Introduction

Types of Articles

Format/Structure

Author

Language

Illustrations/ Advertisements

Purpose

Audience

Peer Reviewed/ Refereed

Printable Checklist

Sensational Language

Sensational articles use basic elementary language, so someone without a formal education can understand the information. The language is often sensational to attract the reader.

Sample sensational language:
HAIR-RAISING reports are pouring in from around the world of intricate crop circles mysteriously appearing overnight on people's scalps. Baffled investigators are probing a possible link between "cranial crop circles" and strikingly similar markings that have repeatedly shown up on the White House lawn over the past six months, as reported in the July 29 issue of Weekly World News. The elaborate designs are created while the individual is asleep, yet not one of the victims or their partners has reported waking up during the procedure. Victims say they wake from 'an unusually restful sleep' to find a complex array of circles and lines shaved into their heads. "The cranial patterns are too intricate for the perpetrator of a hoax to have fashioned them without waking the recipients in the process," says Dr. Leonard Schemmel, head of the Alien Research Center in New Mexico. "We've gathered over 200 reports of cranial crop circles from 12 different countries, which appear to rule out a hoax.

September 19th, 2003