The Structure of a News Article

A properly structured news article, whether found on the web or in a print publication, should follow the same format. Each article should contain a:

1. Title (or headline and sub-headlines)
2. Lead
3. Body

The article title is intended to attract the attention of the reader and provide a sense of what the article is about.

The lead usually answers the 5Ws: who, what, when, where, why. It is usually a single sentence and is also designed to attract the attention of the reader. The basics of the article should be contained in the lead. The rest of the article expands on the lead.

The body contains the rest of the article. It usually provides information in greater detail and presents quotes, statistics, and reference to other written documents.

Using the examples given out in class identify the parts of each new story. Within the body of each article identify examples of quotes, statistics and reference to other documents.

Summarizing a News Article

Summarizing anything in your own words can be a challenging task. The goal is to do more than simply repeat the words the original author uses. To summarize a newspaper article you should try and establish a list of keywords. Try and select one word from each paragraph and use those keywords to construct your summary.

Newspaper articles feature a built-in summary in the form of the lead. Your summary serves a different purpose than the lead. It demonstrates that you understand the content, have derived meaning from it, and can share your knowledge with others.

Locating News Articles

Daily newspapers usually maintain free archives for a certain period of time - a week, a month or longer. After a period of time content is no longer free. Use quality newspapers to find content:

• The Globe and Mail
• The Toronto Star
• The National Post
• The New York Times
• The Washington Post
• The Times of London
• Directory of Canadian Newspapers
  

The library subscribes to a database called Proquest Platinum that contains electronic versions of many Canadian and international newspapers in full text. If you are working from home you have to access Proquest through your First Class e-mail web account.