The Journalist's Questions from Paradigm Online Writing Assistant: http://www.powa.org/whtfrms.htm

The six questions traditionally asked by journalists--who? what? when? where? how? and why?--can be valuable aids to invention in all types of writing. By using them as probes, you'll look at your subject more closely, and as you do, you'll find pertinent things to say.

The six main questions can also be broken down into subtopics that offer more precise guidance than the major questions. The questions and subtopics may be used in any order. Use them if and when they can help you achieve your writing purpose.

Who

Like the other questions, this one's value depends upon the spirit in which you use it. On the most superficial level, it might yield only a word or two: 'this guy I know' or 'Aunt Ginny.' But answering the question that way is almost like not answering it at all. Getting beyond the surfaces of people--their names, labels, sizes--takes some time and concentration, but adds vital information and force to your writing. The list below contains only a few examples of the kinds of information you can provide under the heading of who.

Subtopics for Exploring the Question of Who

This list isn't meant to be complete. Probably you've already thought of possibilities, even entire categories, that could be included. You may also have seen that many subtopics could be broken down further and discussed at length, 'clothing,' for instance. When you see this, you're starting to understand what it means to ask and answer the question of who.

What

The question of what can open up interesting avenues of exploration. A whole essay might explore what happened, some event or incident you've chosen to tell about. You may want to show what a family reunion or a Cesarean section or a Bar Mitzvah or an elk hunt is. By seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, and feeling the events, people, and things in your essay, your readers discover what the subject is, what it means for you, and what you want it to mean for them.

Also, most subjects are composites, made up of several parts, and those parts can all be examined and described. What are the various parts of a Bar Mitzvah, for example? How are those parts related to each other? What is the function of each part in relation to the whole?

As you can see, the question of what is quite open-ended. If you ask it with imagination and energy, it can lead your writing into interesting territory.

When

Everything happens in time, and the question of when locates events in time. On the most superficial level, this could mean just giving a date and time: 2:59 p.m., Thursday, July 12, 1996. In most writing, however, such exact fixing of time isn't necessary. 'One rainy winter morning just before breakfast' may set the time nicely for one piece, while 'Easter Sunday when I was thirteen years old' might do the job for another. When can also be used to show relationships in time, as when we say, 'Before stepping up to the ticket booth, I stretched a little to make myself look taller.' Like the other questions, when can be subdivided into subtopics that may help you uncover further possibilities for exploration.

It's hard to imagine a paper that would use all or even most of these questions. Still, this list should give you an idea of how the question of when can help you discover what to say.

Where

Everything is somewhere, and describing that place serves two important functions. First, it permits your readers to discover the sights, sounds, smells, the whole physical environment. Descriptive detail enriches the environmental texture, making it fuller and more vivid. The scene is rendered and invites readers to enter it imaginatively.

Also, where can show how setting shapes events. How was the battle's outcome affected by the fact that it took place in a steep-walled canyon with only one exit? How was the family reunion influenced by its taking place for the first time at Uncle Ted's house? Might the crawdaddies have turned out differently if you'd cooked them at home in your own kitchen?

Use the question of where to orient your readers and help them know not only where things are happening but what this place is like and why it is of importance.

How

The question of how directs us toward method and procedure, toward process. Readers might not understand the exact nature of the action or the various parts, steps, and stages that constitute a process. An essay on a family vacation might tell how the destination and modes of transportation were chosen, how the reservations were made, how the trip was financed, how the car was packed, how seating arrangements were made, or how the tie-downs holding the roof rack worked loose. Or you might tell how you built a campfire, cleaned a fish, roasted corn, or packed home your trash. The point is that how probes large and small actions to reveal their inner dynamics.

As with the other questions, your thoroughness with this one will depend on your readers' needs and interests as well as your purposes in writing. How much do your readers want or need to know about the process of filling out an arrest report? How much do you want them to know? How will their having or not having this information affect the success of your writing? These are the kinds of questions you need to keep in mind when you work with the question of how.

Why

More than the other questions, why asks for reasons, conclusions, thoughts. It asks you to analyze and explain the actions and events you're writing about. For this reason, it's less important to ask why in personal narratives than in writing about ideas. Some writers even say explanation and analysis should be avoided altogether, letting readers draw their own conclusions from the concrete details presented.

That is, writers should show rather than tell what happened and why. For instance, if I show a customer slamming money on a counter and stomping out of a store, I shouldn't have to explain that she did this because she was angry. Readers will draw that conclusion themselves. The point's a good one. Besides being unnecessary, such explanatory passages detract from the writing's vividness, substituting analysis for drama.

This doesn't mean, though, that the question of why shouldn't be asked, only that it should be asked carefully and that its answer will often be revealed implicitly through showing rather than explicitly through direct telling.