English Essay vs. News Story

Academic Essay

An essay begins with a question, and builds towards a persuasive answer.  It progresses from uncertainty to certainty, by carefully arranging evidence in order to persuade the reader.

When done well, the academic essay 

1. identifies a specific, complex problem with no clear solution (the "research question")
2. proposes a non-obvious, debatable answer ("thesis")
3. examines evidence for and against the thesis, carefully stripping away the impossible and the unlikely, in a well-organized march towards the truth ("argument")
4. offers and defends a final opinion ("conclusion") emphasizing the significance of the preceding debate and how it supported the thesis.  

While it is only one possible way to frame an academic argument, the "five-paragraph essay" is often a significant influence on the writing habits of college students.

Inverted Pyramid

A traditional news story begins with a lead (a micro-summary, in one or two sentences), and continues with a hierarchy of details, from most to least important. 

A news story is not necessarily chronological.

Some journalism uses narrative to powerful effect (for instance, describing what happens when a famous musician plays at a busy subway station).

But consider a two-hour school board meeting, with an agenda that lists 12 items.  

Depending on what matters to your readers, you might lead with item 8, spend a paragraph each on items 2 and 9, and mention items 4, 11, 3, and 7 in a single sentence. Then you might continue with more details about item 8, more about 2 and 9, and trail off with even more details about item 8.

A really good reporter might walk up to the officials after the meeting and ask a question about something that wasn't even on the agenda.

Flowery, Roundabout Puffery

Your high school teachers probably rewarded you for writing grammatically correct sentences in almost any context.

You might have been faced with the dilemma of how to respond appropriately to the significant praise your well-meaning teachers gave you for completing assignments that demonstrated a flair for words, and that being the case, possibly decided to respond by immediately developing the questionable habit of adding numerous unnecessary modifiers wherever humanly possible, never even once missing the alluring chance to boldly puff up your simple writing with all manner of clever, expressive adjectives and elegantly willing adverbs, endlessly repeating your ideas over and over, each subsequent time using ever more and more elaborate language, doubling up and even tripling up with lists and paraphrases and elaborations, to inflate and draw out your sentences, your paragraphs and your essays, determinedly and painfully stretching your one idea to reach the required word count, and in the process of filling as much valuable space on the open, willing page as you possibly can, tried showing off.

You might have been faced with the dilemma of how to respond appropriately to the significant praise your well-meaning teachers gave you for completing assignments that demonstrated a flair for words, and that being the case, possibly decided to respond by immediately developing the questionable habit of adding numerous unnecessary modifiers wherever humanly possible, never even once missing the alluring chance to boldly puff up your simple writing with all manner of clever, expressive adjectives and elegantly willing adverbs, endlessly repeating your ideas over and over, each subsequent time using ever more and more elaborate language, doubling up and even tripling up with lists and paraphrases and elaborations, to inflate and draw out your sentences, your paragraphs and your essays, determinedly and painfully stretching your one idea to reach the required word count, and in the process of filling as much valuable space on the open, willing page as you possibly can, tried showing off.

Clarity

Clear writing packs power.

Since Fred Smith was elected mayor six months ago, the city saw the local unemployment rate drop to 4%.

 Here, does "since" mean "because" or "after"?

Unemployment dropped to 4%, six months after Fred Smith brought his economic reforms to the mayor's office.

The revision begins begins with the subject and an active verb, a sure-fire way of emphasizing the main idea. Let's consider another example:  

The reason the tax reform project failed to secure necessary support is the mayor's underestimating the negative impact of unexpected turnpike construction delays on public attitudes.

This dreary passage avoids grammatical mistakes, but the abstract subject "reason" and the colorless verb "is" smother the action.

The reason The tax reforms project failed to secure necessary support is the because the mayor's underestimated the negative impact of unexpected turnpike construction delays on public attitudes.

Now the sentence opens clearly with the clear, concrete subject "tax reforms" and the active verb "failed." We've already trimmed some deadwood; now let's work on parallel structure, moving things around to emphasize the two things the mayor underestimated:

The tax reforms failed because the mayor underestimated the negative impact of unexpected turnpike construction delays on public attitudes and the unexpected turnpike construction delays.

Now, we'll further tweak the sentence, highlighting the relationship between the two reasons.
 

The tax reforms failed because the mayor underestimated the duration of the turnpike repairs and the anger of inconvenienced commuters.