Please Don’t Feed the Writer

Research is one of those things that you just have to get used to, especially if you’re in college.  Term papers always seem to be due before you’ve had enough time to prepare and even with the Internet finding the right pice of information on your topic can be a daunting task. Would it help if I told you I’ve found a better way to research those term papers?  Would it help if I told you it could save you hours, even days of searching for “just the right” fact or figure?  Am I ever going to stop sounding like a T.V. game show host?

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No, it’s not the name of a law firm, it’s the fundamentals of good journalism.  If you plan on writing any thype of journalistic article, you’ll need these questions need to be answered.  It’s a simple formula that has worked in journalism for a very, very long time, but that some reporters, especially on the Internet, seem to have forgotten.

Let me break the “Five W’s and an H” down for you.

Who: Who is the article about?  Is it a person, an institution, a government body?

What: What event are you covering?  What makes this newsworthy? What is the point of this article?

When: When did this event take place, or when will it take place? (In the old days of news, this would have been the dateline.) Without this little piece of information, the story is useless to the reader.
Where: Where did the event take place, or where will it take place?  Obviously, if you are reporting something happening in Hoboken New Jersey, it probably won’t have a lot of impact on someone in San Diego California, but may have significant impact on someone in New York.

Why: Why did this happen, or why is it taking place?  Knowing that it is happening loses a lot if it’s importance if you don’t know why it is happening.

How:  How did this event or these events take place?  How did they play out?  How was a problem resolved?

As you can see, these are pretty straightforward guidelines.  In journalism all of these questions should be answered as close to the beginning of the article as possible and it is recommended that they are answered in the first two paragraphs.

I’ll let you mull this over for a bit and come back later today with an example of a short article written in this format.  Until then,

Happy Writing!

There doesn’t seem to be a lot of writing going on around here lately, but if you think that’s because I haven’t been writing you would be terribly, horribly, incomprehensibly and emphatically wrong. The fact of the matter is that my daily writing totals have been running somewhere around 2,700 words by the time all is said and done at the end of the day.

If you’re wondering why I haven’t updated this little slice of the Internet pie while cranking out all those words I would have to point out that while writing about writing is an interesting sideline, it isn’t what brings home the bacon. Writing about food pays my bills, though there are other projects I’ve been devoting some pretty serious time to as well. Those projects are something that may be of use or interest to some of my readers, so I’ll get back to them when they are ready to unveil.

For now dear readers, I have a few updates I’d like to throw out over the course of the day, so stay tuned, there’s more coming!