1. Feature Writing
Journalism I

2. Feature Articles A feature is an article that is about "softer" news.
These articles are more creative, dealing with real issues, events and trends.
Like news writing, strong feature writing is simple, clear and orderly.
Typically displayed prominently – on news websites, often found in the Magazine portion of the site.
Can be a regular part of publication – such as The Cranberry Eagle’s yearly series highlighting Seneca’s new teachers.

3. Types of Features The Human Interest Feature Personality Feature
Most common type.
Focuses on someone’s success in spite of poor odds; often recalls tragedy or struggle.
Personality Feature
Focus person is someone who had done something interesting and has gained recognition of some kind.

4. “The Best” Articles News Feature Types of Features
Focuses on a product, experience or location that is considered the “best” of all.
News Feature
Adds personal involvement and interest to breaking news, focusing on an aspect that otherwise wouldn’t gain much attention.

5. Types of Features How-To Feature The Past Events Feature
Teaches something the reader wouldn’t otherwise know how to do.
The Past Events Feature
Focuses on a historical event or celebration – usually includes interesting facts or profiles to bolster intrigue
The Information Feature
Coverage of a topic relative to the present moment. Includes research, but is written with more style than an encyclopedia entry.

6. The Informational Feature: Biographical Profile
One form of an informational feature is the biography or profile. This will focus on someone currently of interest.
Example: Elon Musk, who announced plans to populate Mars within 10 years at a cost of $200,000 per person.
Another example: Arnold Palmer, as he just passed last weekend
Includes research with some attribution
Important to paraphrase and summarize to avoid plagiarism and overwhelming citations
Written with more style, creativity and voice than an encyclopedia entry

7. The Informational Feature: Biographical Profile
Includes:
Factual background information (birth, brief family information, education, jobs held)
Events that shaped their life and/or career (contact with certain people, mentors)
Information about contributions to society (charitable work, inventions, leadership roles)
Current activities and future intentions

8. Organization
You won’t necessarily follow the structure of a regular news article
This may be organized in sequence, as a character sketch or in order of importance
Headline and lede should summarize who and why, and also intrigue or emotionally invest your reader
Conclusion will tie loose ends without summarizing what you’ve written
If someone has read through to your conclusion, they don’t need a summary.

9. organization Should be a bit more reflective of your style as a writer
Still no personal pronouns, contractions or internal / hypothetical / rhetorical questions
Provide applicable, relevant and interesting facts, laws and statistics (with proper attribution)
Use anecdotes or vignettes as appropriate
Subheadings break the story into pieces, and orient your reader as you shift through stages of life/career, etc.

10. organization
Begin with a brief summary of the reason why this person is important then transition to
Introduce their “roots” – childhood, family and upbringing but keep it brief
Unless it had a profound impact on the subject, it’s not what your reader wants to know
Focus on seminal events – education, work experience, outreach experience
Keep this chronological (unless you have a really good reason not to)
If you find yourself listing a lot of key dates, you probably want to consider a timeline instead

11. Research Use credible sources and consider your audience
Give clear attribution to facts, statistics and anything else that is not common knowledge
Common knowledge is information generally known to an educated reader, such as widely known facts and dates, and, more rarely, ideas or language.
It is also information that is readily and easily accessible from many valid sources, when considering major political entities:
Birth and death dates (versus birth time and final words)
Educational institutions (versus grade point averages and coursework)
Jobs and positions held (versus salary, performance or start/end dates)