Emaan Ahmed

September 19, 2019

Science Writing

Research Assessment #3

Since I last researched the general basics of science writing, I am going to focus on longform

article writing for this assignment. I read the articles “Exploring Longform Narrative Story Structure”,

“How to Engage Readers with Digital Longform Journalism”, and “A Step-by-Step Guide to Producing

a 3,000-Word Article on Any Topic”. Both of these articles have advice on writing longform articles,

which are typically articles greater than 3000 words- this is a much greater amount than the 900 word

article I wrote previously. It is important for me to understand how to manage such a large word limit

while keeping the attention of the audience on my writing and what information I intend to convey with

it.

The first article from NASW discusses the basic structure of a longform article and how it differs

from the average article. It states that longform articles are not merely normal articles scaled up, and that

they need a different structure to maintain the attention of the audience throughout the piece. As for the

actual structure, the analogy of music, film, and theatre is used. ‘Sonata Form’ is a musical structure that

has three parts: exposition, development, and recapitulation, which mirrors the progression of the ideal

article. Within these pieces can be sbstructures with their own format, so the piece has a larger

cohesiveness; structure can be used “as an expressive force”. Film techniques can be used to keep the

writing fresh; examples include zooming in and out on the narrative and signalling transitions. Theatre

engages the audience by introducing interesting concepts and themes throughout the whole performance,

tying them all together at the climax- the reader must be intrigued enough by additional elements to keep
reading further. All of these techniques are ones to keep in the back of my mind when I finally start

writing, if I ever find that what I’m writing is too dull and cannot keep the audience’s attention. They

will be useful to sprinkle in throughout my piece, in order to make sure my writing does not fall into a

repetitive pattern.

The next article from American Press Institute is all about keeping the audience engaged, with

the same theme as the article above. This one, however, talks about the actual content of the longform

article. More than the word count, longform articles “dive in deep”, with greater detail and effort put

into divining the truth from beneath the surface. A warning for longform pieces is that they limit your

audience to only those who have the attention span to read far enough, but this presents a challenge to

my writing skills- I must write something both detailed and engaging. One piece of advice I hope to

employ is to implement multimedia elements into the article to break up the blocks of writing and offer

information in a different format. Obtaining data might be difficult depending on what I choose to write

about, but having some scientific/research basis for what I write will definitely heighten my legitimacy.

The last article is “A Step-by-Step Guide to Producing a 3,000-Word Article on Any Topic”,

which is exactly what it says in the title. It walks through the process of writing a longform article from

the initial conceptual phase to the final product. Before even beginning, it is important to know what you

are writing about, because the reader can tell when the writer has no idea what is going on either. This is

why I want to first obtain a STEM (engineering) degree before becoming a science writer, so I have a

foundation in science that I can build off of as I move into other fields. The writing process starts with

the outline, which must have a solid structure for the whole thing, as the first article emphasized. Next,

getting credible and interesting sources in imperative, as they provide the emat of the content for the

story- this must be done before writing, as the article must be built around factual information and not
the other way around. When writing the first draft, it must be heavily detailed- flow and sophistication

must be disregarded initially, and it is most important to simply write as much as possible. Then the

draft must be broken into parts and ‘pillars’ of important information/components noted to keep

everything flowing. Finally comes the editing process, where the draft is torn apart and put back together

over and over again until something worthy is produced. That is the almost-final product: it can be

finalized after sending it to other people and getting outsider feedback on how engaging it is- it can be

changed accordingly.

I hope to follow this advice and process when I begin writing, but first comes the brainstorming

phase: I have to find out what to write about. Between now and the next research assessment I will think

about fields I want to tackle, and possible story ideas that drift into my mind. If I don’t stumble onto

something good I will begin intense research to find something that piques my interest, which will likely

be the subject of my next research assessment.

Citation

"A Guide to Producing a 3,000-Word Article on Any Topic." ​QuickSprout,​ 26 Mar. 2019,
www.quicksprout.com/a-step-by-step-guide-to-producing-a-3000-word-article-on-any-topic.

Kovacs, Kasia. "How to Engage Readers with Digital Longform Journalism." ​American Press
Institute​, 1 Dec. 2016,
www.americanpressinstitute.org/publications/reports/strategy-studies/engaging-longform-journa
lism.

Palmer, Chris. "Exploring Longform Narrative Story Structure." ​The National Association of
Science Writers​, 16 Oct. 2011,
www.nasw.org/article/exploring-longform-narrative-story-structure.