Sample analysis (soft news)

THE PLAN OF ANALYSING AND RENDERING

A NEWSPAPER ARTICLE

A. INTRODUCTION TO ANALYSIS

1. State the headline of the article.

The headline of the article is...

The article is headlined...

The headline of the article I've read is...

Name the author of the article.

The author of the article is...

The article is written by …
3. Name the newspaper

The article is taken from the newspaper...

The article is published in the newspaper …

B. TOPIC AND MAIN IDEA

State the topic of the article.

The topic of the given article is …

State the main idea of the article.

The central idea of the article is...

The main idea of the article is...

The article is devoted to...

The article deals with...

The purpose of the article is to give the reader some information on...

The aim of the article is to provide a reader with some material on...

State the main problems discussed in the article

The article discusses some problems relating to …

The article deals with some aspects of…

The article considers the problem of …

The article presents the basic theory …

The article provides information on …

The article reviews the basic principles of...

C. RENDERING THE ARTICLE

7. Define themes and rhemes = > Give a summary of the article (10-20 sentences).

The beginning of the article:

The article begins with a short discussion on (deals firstly with the problem of)...

The first paragraph deals with...

First (at first, at the beginning) the author points out that (notes that, describes)...

The bulk of the article:

Then follows a discussion on...

Then the author goes on to the problem of...

The next (following) paragraph deals with (presents, discusses, describes)...

After discussing... the author turns to...

Next (further, then) the author tries to (indicates that, explains that)...

It must be emphasized that (should be noted that, is evident that, is clear that, is interesting to note that)...

The final part of the article and author’s conclusion:

The final paragraph states (describes, ends with)...

The conclusion is that the problem is...

The author concludes that (summarizes the)...

To sum up (to summarize, to conclude) the author emphasizes (points out, admits that...)

Finally (In the end) the author admits (emphasizes) that...

8. Optional elements of the analysis (*)

* Look for minor peculiarities of the article.

* Point out the facts that turned out to be new for you.

* Look through the text for figures, which are important for general understanding.

D. INFERENCE

9. Express your attitude to the problem discussed from the point of view of its actuality

In my opinion (To my mind, I think)...

The article is interesting, of importance (of little importance), valuable (invaluable), up-to-date (out-of-date), useful (useless)... (not interesting)...

10. State what places of the article contradict your views.
11. State the questions, which remained unanswered in the article and if it is possible add your tail to them.

12. State what criterion for news selection (or a combination of them) is of key importance for the given article (prominence, proximity, timeliness, conflict, human interest, oddity, consequence etc.)

13. Define the genre (type) of the article and prove your point of view with some key characteristics of the defined genre (hard news; soft news; feature article; news report; news analysis; news commentary, etc.).

14. Define the target audience of the given article (or the target audience of the newspaper where the article was published).

SAMPLE ANALYSIS (SOFT NEWS)

Original article text:

Time magazine's "Person of the Year" is You

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14