Fitter features
Top tips for writing magazine articles.
You open the exam paper, full of hope. You ick to the writing section but oh no, there it is again, the clammy-hand-of-death question that instructs you to write a school magazine article about some topical topic youve got no information to hand about. You sweat. You dget in your chair. You try looking at the other question but thats even worse a speech for parents evening arguing in favour of extra homework and double school uniform. You glance at the door. The invigilator twitches. Theres no way out. What do you do? Theres nothing you can do, frankly, but bite your lip, pretend you go to the kind of school that has a school magazine with articles about topical topics, and get on with it. And try to shove to the back of your mind any idea of including cool images, designing a great layout or writing in a funky yoof style. This is GCSE English and youre being assessed on your ability to turn out well-behaved prose that merely nods in the direction of media conventions. Think about all these things and you wont go too far wrong.
Purpose
If youre lucky, the purpose will be left quite open, but more often you will be directed to write to a particular purpose in one of those triplets: analyse, review, comment; or argue, persuade, advise. Read the question carefully so you know what the purpose is, and tailor your writing to suit it.
Audience
Check you know what this is. If its for a school magazine, the idea is that your fellow students will be tripping over themselves to read it, but because you are writing about a serious topic in a GCSE exam, you cant actually write it in a way that might appeal to them. You have to write in standard English. If its for a local newspaper, your audience is a general adult audience.
Topic
This will be specied and its often either related to texts youve had to read in other parts of the exam paper, or is something the examiner thinks young people stay awake at night thinking about. Do what you can with it.
Genre conventions
Headlines: you may be given one, but if not make yours short and punchy, and focus on the key idea. Sub-headings: use them to structure your article if you want, but theyre not compulsory. Length: feature articles explore ideas in more depth, so aim for a couple of sides. Images and other presentation features: the examiners are assessing your written accuracy and style, so theyre mostly interested in your writing dont overdo the rest.
WEEK 5 [Link]
MAGAZINE FEATURES
Writing
Language
Dont be afraid to use a conversational style using you and I and rhetorical questions, but dont veer off into the over-familiar or personal. This is a magazine article which could theoretically be read by many thousands of people. Dont be afraid to say what you think, using condent words like must and should to express your views with a bit of zest; use emotive vocabulary for extra spice. Help the reader to see what you can see by layering in plenty of descriptive detail. If youre going for a humorous style, keep it consistent, keep it clean, and dont rely on in-jokes your examiner wont ever understand (even if youre pretending to write for a school magazine).
Main body text
This section should develop the ideas introduced in the opening. Forget tabloid style where every sentence is a paragraph and instead build a number of well-structured paragraphs of three or four sentences long. This will give you enough space to develop the topic, using all the usual components: facts and gures, people and places, personal opinions and quotations (from gures of authority as well as the woman next door), anecdotes, research data and examples. Make sure you link all these elements together.
Conclusion
This is an article not an essay, and your goal is to leave your reader with something to think about. There are lots of different ways of doing this. If its an argumentative or persuasive piece, refocus on the main idea or opinion you want them to go away with. If your purpose was to inform or advise, let them know what they should do next. Try to make it memorable.
Opening paragraph
The opening paragraph needs to introduce the topic and the angle youre going to take. Try to give it a twist to engage the readers interest, by including a provocative point of view, a fascinating fact, an unusual opinion, a dramatic event, or a condential tone to lure the reader in to the rest of your article. Aim to keep the reader reading.
next week
This game of inches: persuasive speech writing.
Revision in minutes
3 6 13
Make a list of all the worst possible topics you might have to write a school magazine article about. The advantages of school trips? A life-changing experience? How to save energy in the home? Be very afraid: these are all real topics! Write an attention-grabbing headline for as many of your topic ideas as you can.
Write an opening paragraph for one of your headlines with a twist or a spark to keep your reader interested.
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WEEK 4 5
