Article Writing Styles Explained Part III

The how to article warrants a specific tone that is different from many other types of articles. It should be written in an imperative voice that instructs as opposed to suggest. Suggesting steps give the article a tone of being unsure and wishy-washy. It should also include safety information if necessary.

Any terms and names that may not be known by the average layman should also be thoroughly explained. At the beginning of the article, you should include a list of all materials and tools that will be needed. You should also let them know just what they will get for their work, such as one dozen cookies or 12 dozen cookies. This list should be included at the beginning of the article.

As you write your how to article, you want to describe is detail how the project should appear at various points so that the reader will know if they are doing the project right. You want to write your how to article in steps so that the reader can get a clear grasp of how they should proceed. This is a fairly simple article to write. If you need to include visuals and you cannot use photographs or you cannot draw, do a rough sketch to give your reader an idea of what you intend.

A marketing or persuasive article is written in action-oriented words with a call to action at the end. You should outline the benefits, explain what the reader needs to do and how to do it, and then allow the conclusion to be a call to action. This is true for sales articles or articles that persuade your readers to buy an item or join in some advocacy or movement. Basically, just about any time that you want your readers to do something you are writing a persuasive piece.

Articles written about VIPs or celebrities are considered, for the most part, to be overworked and overdone. With that said if you can find a creative, unexpected angle to approach the subject you may have something worthwhile. You may also want to use some humor or satire to intersperse between dry passages or to spice up an article that is stuffed with facts. Both editors and readers are drawn to humor.

One of the easiest articles to write, however, is the "tips" article. This is often a bulleted or numbered list of ten things, seven tips, or four reasons; you get the idea. The introduction tells the reader why they need the information while the body gives the tips, reasons, or things. The conclusion usually has a call to action and offers a summary to recap the information offered.

It is always important to keep the "writer's voice" out of your articles. You want to give your readers the information that they want, what is in it for them, not why you wanted to write the article or how the idea came about.

This is not always the case, however, because, for instance, you may have been the victim of a violent crime and you are writing an article on self-defense. In that case, your personal experience can be a powerful tool to pull the reader in to your material and drive the point home. In short, though, your job is to find the information and give it to your readers the best way that they can absorb it.

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Article Writing Styles Explained Part I

Article Writing Styles Explained Part II

Writing Features Articles Elementary Steps

If you are writing a feature article, this allows you to be creative. A feature article, like a news article, can sway the readers to your opinion or can leave it open for them to make their own decisions. For example, when writing news articles, you might say "the woman hit the man," which is a statement.

For a features article, depending on whether you want the readers' sympathy to lie with the man or the woman you could say, "after a lifetime of being beaten by her cruel husband, the poor wife finally hit back", which is descriptive and makes the reader feel sorry for the woman and proud of her.

If you were to say, "The evil woman hit the poor, defenseless man because she was in a bad mood," this lays the readers' sympathies with the man instead. It is still a woman hitting a man but the words used in the description can arouse feelings in your readers. Even if you don't know why she hit him but you have to write an article, the words you choose will make one of them the villain and one the hero, unless it was all a misunderstanding.

Writing news articles is about giving facts whereas the rules for writing feature articles tell us to describe everything including smells, sights, colors and sounds, so the reader feels like they are experiencing what you are describing. If you are able to do that and still tell the story well, you have the making of a great feature writer!