Hello! We’ve talked about how to begin news articles with leads, and how to write articles with the inverted pyramid style.
In this video, we will look at how to end, or conclude, a news article.
Specifically, we will talk about how to conclude an inverted pyramid article, and how to conclude using a quotation.
If you are writing a story with the inverted pyramid style, you can simply end after the less important details. There is no need to summarize or repeat any information.
Let’s look at the example of the weather story. It ends with this sentence: Winds may also be strong throughout the area.
The writer gives a minor detail, then stops. Remember, the inverted pyramid style makes it easy to cut from the bottom, so there is no need to think of a clever ending - it might get cut from the story anyway.
For some stories that use a different style, you may want to think more about how to end the article.
One common type of conclusion is a quotation that sums up the ideas in the article or comments on the whole situation.
Let’s look at two examples from articles you have read in this course.
Recall the Voice of America’s story, “Times Are Changing in Havana, Cuba”. We will look at the basic version of this article.
This quotation sums up many of the ideas in the article and tells us about one perspective on the situation in Cuba. Notice that the quotation is general, not specific.
Now let’s recall the Voice of America’s story, “Schools, Universities Teach Students the Truth About Fake News”. The article ends with the ideas of Richard Hornik, who is a director at the Center for News Literacy.
By ending with Hornik’s comment, the conclusion helps the reader to think more about some of the important ideas in the article.
Notice that in both articles, the quotations do not give essential information.
They offer perspective and remind readers of the ideas in the story, but a reader would understand the article without reading the final quotation.
Similarly, the sources who are quoted were introduced earlier in the article.
Don’t introduce readers to a new source at the end of the article; this might be confusing because you would have to explain who the person is. Instead, quote a source that the reader already knows about.
So, in this video, we looked at two ways to end news articles. First, you can follow the inverted pyramid style and simply end after a minor detail.
Or, you might want to use a quotation from one of your sources, if they said something that really sums up the important ideas in the article.
Good luck writing your conclusions!