Writing about Journalism

  1. General Purpose and Audience

Journalism has a variety of different types of writing—from scholarly and academic research writing to reporting and other practical writing. Each type of writing has its own audience as well as its own style to best connect with that audience. Research papers are generally geared to scholars, professors, and students. New reports and articles for print or the web are geared to the publication’s readers, which can be as general as the public at large or as specific as outdoor enthusiasts, for example.

  1. Types of Writing

●Research Papers

  • scholarly analysis about the practice or theory of journalism (ethical questions, effect on audience, legal issues, etc.)

●News stories

  • timely, fact-based articles, typically found in newspapersor online news sites
  • written in the inverted pyramid format (i.e., important information

first)

●Magazine/Weekly articles

  • less formal than newspaper articles
  • length, style and content vary according to the publication

●Editorials/Columns

  • opinion pieces

●Reviews

  • critical evaluationsof film, music product, dance, theatre performance, art installation, video games, etc.
  1. TYPES ofEVIDENCE

●Primary sources

  • information straight from a source (interviews, original documents,etc.)

●Secondary sources

  • information or facts that come from journals, news reports, and other sources gathered from primary evidence
  • secondary sources should be avoided if possible and always fact-

checkedagainst at least three other sources

  1. Writing Conventions
  • Research papers
  • formal tone, style, and language expected
  • use of first-person acceptable
  • News stories
  • straightforward, objective, third-person point of view
  • written in present tense
  • answer the Five Ws (who, what, where, when, and why)
  • avoid use of slang or jargon
  • Magazine/weekly and editorial/column articles
  • first-person is acceptable depending on the publication
  • written in present tense
  • conversation and informal language (including slang) can be acceptable depending on the publication
  • Online/Web articles
  • length is typically shorter
  • line break between paragraphs without indentation
  • shorter paragraphs
  1. Documentation Style and Style Guides
  • MLA (for academic papers)
  • Associated Press Stylebook
  • The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage

NOTE: Because mass communication research is interdisciplinary, research papers about journalism generally conform to the style of each discipline. Fir example, studies about media effects that target psychology journals often use APA style; studies about the history of journalism often use Chicago; studies about journalism and the law adhere to Blue Book style, and so on. Most commercial publications have their own in-house style guides, which often work better for their audiences, content, etc.

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Source consulted

"Journalism and Journalistic Writing." Purdue OWL. 2013,