'Romantic novelists rank cleanliness over hunkiness'

Picture and news link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2011/aug/25/romantic-novelists-rank-cleanliness-over-hunkiness?INTCMP=SRCH

This is a very interesting blog post written by a journalist of the Guardian. The author quoted some statistics of two surveys which show that it turns out cleanliness is one of the overriding factors that women want on their Mr. Dreaming. However the interesting part here is that this standard may not be suitable to apply to the describing sentences about Mr. Dreaming in romance novels. The author then, suggests that may be there is a difference between what makes a life time partner and what makes a good fantasy in romance novels.

From my point of view I think this article works well because of its relevance to the human interest. Audiences especially women readers will easily attracted by such kind of topic since it seems most of them are very enthusiastic about having pictures in their heart about Mr. Right and if they can find the one in the near future. On the other hand, some of them are addict to reading romance novel. The perfect one in these novels is one of the factors that help romance novel sells.

Not to mention that there is a surprise for the result of the survey. According to the survey of romantic novelists “the most important traits in a man are loyalty (91% picked this as essential in their perfect man), honesty (89%) and personal hygiene (88%). Height and good looks only garnered 60% apiece”. The surprise here is that personal hygiene is far more important than height and good looks. Also the survey suggests that participants actually “put wealth and social standing low on the list of important qualities in a man”. However, according to my personal observation, in China, females are highly value wealth and social standing when it comes to their Mr. Dreaming.

This article works also because the topic it described can lead its readers to discuss deeply about what helps romance novel sell and what kind of man makes a good life partner in real life.

‘Steve Jobs authorised biography tops bestseller list on pre-orders’

Picture and news link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/oct/07/steve-jobs-biography-rushed-out

After the death of English singer Amy Winehouse, Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO, becomes another spotlight in media’s reporting after he passed away. Different kinds of reporting such as about his achievement on computer technology innovation, his former speech in Stanford University, the reason which result in his death and even the Apple product itself, are all become popular topics among the public. That is why it’s no wonder when the authors of The Guardian’s book column decided to write some book news articles about Steve Jobs. Since this kind of topic now can easily catch the attention of the audiences.

This article, named ‘Steve Jobs authorised biography tops bestseller list on pre-orders’, is start with quote one words of Steve Jobs “I wanted my kids to know me” and then shows the fact that his biography now tops the Amazon bestseller list on pre-orders. This is an effective start since it generalized the central idea of the whole article. That is: Steve Job’s biography is quite popular now and this article contains information about how Jobs think about his biography. The leading sentence is followed by details about the release date of biography. The following paragraphs introduced the author of the biography of Steve Jobs and Jobs’s own attitude toward this book. The news article is ended by some interesting quotes from Amazon book describers.

I think this news article works well because of its relevance to the current popular topic and the way it represents the news. It also introduced the author of this book, in this article it mentioned that the author who writes the biography for Jobs is the one who’s written articles and books for Einstein and Benjamin Franklin. This works well because the public is always interested in news about prominence. The end is humorous quotes from two book describers. Their words show their great respect for Steve Jobs. This is a good way to show the author’s respect for Jobs since in a news article the author cannot show he/her own opinion toward certain thing, it is a good way of “show” rather than “tell”.  

‘Reading to children losing out to TV and dinner’

News link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/sep/18/booktrust.survey.reading.to.children?INTCMP=SRCH
According to a recent report of The Guardian, a survey of Booktrust indicates that parents in nowadays spend much less time on reading to their children daily. Children, at the same time, spend lots of time on watching TV, DVD or surfing on the internet.

This article has a very effective start. Like most of the news article, this article starts with a short, conclusive sentence so that audience can acquire the essential idea of the whole article at the first glance.

It is followed by the details of the survey which includes related statistics. For instance the second graph shows among 1,500 parents, only one in three parents are reading to their kids daily. The average four to five-year-old spends double time on watching TV weekly when compared with doing reading. The average 11 to 12-year-old spend 8 and a half in front of the television per week. The advantage of doing so is that statistics can support the author’s idea to make the news article more persuasive. Also these statistics can help audience form a specific idea about how less time parents spend on reading to their kids. Furthermore, if audience still feel interested in this topic after seen the first sentence of the article, he or she can moving on to get more details.

To generate topic and discussion about the survey, the author then incites several reasons for such situation for parents. That is—busy life, fatigue and having to cook dinner. The author then quote a message from the director of Booktrust to suggest that even though parents now have a more stressful life, they can still squeeze enough time to read for their kids since early education is quite important.

To me, this news article is more like a promotion article for the charity organization Booktrust since the statistics and quotes in this article are all from it. However the angle and way of writing can alert the public about children’s education and even our own life style.