How To: Find an Article Idea

I will beginning a series about tips and the steps of how to write a great news or feature article. I’ll be writing separate blogs for each step of writing an article. The first step to writing an article is choosing an article topic to write about. There are many different types of articles that may differ in this step of your article but we will be talking about the news and feature story.

This step is fairly easy for a news article. If you are a student, think about what is going on in your classes. Is anything coming up? Are their any changes? If you still having nothing after that, talk to people, see if they know of anything that could be a possible article.

Also visit other local, national, and global newspapers websites and see if there is anything written in there that may spark an idea that affects your area and audience.

When choosing an article idea, you need to think about a couple things before you begin. Who is my audience? What is the purpose? Where is this happening? Why is this happening? How is this happening?  A good way to remember these questions is WWWWH, or who, what, where, when, and how. If you are able to answer all these questions or incorporate them into interview questions, which is the next step, then you have a great an article on your hands.

Be very open to taking up articles that may not seem that interesting. In the beginning of this school year I got to topic on cockroaches in some of the classrooms at my school. In the beginning I was hesitant and I wasn’t super interested in the situation. But the more I dug in, I began to realize how big this problem was. The information I discovered forced the school to improve and solve the issue.

Your article can make real change and you never know which what that change might be until you write the article.

Do you have any tips for coming up with new or feature article ideas?

check out my article about cockroaches at my school!Click here!!

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