Feature Article

A feature article gives information of human interest. Feature articles are generally the stories in newspapers and magazines other than straight news stories, editorials, or advertising. In addition, because of their human interest, they attempt to involve the reader emotionally. The feature article does not have the inverted pyramid organization of the "hard" news article. Furthermore, features do not become dated as quickly as "hard" news stories. A good feature article is often interesting to read a year after it was written. It is more similar to fiction because it tells a story. For example, a news story about the Prime Minister might be about what is happening in Cabinet or perhaps which laws are under consideration in the Diet. A feature article, on the other hand, would perhaps look at the Prime Minister's leisure activities or tell the story of some important formative incident that took place in his youth.

Common types of Feature Articles

The Human Interest Feature

A human interest feature takes something currently of interest in society and connects it to something interesting in the life of an ordinary person. For example, a feature article on e-mail might show us e-mail is changing human relationships at work and at home.

The Personality Feature

A human interest feature may develop into a personality feature which looks at a person's life in more depth. The person may be well known or completely unknown, but he/she will have done something of interest to others. For example, Rick Hansen, a wheelchair athlete, travelled the equivalent of the distance around the world to raise money for spinal cord injury research. His life has been the subject of many personality feature articles. A personality feature may be tragic or inspire us because of the heroics of the subject.

The How-To Feature

The how-to feature describes how to do or build something. For example, how to organize your desk for efficienty, or how to clean your house in twenty minutes.

The Past Events Feature

The past events feature looks at historical events, but approaches them from the angle of human interest. For example, in remembering the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, rather than look only at the economic or political facets of the story, a feature article might look at how the Tokyo Olympics affected one person's life in particular.

The News Feature

The news feature takes a current news story as its start but then investigates how the news affects the lives of average people. For example, how the employees at a small company whose boss has been killed in a plane crash, continue running the company.

Writing and Organizing a Feature Article

• Choose which type of feature article you want to write. Then choose which emotion you want to appeal to in your readers.
• Decide which method of organization will be most effective for your story: order of importance or chronological order.
• Decide how you want to lead into the story. Start with a sentence that catches the attention of your readers and makes them want to finish reading the story.
• Use the techniques of story writing to help develop the human interest in your article.
• Conclude your article in the same way as you would a short story. Be sure to bring together all the loose ends.
• Create a headline that will catch your readers' attention.

Feature Article Checklist

• Is my research complete and accurate?
• Does my opening catch the readers' attention?
• Is my article interesting throughout?
• How have I organized my article? Is it logical?
• Have I used a variety of sentence lengths and styles?
• Have I included transitions to improve the flow and coherence?
• Have I used fresh, effective words?
• Have I removed all unnecessary words?
• Do I tell an interesting story?

Adapted from: Sorenson, Sharon. Webster's New World Student Writing Handbook. 3rd ed. New York: Macmillan, 1997.