The Narrative in the Third Person. Although the interview, the personal experience article, and the confession story are largely narrative, they are always told in the first person, whereas the term "narrative article" as used in this classification is applied only to a narrative in the third person. In this respect it is more like the short story. As in the short story so in the narrative article, description of persons, places, and objects involved serves to heighten the effect.
Narrative methods may be employed to present any group of facts that can be arranged in chronological order. A process, for example, may be explained by showing a man or a number of men engaged in the work involved, and by giving each step in the process as though it were an incident in a story. The story of an invention or a discovery may be told from the inception of the idea to its realization. A political situation may be explained by relating the events that led up to it. The workings of some institution, such as an employment office or a juvenile court, may be made clear by telling just what takes place in it on a typical occasion. Historical and biographical material can best be presented in narrative form.
Suspense, rapid action, exciting adventure, vivid description, conversation, and all the other devices of the short story may be introduced into narrative articles to increase the interest and strengthen the impression. Whenever, therefore, material can be given a narrative form it is very desirable to do so. A writer, however, must guard against exaggeration and the use of fictitious details.
Examples of the Narrative Article. How narration with descriptive touches and conversation may be effectively used to explain a new institution like the community kitchen, or the methods of recruiting employed in the army, is shown in the two articles below. The first was taken from the New York World, and the second from the Outlook.
(1)
NOW THE PUBLIC KITCHEN
BY MARIE COOLIDGE RASK
The Community Kitchen Menu
| The Community Kitchen Menu | |
| Vegetable soup | pint, 3¢ |
| Beef stew | half pint, 4¢ |
| Baked beans | half pint, 3¢ |
| Two frankfurters, one potato and cup full of boiled cabbage | all for 7¢ |
| Rice pudding, | 3¢ |
| Stewed peaches | 3¢ |
| Coffee or cocoa with milk | half pint, 3¢ |
"My mother wants three cents' worth of vegetable soup."