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

Drawings for Illustrations. Diagrams, working drawings, floor plans, maps, or pen-and-ink sketches are necessary to illustrate some articles. Articles of practical guidance often need diagrams. Trade papers like to have their articles illustrated with reproductions of record sheets and blanks designed to develop greater efficiency in office or store management. If a writer has a little skill in drawing, he may prepare in rough form the material that he considers desirable for illustration, leaving to the artists employed by the publication the work of making drawings suitable for reproduction. A writer who has had training in pen-and-ink drawing may prepare his own illustrations. Such drawings should be made on bristol board with black drawing ink, and should be drawn two or three times as large as they are intended to appear when printed. If record sheets are to be used for illustration, the ruling should be done with black drawing ink, and the figures and other data should be written in with the same kind of ink. Typewriting on blanks intended for reproduction should be done with a fresh record black ribbon. Captions are necessary on the back of drawings as well as on photographs.

Mailing Photographs and Drawings. It is best to mail flat all photographs and drawings up to 8 x 10 in size, in the envelope with the manuscript, protecting them with pieces of stout cardboard. Only very large photographs or long, narrow panoramic ones should be rolled and mailed in a heavy cardboard tube, separate from the manuscript. The writer's name and address, as well as the title of the article to be illustrated, should be written on the back of every photograph and drawing.

As photographs and drawings are not ordinarily returned when they are used with an article that is accepted, writers should not promise to return such material to the persons from whom they secure it. Copies can almost always be made from the originals when persons furnishing writers with photographs and drawings desire to have the originals kept in good condition.

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PART II

AN OUTLINE FOR THE ANALYSIS OF SPECIAL FEATURE ARTICLES

• I. SOURCES OF MATERIAL
• • 1. What appears to have suggested the subject to the writer?
  • 2. How much of the article was based on his personal experience?
  • 3. How much of it was based on his personal observations?
  • 4. Was any of the material obtained from newspapers or periodicals?
  • 5. What portions of the article were evidently obtained by interviews?
  • 6. What reports, documents, technical periodicals, and books of reference were used as sources in preparing the article?
  • 7. Does the article suggest to you some sources from which you might obtain material for your own articles?

• II. INTEREST AND APPEAL
• • 1. Is there any evidence that the article was timely when it was published?
  • 2. Is the article of general or of local interest?
  • 3. Does it seem to be particularly well adapted to the readers of the publication in which it was printed? Why?
  • 4. What, for the average reader, is the source of interest in the article?
  • 5. Does it have more than one appeal?
  • 6. Is the subject so presented that the average reader is led to see its application to himself and to his own affairs?
  • 7. Could an article on the same subject, or on a similar one, be written for a newspaper in your section of the country?
  • 8. What possible subjects does the article suggest to you?