Analysis Of A Newspaper Article
In order to write an excellent, well-organized and well-researched analysis of a newspaper article. you first need to understand how the information is put forth in the article that you’ve chosen and wish to undertake the analysis of. Most newspapers, however, get their articles written in what is called in technical jargon- “The Inverted Pyramid”. The inverted pyramid is where the meatiest part of the information or piece of news is mentioned at the commencement of the article and the news with lesser degrees of importance is mentioned gradually.
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This is done in order to assist the process where a certain new piece of information is found out or got released and you have to add it to the pre-existing structure. This is done by employing the editing style where you go from the bottom of the article to the very top.
Newspaper articles aim to bring answers to six main issues regarding any news. These are:
- The ‘who’ of the news
- The ‘what’ of the news
- The ‘when’ of the news
- The ‘where’ of the news
- The ‘why’ of the news
- The ‘how’ of the news
This organized method of putting forth the news helps reader in getting hands on and proper narration of any and every event. These effective written pieces can easily be referred to primary sources for certain events that hold a strong historical impact in any press release.
These articles can also be employed as an allusion to certain academic topics and papers. A sharp eye can utilize these articles to figure out the narrative a certain newspaper article is trying to put forward, essentially finding out where the newspaper’s loyalties lie and whether its prejudiced reporting or not.
Now that we have established the fact that newspaper articles are of utmost importance in the modern narrative of affairs, we shall now move onto explaining how one can evaluate these articles. Analyses of a newspaper articles can easily by written by making sure the following steps are well taken care of:
Finding the article that you would like to comment on is quite obviously the very first step. It should be a topic that you are interested in, well-rehearsed in, have some knowledge about and are even passionate about.
Make a summary of the key points the article is trying to convey. Make sure they are concise and don’t stretch farther than three or five sentences.
Figure out and denote the intention the article was written for, whether it has some purpose and make a note of that. It’s entirely possible for a newspaper article to have more than b to achieve for example a piece of news can be influencing and entertaining, both for its cause. You must make the critical choice of opting for one main objective of your chosen article and go further enough to provide valid justifications for your choice.
While you have already explained your choice of the article’s purpose initially, you must also go into further detail regarding this by having direct quotations from the article as a part of your analysis.
Identify the ‘tone’ that your chosen newspaper article was written in. Here again, the article just might be trying to convey different tones as well as perspectives. You must make the critical choice of identifying the one major tone that can easily be seen as being the predominant tone of your article.
Again, you must then provide the reader of your newspaper article analysis with valid justifications for your choice of tone as well as provide them with the context by selecting some quotations from the article and making them a part of your analysis.
Determine the techniques and expressions used by the writer of your article and pick the major three techniques that you think have much more impact than any other. These techniques must each be explained and alluded to separately- not to forget that their objective and function must be established as well so that the use of these by the author of your newspaper article is justified.
This is a great way to make your analysis seem professional and organized. Some examples of what techniques you could easily identify and use are: the choice of certain words as being appropriate or not for the topic of the article, any wordplay that might cater to the entertainment of the audience, structures that the sentences are put in and whether or not they effectively convey the idea the article is trying to pertain to.
Another golden method to give your newspaper article analysis an upper hand is by picking up words or even writing techniques from the article that you have found unfamiliar to your previous knowledge.
These are then to be explained and alluded to in succinct detail and must connect to the context of your article.
If such a thing cannot be identified in your chosen article, another way to ace your analysis is by pointing out certain words, sentences or approach that you have found particularly well employed and refined and going in detail about THEIR significance.
Last but not the least, comment in detail about any particular ideas or perspectives that the article is trying to convey or perhaps the problems it has tried to address or the solutions provided.
This can be made even more sophisticated if the writer, that is, you give your personal opinion about all of the above. Stating whether you are in agreement or not or have found it helpful or perhaps disturbing can bring a refined edge to your analysis as well.
Are you beginning to get a better understanding of how to write an analysis of a newspaper article? Let us know in the comment sections below!