editing often takes the form of deleting everything past an arbitrary point in the story corresponding to the dictates of available space on a page. Therefore, newspaper reporters are trained to write in inverted pyramid style, with all the most important information in the first paragraph or two. If less vital details are pushed towards the end of the story, the potentially destructive impact of draconian copy editing will be minimized.
See: Listicle
A headline is text at the top of a newspaper article, indicating the nature of the article. The headline catches the attention of the reader and relates well to the topic. Modern headlines are typically written in an abbreviated style omitting many elements of a complete sentence but almost always including a non-copula verb.
A byline gives the name and often the position of the writer.
The lead (sometimes spelled lede) sentence captures the attention of the reader and sums up the focus of the story. The lead also establishes the subject, sets the tone and guides reader into the article.[1]
In a news story, the introductory paragraph tells the most important facts and answers the questions: who, what, where, when, why, and how. In a featured story, the author may choose to open in any number of ways, including the following:[2]
A featured article will follow a format appropriate for its type. Structures for featured articles may include, but are not limited to:[1]
One difference between a news story and a featured article is the conclusion. Endings for a hard news article occur when all of the information has been presented according to the inverted pyramid form. By contrast, the featured article needs more definite closure.[3] The conclusions for these articles may include, but are not limited to:[4]
Publications obtain articles in a few different ways: