This is a journalistic article taken from The Economist, a quality press

newspaper. It is included in the section ‘Science and Technology’ and its heading is
‘The aves and ave nots’. Below the heading, there is a small paragraph which perfectly
summarises the topic of the article, that is called lead and says ‘Avian influenza is
spreading to many new countries. But migrating wild birds may not be the only
culprits’. The heading and the lead are probably the most important parts of an article
because depending on their influence the reader will continue reading or not.

From a structural point of view, the heading and the lead are followed by the
bulk which should include some journalistic features in order to be well written. First
of all, the five w-s: lots of birds (who) have got avian flu (what) in around a month
(when) in many different countries (where) due to commercial trade and the
movement of poultry; trade in wild birds; and the use of infected poultry manure as
agricultural fertiliser (why/how). Then, it must follow the ABCD principle, which
includes accuracy, brevity, consciousness and directness. This article is accurate
because facts are presented but not explain in detail because the goal is informing. As
it can be observed it is also brief, it contains ten small paragraph but those includes the
most important information about the topic so it is also concise. Directness can be
found in the use of objective language which does not lead to ambiguity. Information
could be said to be clearly presented. Finally, it can be stated that the article follows an
inverted pyramid structure which means that information is presenting in diminishing
importance. There are some facts at the end of the article which could be easily
omitted without a change of relevance.

On the other hand, if attention is paid to the content, we should mention

coherence and cohesion. The former is found in the use of an objective language. The
journalist does not express his opinion but a number of facts to inform the reader
about the situation. Those facts denote that this person has done a previous study
before written the article. For instance, in paragraph number five he talks about an
‘outbreak in Hong Kong in 1997 when 20% of chickens in live poultry markets were
infected’; in the same way he includes the specific amount of money, $1.9 billion,
needs to fight against avian flu. Another important characteristic of coherence is the
fact that the text should follow a cause effect relation??