Алгоритм написания анализа статьи

A Newspaper Article: An Outline for the Analysis

1. The article under analysis “…” is taken form the newspaper “…”/ the magazine “…”. It is written by …

2. Type of the article: educational, ideological, sociological, entertaining, advertising, etc.

It is an educational (…) article and its main purpose is to convey and evaluate information about  recent events and newsworthy people.

3. The theme/ subject of the article (for example: fashion, scandals, prominent/ newsworthy people, global warming, marriage and divorce, etc.)

The theme/ subject of the article is …

The article deals with the problem of…

The article brings up a question …

The article is devoted to the problem…/ the following issue…

4. The summary of the article

The author begins with …

The author puts forward an idea that …

The author shows that …

The author thinks/ supposes/ believes that …

The author concludes with…

In the conclusion the author writes that …

5. The main idea/ purpose/ message of the article (= what the author wanted to say). Prove your observations by the words and word combinations taken from the text.

To sum up, the main idea/ purpose/ message of article is the following…

In my opinion, the main idea of this article lies in the following …

  6. Comment on the headline of the article.

• What are structural and semantic peculiarities of the headline?
• How is the headline connected with the text of the article?

In headlines we observe the following specific features:

1. The use of impersonal sentences, elliptical constructions (articles, prepositions, auxiliary verbs may be omitted), interrogative sentences, etc.
2. Frequent use of pun, violated phraseology, allusion and other vivid stylistic devices.
3. High degree of compression.
4. The use of short words.

E.g.: If we analyze the headline of the article we can say that it is written in a much larger type size than the text of the article and it is written in a different font, because the newspaper wants to represent the issue as one of vital importance and describe it as the biggest news of the day, thus drawing the readers’ attention to it. (The headline is followed by a smaller secondary headline (subhead), which gives more information on the problem). The words which are chosen for the headline are short. The headline includes using of the present tense, some of the auxiliary verbs, articles and prepositions are omitted, which is conventional for newspaper headlines.

(The headline of this article involves humour/ pun/ alliteration, etc. This device is used intentionally to create a double meaning or an ambiguity of meaning).

7. The language of the article:

* Start your analysis with pointing out some peculiarities of the style the article belongs to:

As the article under analysis belongs to the newspaper style, we observe…

(The main features of the newspaper style are:

1. The use of special political and economic terms (“by-election” (дополнительные выборы), “General Assembly”, “gross output” (валовая продукция), “per capita production” (продукция на leoe населения),  etc.)
2. The use of non-term political vocabulary (for example: “public”, “progressive”, “unity”, “nation-wide”)
3. the use of newspaper clichés (for example: “vital issue”, “pressing problem”, “informed sources”, “to cover the events”, etc.)
4. The use of abbreviations and acronyms (acronym is a type of abbreviation when a worde is formed from the initial letters of a name: NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration).
5. Wide use of neologisms.
6. On the syntactical level we may find

1. a specific word order: who – what – why – how – where - when.
2. Complex sentences with a developed system of clauses.
3. Verbal and noun constructions
4. Syntactical complexes (especially nominative with the Infinitive)
5. Attributive noun groups (“heart swap patient” (пациент по пересадке сердца), “the national income and expenditure figures” (количественные данные по национальной прибыли и издержкам/ расходу))

On the syntactical level we can find long and complex sentences/ short and incomplete sentences. There are some cases/ examples of parallelism/ repetition … On the lexical level we can find cases/ examples of …

• pay attention to the usage of quotations
• peculiarities on the syntactical level (find and comment on the examples of parallelism, repetition, contrast/ antithesis, gradation/ climax, etc.)
• peculiarities on the lexical level (find and comment on the examples epithets, simile, metaphor, metonymy, irony; pay attention to abbreviations and shortenings, neologisms, synonyms (the opposition of formal and informal words: to flee – to escape, to intervene – to get involved), phrasal verbs, idioms).

(GIVE EXAMPLES FROM THE TEXT FOR EACH STATEMENT!!!)

7. The pragmatic function of the article*: e.g.: to show the attitude towards the event, to evaluate the facts given in the article, etc.

What is the general tone of the article? (positive, negative, neutral) Prove your idea by the examples from the text. Pay attention to different epithets used in the text. Are there any cases of irony or satire?

* bear in mind: the general function of the newspaper style is informative.

8. Give in a few words your own evaluation of the problem discussed in the article (agree or disagree with the author’s point of view, give your own arguments).