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How To Write Special Feature Articles - A Handbook for Reporters, Correspondents and Free-Lance Writers Who Desire to Contribute to Popular Magazines and Magazine Sections of Newspapers by Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
page 143 of 544 (26%)
in writing.

PLANNING A TYPICAL ARTICLE. The process of gathering, evaluating, and
organizing material may best be shown by a concrete example. The
publication in a New York paper of a news story to the effect that the
first commencement exercises were about to be held in the only factory
school ever conducted in the city, suggested to a special feature writer
the possibility of preparing an article on the work of the school. To
obtain the necessary material, he decided to attend the exercises and to
interview both the principal of the school and the head of the factory.
In thinking over the subject beforehand, he jotted down these points
upon which to secure data: (1) the origin and the purpose of the school;
(2) its relation to the work of the factory; (3) the methods of
instruction; (4) the kind of pupils and the results accomplished for
them; (5) the cost of the school; (6) its relation to the public school
system. At the close of the graduation exercises, he secured the
desired interviews with the teacher in charge and with the head of the
firm, copied typical examples from the exhibition of the pupils' written
work, and jotted down notes on the decoration and furnishing of the
schoolroom. Since the commencement exercises had been reported in the
newspapers, he decided to refer to them only incidentally in his story.

After considering the significance of the work of the school and what
there was about it that would appeal to different classes of readers, he
decided to write his story for the magazine section of the New York
newspaper that he believed was most generally read by business men who
operated factories similar to the one described. His purpose he
formulated thus: "I intend to show how illiterate immigrant girls can be
transformed quickly into intelligent, efficient American citizens by
means of instruction in a factory school; this I wish to do by
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