Feature Writing

Explore the intricacies of writing about women, interviewing techniques, travel writing, and book reviewing, gaining insights into ethical considerations, effective communication styles, and the importance of evaluative judgment to enhance your feature writing skills.

Feature Writing

1 Identifying significant topics

  1. How women have been treated in writing so far
  2. How to change existing attitudes
  3. Some suggestions about writing on women
  4. Summing up

2 Investigation and personal interview

  1. Scope for writing on women
  2. Interviewing rural women: sympathy and sensitivity
  3. Interviewing urban women: the process of social change
  4. Appropriate style: informal, participatory and conversational
  5. The ethics of publishing interviews

3 Familiarity with allied subject matter

  1. The importance of specialised study
  2. Women’s studies
  3. Familiarity with allied subject matter
  4. Summing up

4 Writing about women; drawing conclusions

  1. Conclusions to be based on facts, not prejudices or speculation
  2. Prejudices and preconceptions distort conclusions
  3. Avoid hasty conclusions: the phenomenon of dowry deaths
  4. Open-ended conclusions make the reader think and decide
  5. Summing up

5 Reviewer’s integrity

  1. Adequate motivation
  2. Integrity in book-reviewing
  3. Undue criticism
  4. Prejudices in book-reviewing
  5. The tone of an objective review
  6. Reviewing without reading the book
  7. Bloodthirsty reviewer
  8. Reviewer pretending to be scholarly
  9. Dishonesty does not pay
  10. The review format

6 Acquaintance with other works on the subject

  1. The reviewer’s task
  2. The well-informed reviewer
  3. The Review Editor’s task
  4. The reviewer’s duty towards his reader
  5. The reviewer assesses the book in relation to other books on the subject
  6. A Check list
  7. Summing up

7 Assessment of a book under review in terms of subject, style and relevance

  1. The reviewer’s job: to examine subject, style and relevance
  2. Subject
  3. Style
  4. Relevance: a checklist
  5. Summing up

8 Evaluative judgment

  1. What is evaluative judgement?
  2. Evaluative judgement and different forms of literary writings
  3. Characteristics of sound evaluative judgement
  4. Summing up

9 Background material

  1. Travel writing, an old form of literature
  2. Travel writing today
  3. Prerequisites for a travel writer
  4. Specialized travel writing
  5. Creative travel writing
  6. Summing up

10 Locating an appropriate subject

  1. The changed nature of travel writing today
  2. Kinds of travel writing
  3. Discover your particular skill in travel writing
  4. Summing up

11 Technique of travel writing

  1. Preparation—collecting information
  2. Visiting the place: keep an open mind
  3. Using a library for verification of data
  4. Writing the article—keep the reader in view
  5. Writing for a magazine
  6. Articles on specific topics

12 Allied material — photographs and sketches

  1. What kinds of pictures to choose
  2. What makes a picture good for reproduction
  3. Cropping: making pictures relevant and effective
  4. Photographs: cropping and masking
  5. Illustrations and sketches
  6. Captioning of pictures

13 Preliminaries

  1. Importance and uses of interviews in feature writing
  2. Interview articles
  3. The art of interviewing
  4. Recording of the interview
  5. Reconstructing the interview
  6. Winding up

14 Preparing questions

  1. Write down your questions
  2. Points to remember when framing questions
  3. Basic questions of an interviewer
  4. Technique of asking questions
  5. Points to remember when the interview is in progress
  6. Handling of some special interview situations

15 Use of interview equipment—audio, video, photographs, extracts

  1. Electronic aids in interviewing
  2. Audio cassettes/tape recorders
  3. Making do without tapes/cassettes
  4. Using video cassettes: advantages
  5. The use of photographs
  6. Using extracts

16 Editing and organization

  1. Some essentials recalled
  2. Giving shape to interview material
  3. Importance of focus, lead, and structure
  4. Anecdotes: how to handle and use them
  5. Quotations vs. paraphrasing
  6. What quotes to use and how
  7. Importance of balance in the article as a whole
  8. Revision and rewriting
  9. Question-and-answer format