Five Ws: Difference between revisions
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They may also be remembered using a picture. The picture represents 5 bottoms on a bed; the bottoms are the 5 ws and the bed is the letter H. |
They may also be remembered using a picture. The picture represents 5 bottoms on a bed; the bottoms are the 5 ws and the bed is the letter H. |
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why is lss compared to the holocaust? |
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==History== |
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Prof. [[William Cleaver Wilkinson]] popularized the "Three W's"—What? Why? What of it?—as a method of bible study in the 1880's, though he did not claim originality. This became the "Five W's", though the application was rather different from that in journalism: |
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<blockquote> |
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"What? Why? What of it?" is a plan of study of alliterative methods |
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for the teacher emphasized by Professor W.C. Wilkinson not as original |
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with himself but as of venerable authority. "It is, in fact," he says, |
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"an almost immemorial orator's analysis. First the facts, next the |
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proof of the facts, then the consequences of the facts. This analysis |
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has often been expanded into one known as "The Five W's:" "When? Where? Whom? |
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What? Why?" Hereby attention is called, in the study of any lesson: to the |
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date of its incidents; to their place or locality; to the person |
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speaking or spoken to, or to the persons introduced, in the narrative; to |
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the incidents or statements of the text; and, finally, to the |
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applications and uses of the lesson teachings.<ref>Henry Clay Trumbull, |
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''Teaching and Teachers'', Philadelphia, 1888, p. 120 [http://books.google.com/books?id=VAYCAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA120&vq=w's&dq=teaching+and+teachers&num=100&source=gbs_search_r&cad=1_1#PPA120,M1 text at Google Books]</ref> |
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</blockquote> |
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By 1917, the "Five W's" were being taught in high-school journalism classes,<ref>Leon Nelson Flint, ''Newspaper Writing in High Schools, Containing an Outline for the Use of Teachers'', University of Kansas, 1917, p. 47 [http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=86tDAAAAIAAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA3&dq=+five-w%27s+%22history+of+journalism%22&ots=13fjQfRON_&sig=rwsiiiiZok-4y66USAvPsQEoYj0#PPA47,M1 at Google Books]</ref> and by 1940, the "Five W's" were being characterized as old-fashioned and fallacious: |
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<blockquote> |
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The old-fashioned lead of the five W's and the H, crystallized largely by Pulitzer's 'new journalism' and sanctified by the schools, is widely giving way to the much more supple and interesting feature lead, even on straight news stories.<ref>Frank Luther Mott, "Trends in Newspaper Content", ''Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science'' '''219''' (January 1942), pp. 60-65 [http://www.jstor.org/stable/1023893 at JSTOR]</ref> |
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<p> |
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All of you know about—and I hope all of you admit the fallacy of—the doctrine of the five W's in the first sentence of the newspaper story.<ref>Philip F. Griffin, "The Correlation of English and Journalism" ''The English Journal'' '''38''':4 (April 1949), pp. 192 [http://www.jstor.org/stable/806690 at JSTOR]</ref> |
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</blockquote> |
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==Notes== |
==Notes== |
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Revision as of 20:06, 21 October 2008
In journalism, the Five Ws (also known as the Five Ws (and one H) or simply the Six Ws) is a concept in news style, research, and in police investigations that most people[who?] consider to be fundamental. It is a formula for getting the "full" story on something. The maxim of the Five Ws (and one H) is that in order for a report to be considered complete it must answer a checklist of six questions, each of which comprises an interrogative word:
- Who?
- What?
- Where?
- When?
- Why?
- How?
The principle underlying the maxim is that each question should elicit a factual answer — facts that it is necessary to include for a report to be considered complete. Importantly, none of these questions can be answered with a simple "yes" or "no".
In the context of the "news style" for newspaper reporting, the Five Ws are types of facts that should be contained in the "lead" (sometimes spelled lede to avoid confusion with the typographical term "leading" or similarly spelled words), or first two or three paragraphs of the story, after which more expository writing is allowed.
The "Five Ws" (and one H) were memorialized by Rudyard Kipling in his "Just So Stories" (1902), in which a poem accompanying the tale of "The Elephant's Child" opens with:
- I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.
They may also be remembered using a picture. The picture represents 5 bottoms on a bed; the bottoms are the 5 ws and the bed is the letter H.
why is lss compared to the holocaust?
Notes
References
- "WHERE WENT THE 5 Ws?". The Marcus Letter. Retrieved Sep 12.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help); Unknown parameter|accessyear=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help) - "Knowing What's What and What's Not: The Five W's (and 1 "H") of Cyberspace". Media Awareness Network. Retrieved Sep 12.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help); Unknown parameter|accessyear=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help) - "Five Ws and H". Creativity Techniques. Retrieved Sep 12.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help); Unknown parameter|accessyear=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help) - "The Five W's of Online Help". by Geoff Hart, TECHWR-L. Retrieved Sep 12.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help); Unknown parameter|accessyear=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help) - "Five More Ws for Good Journalism". COPY EDITING, InlandPress. Retrieved Sep 12.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help); Unknown parameter|accessyear=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help)