Articles

Articles help readers understand events, people, discoveries and issues. They appear in newspapers, magazines and online publications. Some report what has happened; others explore why it matters or explain something readers find confusing. An article can inform and influence at the same time: its selection of facts, voices and examples gives readers a particular way of seeing the subject.

Start with what this article is trying to help its readers understand. “It informs the reader” is only a starting point. What becomes clearer, more urgent, more surprising or more questionable by the end?

News reports usually focus on a recent event or development. An opening may give the most important information first, followed by supporting details, quotations and background. This is often called the inverted pyramid. Check the actual order rather than assuming every report follows it.

Features explore a subject in more depth, often through people, scenes or a sustained angle. A profile may introduce someone through a revealing moment before widening into their life and work. A feature about a social issue may move between one person's experience and a wider pattern. Ask what the individual story helps readers see—and what it cannot establish on its own.

Explainers make a difficult or disputed subject more understandable. Definitions, comparisons, question headings and everyday examples can guide readers through unfamiliar ideas. Explanation still involves choices: the writer decides which questions matter and what counts as a useful answer.

These forms overlap. A feature can report new information; an explainer can express a judgment. An opinion article primarily develops a viewpoint, though it may also explain and report. Use the separate Opinion/commentary guide when that is the main task. A publication's name does not determine the genre of everything it publishes.

Consider what the article assumes readers already know, what it explains and why those readers might care. Specialist vocabulary without explanation can suggest a knowledgeable readership; definitions and familiar comparisons may welcome readers new to a topic. Support these inferences with details rather than assigning an exact age or income without evidence.

The angle is the aspect of the subject the article focuses on. An article about transport might center on commuters' costs, environmental consequences or the experience of disabled passengers. Each angle directs attention differently, even when the articles concern the same policy.

Distinguish the subject from the developing message. “This is about public transport” identifies a topic. “The article makes a policy debate concrete through passengers' daily difficulties” begins to explain a choice and its purpose.

Read the headline with the opening, then trace what each section adds. A headline may announce, question, surprise or challenge an assumption. A standfirst is a short summary below the headline; an opening paragraph is sometimes called the lead or lede. Name these features when they help explain how the article prepares readers.

An article may move from event to background, problem to explanation, individual to wider pattern, or competing claims to a qualified judgment. Subheadings can make that movement visible. Notice where a writer pauses to define a term, introduces a different voice or changes the scale of the discussion.

The ending can resolve an opening question, return to a person or image, or leave readers with an unresolved consequence. Explain how that ending changes or completes what came before. Avoid treating structure as a list of paragraph summaries.

Ask whose knowledge the article draws on. Named witnesses, researchers, organizations, documents and statistics can support different kinds of claim. A witness can describe an experience without representing everyone; an expert's relevant knowledge matters more than the title alone.

Attribution tells readers where information or a judgment comes from. Keep the writer's words distinct from a quoted speaker's: a forceful quotation may be selected to introduce a disagreement rather than endorse its position. Notice which voices receive space, where they appear and whether their claims are tested or qualified. An absent perspective may limit the account, but absence alone does not prove deliberate deception.

Credibility can develop through clear explanation, precise sourcing and an honest acknowledgment of limits. A number is not automatically convincing: what is counted, what comparison is made and what conclusion follows? Likewise, an emotional personal story can make a consequence vivid without proving how common it is.

Examine how word choice makes the topic manageable and meaningful. Technical terms can provide precision; definitions and analogies can make them accessible. A conversational aside may reduce distance between writer and reader. Evaluative words can suggest approval, doubt or urgency even in an article whose main purpose is to explain.

A metaphor can clarify one aspect of a subject while encouraging a particular judgment about it. Calling a development a “breakthrough” differs from calling it an “invasion”. Explain the association the wording introduces and how the surrounding passage supports or qualifies it. Do not stop at naming the device.

Where images, captions, pull quotations or graphics are supplied, read them alongside the words. A photograph may personalise an issue; its caption may redirect attention toward a wider problem. A graph can support a comparison, but its scale and labels matter. Analyze the layout you can actually see. A printed exam extract does not establish the original website's scrolling behavior, links or interactive features.

1. Establish the subject, publication context and likely reader. Identify whether the main work is reporting, exploring, explaining or arguing.
2. Put the central question or angle into your own words. Track how the opening prepares it and how the ending leaves it.
3. Follow two or three important movements in the article. Mark changes in scale, source, tone or degree of certainty.
4. Select precise evidence across language, structure and any supplied visuals. Explain how the choices work together rather than building a device checklist.
5. Form a claim about the understanding the article develops. Test it against a detail that complicates your first reading.

Use the analysis reference for terminology and analytical language to express relationships clearly. Your explanation of a choice matters more than the number of terms you use.

For planning and organizing a timed response, use the Paper 1 guide.