Newspapers

WRITING SKILLS: WRITING BETTER SENTENCES

Look at your piece of writing. Have you used the same type of sentence over and over again? You could make your piece of writing more interesting and engaging by varying the type of sentence you use. Look at the examples below, which show you how to upgrade a sentence using interesting sentence structures.

Dull sentence Upgrading technique New sentence

Go to visit the

Galápagos Islands because they’re very beautiful. Three-part sentence, getting progressively better The skies are sparkling blue, the sand is glistening gold and the beaches are crawling with beautiful baby turtles.

People who love to explore will love this place. Three questions and an answer Feel at home in the wilderness? Love to connect with nature? Have the soul of an explorer? Then the Galápagos Islands are most definitely for you.

On the islands you will find lots of different animals. Fragments of text in three short sentences

There are hundreds of unique animal species here. Ancient giant tortoises! Spiky marine iguanas! Dancing bluefooted boobies! Newspaper Ar ticles A newspaper is a written record of current events that is printed daily or weekly. There are different types of newspapers: tabloid, broadsheet and digital. A tabloid newspaper reports on celebrity gossip and human-interest stories and uses informal and sensational language. It is usually A3 in size. A broadsheet reports on more serious issues, such as politics, the economy and international conflicts. It is usually A2 in size and uses formal and factual language. A digital newspaper is a digital online version of a print newspaper. People generally buy these newspapers by subscription. The people that report the news in newspapers are called journalists. A good journalist should be objective in what they report, which means they should not put their own personal feelings or thoughts into a news report. If a journalist deliberately tries to sway the audience toward their point of view, this is known as biased reporting. For example, a reporter may personally be in favour of fox hunting and write a newspaper report promoting it. A journalist also needs to make sure that what they are reporting is factual and©The Educational Company of Ireland truthful. They do this by fact-checking their sources and the information they find.

In newspapers there are also pieces of writing called opinion or comment pieces. These are not objective pieces of writing reporting facts; they are a writer’s personal opinion on a topic or event that has taken place. These pieces should be clearly signposted as ‘opinion’ or ‘comment’. Sometimes a newspaper is biased towards a particular political party or viewpoint. These newspapers tend to print opinion or comment pieces in support of that political party.

What does a newspaper front page look like? The front page of a newspaper should grab the reader’s attention and make them want to buy the newspaper. It should contain the main story of the day when it is printed.

Features of a newspaper front page

What this means Masthead The name of the newspaper Headline Summary line about the lead story Byline The name of the journalist who wrote the article Images Pictures related to the main story Caption An explanation of what is in the image Advertisement A product or service being promoted or sold Text in columns Articles are displayed in column format Short paragraphs Just three or four sentences in each paragraph Lead article The most important main story Secondary article The second most important story Article menu A short summary of the most important articles in the paper©The Educational Company of Ireland

Byline

Masthead

Lead article Text in columns Short paragraphs Secondary article Article menu

Headline Image Image caption Advertisement READING In your activity book, complete the matching activity about newspaper front pages (see page 133). ACT IVITY ©The Educational Company of Ireland

Writing newspaper ar ticles

To write a good newspaper article, you should try to write like a journalist. Look in the box below for some tips on how to write an article and examples of a sentence that might appear in a newspaper article.

Features of a newspaper article Example sentence

Headlines summarise the article Spiderman catches fleeing thieves

The first sentence summarises the entire article Firemen rescued several cats from the tree in the village square early yesterday morning.

Written in third-person narrative perspective The criminals were apprehended and jailed immediately.

Written in the past tense On 4 January, the president’s wife gave birth to a baby boy.

The first paragraph addresses the who, what, where, when and why of the story

Two female penguins escaped from London Zoo in the early hours of Saturday 25 August. Zookeepers noticed they were missing at the 9am feeding. A preliminary investigation has revealed a hole had been pecked in the fencing. Third heroic rescue by father and son fishermen A Galway swimmer has been rescued after getting into difficulty off Salthill. Fishermen Patrick Oliver and his son Morgan spotted the man at around 10.30am. Galway RNLI had also been called out. The two men were fishing off Salthill at the time and spotted the man taking refuge on Palmer’s Rock about 200 metres from the shore. They took him on board their boat and brought him back to Galway Docks. The man was taken into the lifeboat station where he received treatment for symptoms of hypothermia until an ambulance arrived. The Galway lifeboat was stood down. Deputy Launch Authority Seán Óg Leydon says many people who have taken up sea swimming this year during the Covid lockdown may not realise the dangers of winter swimming. ‘The sea is a great resource for us but we have to respect it and our limits. Luckily this swimmer made his way to a place he could rest and wait for assistance.’ It is the third rescue by the father and son in the past four months. They famously rescued paddle-boarding cousins Ellen Glynn and Sara Feeney in August, after they spent a whole night at sea. A couple of weeks later, the Olivers again went to the rescue, this time saving a man from the River Corrib. Headline should summarise the article First sentence should summarise the entire article First paragraph should address the who, what, where, when and why of the story Paragraphs should be short Written in the third person Written in the past tense ©The Educational Company of Ireland