Article (publishing)

An article is a written work published in a print or electronic medium. It may be for the purpose of propagating news, research results, academic analysis, or debate.

News articles

See also: News style

A news article discusses current or recent news of either general interest (i.e. daily newspapers) or of a specific topic (i.e. political or trade news magazines, club newsletters, or technology news websites).

A news article can include accounts of eyewitnesses to the happening event. It can contain photographs, accounts, statistics, graphs, recollections, interviews, polls, debates on the topic, etc. Headlines can be used to focus the reader’s attention on a particular (or main) part of the article. The writer can also give facts and detailed information following answers to general questions like who, what, when, where, why and how.

Quoted references can also be helpful. References to people can also be made through the written accounts of interviews and debates confirming the factuality of the writer’s information and the reliability of his source. The writer can use redirection to ensure that the reader keeps reading the article and to draw her attention to other articles. For example, phrases like "Continued on page 3” redirect the reader to a page where the article is continued.

While a good conclusion is an important ingredient for newspaper articles, the immediacy of a deadline environment means that copy editing occasionally takes the form of deleting everything past an arbitrary point in the story corresponding to the dictates of available space on a page. Therefore, newspaper reporters are trained to write in inverted pyramid style, with all the most important information in the first paragraph or two. If the less vital details are pushed towards the end of the story, then the potentially destructive impact of draconian copy editing will be minimized.

Between Religion and Culture in Islamic Perspective

It must be admitted that there are indeed problems faced by Muslims in distinguishing between religion and culture, between worship and muamalah, between religious affairs and world affairs, between sunnah and bid'ah. Theoretically the difference between the two can be explained, but in practice these two lives are often ambiguous, vague, and not easy to distinguish. Regarding religion and culture, in general it can be said that religion is sourced from God, whereas culture is sourced from humans. Religion is the "work" of God, while culture is the work of humans. Thus, religion is not part of culture and culture is not part of religion. This does not mean that the two are completely separate, but rather closely related to each other. Through religion, brought by the prophets and apostles, Allah the Creator conveys His teachings about the nature of God, man, the universe and the nature of life that must be lived by humans. The teachings of God, which is called religion, color the cultural style produced by the humans who embrace it. In the midst of society, we see religious practices which for some people are not very clear whether they are part of religion or culture. Take for example the tradition of tahlilan. Not a few among Muslims who think that the ceremony of tahlilan is a religious obligation, which they must hold even though it must be in debt. They feel guilty if they don't hold a hearing when a family member dies. In fact, what is ordered by religion in relation to death is "to bathe, to disbelieve, to obstruct, to take to eat, to bury, and to pray". Very simple and almost no cost. This means that the ceremony of tahlilan is basically a tradition, part of the nation's culture, which might have existed before the advent of Islam, namely the tradition of gathering at the funeral home, which was then Islamised or given an Islamic style. What needs to be done in this case is to improve the understanding and attitude of the people towards such religious practices in a proportional manner. Just a comparison can be stated here religious obligations called qurban (once a year) and aqiqah (once in a lifetime). Qurban and Aqiqah are religious orders although the legal position of fiqh is only the sunnah mu`akkadah. But in the middle of Muslim society in general, qurban and aqiqah are less prestigious than tahlilan. Does this mean that Muslims care more about the affairs of death than the matters of life? God knows the nature. What is certain is that the "social sanctions" imposed on people who do not hold tahlilan harder than those who do not carry out qurban and aqiqah. There is also a cultural product that is misunderstood as part of religion and is therefore considered a heresy. For example, art that has an Islamic style. Many poetry of Nabawi (praise to the Prophet) was written in Arabic, then sung and accompanied by music. Songs and music of this kind in Indonesia are called shalawat songs or music. Because blessings are part of worship and the sentences have been taught by the Prophet, the poetry of the Prophet (whose sentences are different from those taught by the Prophet), let alone the song and music, and immediately judged as a heresy. Strangely, praise to the Prophet written in Indonesian, which was then sung and accompanied by music, was not included in the category of heresy. Praise poems for the Prophet (including those written in Arabic) are cultural products with a charge of love for Rasulullah SAW and prayers to Allah SWT. In principle, Islam came to an area (including to Arabia as its birthplace) not to abolish all cultural products including traditions that are already living in society. There are Arabic traditions (the period of ignorance) that are forbidden, some are left alone, some are developed, and some are Islamicised and made part of Islamic teachings. The main question, in dealing with diverse cultures and traditions in society, is whether those cultures and traditions do not conflict with the principles of Islamic creed, sharia and morals?

Characteristics of well-written news articles

The article is usually on a well-defined topic or topics that are related in some way, such as a factual account of a newsworthy event. The writer of a well-written article is seen as objective and showing all sides to an issue. The sources for a news story should be identified and reliable. The technique of show, don't tell is applied.

Authorship

Publications obtain articles in a few different ways:

• staff written – an article may be written by a person on the staff of the publication.
• assigned – a freelance writer may be asked to write an article on a specific topic.
• unsolicited – a publication may be open to receiving article manuscripts from freelance writers.
  See also: Slush pile

Other types of articles

• Academic paper – an article published in an academic journal. The status of academics is often dependent both on how many articles they have had published and on the number of times that their articles are cited by authors of other articles.
• Essay some overlap with academic paper.
• Scientific paper – an article published in a scientific journal.
• Blog – some blog articles are like magazine or newspaper articles; others are written more like entries in a personal journal.
• Encyclopedia article – in an encyclopedia or other reference work, an article is a primary division of content.
• Marketing article – an often thin piece of content which is designed to draw the reader to a commercial website or product.
• Usenet article – a message written in the style of e-mail and posted to an open moderated or unmoderated Usenet newsgroup.
• Spoken article – an article produced in the form of an audio recording, also referred to as a podcast.
• Listicle – an article whose primary content is a list.
• Portrait – a portrait of a person (article).

See also

• Article directory
• Electronic article
• Angle