INFORMATIVE ARTICLES.  Since many persons confine their reading largely to newspapers and magazines, they derive most of their information and ideas from these sources.  Even persons who read new books rely to some extent on special articles for the latest information about current topics.  Although most readers look to periodicals primarily for new, timely facts, they are also interested to find there biographical and historical material that is not directly connected with current events.  Every special feature writer has a great opportunity to furnish a large circle of readers with interesting and significant information.

In analyzing subjects it is necessary to discriminate between significant and trivial facts.  Some topics when studied will be found to contain little of real consequence, even though a readable article might be developed from the material.  Other themes will reveal aspects that are both trivial and significant.  When a writer undertakes to choose between the two, he should ask himself, “Are the facts worth remembering?” and, “Will they furnish food for thought?” In clarifying his purpose by such tests, he will decide not only what kind of information he desires to impart, but what material he must select, and from what point of view he should present it.

ARTICLES OF PRACTICAL GUIDANCE.  The third general purpose that a writer may have is to give his readers sufficiently explicit information to enable them to do for themselves what has been done by others.  Because all persons want to know how to be more successful, they read these “how-to-do-something” articles with avidity.  All of us welcome practical suggestions, tactfully given, that can be applied to our own activities.  Whatever any one has done successfully may be so presented that others can learn how to do it with equal success.  Special feature articles furnish the best means of giving this practical guidance.

In preparing a “how-to-do-something” article, a writer needs to consider the class of readers for which it is intended.  A special feature story, for example, on how to reduce the cost of milk might be presented from any one of three points of view:  that of the producer, that of the distributor, or that of the consumer.  To be practical for dairy farmers, as producers of milk, the article would have to point out possible economies in keeping cows and handling milk on the farm.  To be helpful to milk-dealers, as distributors, it would concern itself with methods of lowering the cost of selling and delivering milk in the city.  To assist housewives, as consumers, the article would have to show how to economize in using milk in the home.  An informative article for the general reader might take up all these phases of the subject, but an article intended to give practical guidance should consider the needs of only one of these three classes of persons.