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Binghao Guo
Prof. Roberta Wolfson
Writing 2
11 April 2016
Difference between Newspaper Articles and Social Media Posts
In high school, students are taught Do not write like the posts from Facebook. Instead
of it, teachers encourage students to read and imitate formal writings such as articles from
newspapers or academic journals. Without a doubt, written pieces from newspaper and from
social media have huge differences, but these differences do not decide which genre is the better
way to write. Different strategies are result of pursuing be attractive to certain audience. In this
article, we will focus on newspaper articles and social media posts about Donald Trump and
analyze how different genre approach same topic by respective strategies. By comparing the
formal writing genre of newspaper articles and informal writing genre of social media posts, it is
obvious that newspaper articles prefer to enhance neutrality, credibility and seriousness, while
social media posts focus on personal feeling and position, showing that in order to establish
closer bond with audience, different genre conventions are adapted, evolved and developed
because of the readers interests and reading habits.
Newspaper articles have a long history as a specific writing genre which traditionally
uses simple and attractive tiles to draw more attention from audience. Nowadays, newspaper
articles are not only published on papers but online as well. In fact, traditional newspaper like
The Wall Street Journal and New York Times valued their online business a lot. Thus the reporters
are eager to attract their potential readers to click the link or articles. In the article from The Wall
Street Journal written by Rebecca Ballhaus and Beth Reinhard, the title Donald Trumps
Abortion Comments Spark Furor From Both Sides is clear and contains important information.
First of all, it tells reader the article is about Donald Trumps abortion comments. Second, it
shows that Mr. Trumps comments gathered lots of criticism from both Republican and

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Democratic. After reading this title, readers may have more questions based on it: What did
Donald Trump say about abortion? Under what kind of circumstances did he make that
comments? How did others politicians response? Will it influence Donald Trumps support rate?
If readers are eager for these answers, they will definitely click the link and read the whole
article. That is the goal for a good title in newspaper article genre.
Besides title, a distinguishing convention of formal writing from newspaper is its
paragraph construction. Newspaper articles have short paragraphs usually contains no more than
five sentences. Each paragraph has a specific topic lead by one topic sentence. For example, in
the article Donald Trumps Abortion Comments Spark Furor From Both Sides, first two
paragraphs only have one sentence, which is also the topic sentences. The first paragraph said,
Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump said Wednesday he favored punishing
women who obtain abortions if the procedure were outlawed, only to retreat and say later
abortion providers alone should be held legally responsible. (Ballhaus and Reinhard)This
paragraph summarized Donald Trumps comments and attitude on abortion. And the second
paragraph told the reader that Trump gathered criticism from everyone. After explaining the title
in first two paragraphs, the article goes to further details about the incident, such as when and
under what circumstance did Trump make this comment, what is Trumps previous position on
abortion. Newspaper reporters choose short paragraph so that each paragraph contains only small
amount of information. While reading the story, the readers only need to understand the
information which certain paragraph focused on. Overall, the readers could easily understand the
whole story by understanding each piece of information. Thus, the construction of short
paragraph makes the newspaper article more understandable.
One of the conventions of newspaper article is that using quotations from important
people. Reporters understand that credibility and reputation of their newspaper is one of the key

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reasons to draw their readers, the articles need credibility as well. It is important to prove that the
incident said in the article is truth. Using information from reliable source is a good way to
approve the credibility of the story. As in the third paragraph of Donald Trumps Abortion
Comments Spark Furor From Both Side, the authors quote, Mr. Trump said, There has to be
some form of punishment, but declined to provide specifics. For the woman? Mr. Matthews
said. Yeah, there has to be some form, he responded. (Ballhaus and Reinhard) First, the
quotation presents a vivid interview scene to the audience. The detail of the story usually makes
the readers feel more real about the story. Second, the readers know the exact sentences from Mr.
Trump so that there is no space to manipulate Mr. Trumps words. Nowadays, the readers always
concern about that newspaper reporter would manipulate peoples word in order to show
reporters own opinions. The readers think the article has more credibility when the reporters use
quotations. Last, quotations are usually from important person or relevant person. These peoples
experience and reputation make their words dependable; also make the article more credible.
Thus, quotation is an important convention and technique which could make the newspaper
article more dependable.
Another convention appeal to credibility is the neutral language. Newspaper articles
usually avoid language with strong personal feeling or obvious position. As the example, in the
article Donald Trumps Abortion Comments Spark Furor From Both Side, the authors did not
write about whether they support or against Trumps comments. Instead, they show the readers
Trumps comments and how others think about Trumps idea and how did they response to
Trump. The neutral position of the author means the author does not try to guide or lead
audiences opinion. The author just presents the facts and let the audience make the judgement.
The audience of The Wall Street Journal is usually educated people who have trained in critical
thinking; they are pleased to make their own conclusion instead from the authors. If the

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newspaper reporters do not use the neutral language, the reader would feel that the reporters are
trying to put ideas into the readers mind. In that case, the reporters are writing fiction instead of
true facts. Lack of neutral tone will lead to lack of credibility. Thus, neutral language is important
to the genre credible.
Compared to newspaper articles, posts on social media have much shorter length than
newspapers article. Different from newspaper article, posts on social media such as Facebook
and Tweets are genre of informal writings. Usually the posts do not have a title but have short
length, contain less information. That is because the audience on social media websites is more
interested in information pieces than a completed essay. The audience is not interested into
comprehend the whole story, instead they are looking for opinions supporting their own ideas.
For example, about Mr. Trumps story. The newspaper story will try to cover much information
about the story, which makes the article longer. The posts of social media do not care about the
integrality of the story; instead, the posts only focus on one specific idea, which makes the length
of the posts shorter. The benefit of short length is that the audience does not have to looking for
the information that he or she is interested in through hundreds and thousands of words; the
audience can recognize the idea that he or she want to see right away.
Unlike newspaper article using the neutral position, the posts on social media have strong
personal emotions. For example, a post about Trumps abortion comments on Facebook said as
follow, They all hate women & want to control them. I say pregnancy is a man's issue as HE
won't wear a condom so neuter the males no unwanted births then! (Thomas)The author Joan
Thomas shows her attitude towards Trumps comments on abortion with strong emotion and
furious language. Instead of he Ms. Thomas used HE, which is clear not appropriate
grammar but enhancing her anger of irresponsible male who are pleased with Trumps comment.
The author tried to empathizing with the audience by using emotional language. One purpose for

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social media posts is self-expression. Emotional language is a useful technique to express a
persons feeling. The author also tries to gain more attention by using strong language. The
readers are usually sensitive with emotions. The strong personal opinions draw audience and let
them be the participators who comment or repost the post. Thus, strong personal emotions help
authors express their feeling and gain more attention from the audience.
Another unique convention is that social media posts never finished. It is too short to
form a completed logical cycle. However, social media posts still have its way to expand itself.
Usually on Facebook or Twitter, there is not only a single post, but the comments and retweets as
well. The comments are linked to every author by the topic. For example, under Ms. Thomas
post, there is a comment from James Baker, These men are not really men. Really men support
womens(womens) desisions(decisions) and health. Real men know women are just as smart as
they are. These men are evil, nasty creeps.(Baker) Mr. Backer talked about a real man should
support womens decision, and concern about womens health, which reflects to Ms. Thomas
idea about man should be responsible to womens unwilling pregnancy. Because the posts are
unfinished, it leaves the space for others to explain, annotate or comment. With many posts and
comments related to each other, the combination is the genre of social media posts.
In conclusion, authors of any type of writing use different rhetorical strategies and
conventions to cater audiences interest. Even though the genres are different with each other, the
purpose of the genres is same, to gain more attention from the audience. In another way, it is safe
to say that the conventions of genre are adapted from audiences interests. Because of different
genres are linked with different audience, the conventions become different as well.

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Work Cited
Ballhaus, Rebecca, and Beth Reinhard. "Donald Trumps Abortion Comments Spark Furor From
Both Sides." The Wall Street Journal. The Wall Street Journal, 4 Apr. 2016. Web. 11
Apr. 2016.
Thomas, Joan, They all hate women & want to control them. I say pregnancy is a man's issue as
HE won't wear a condom so neuter the males no unwanted births then! Facebook.
Facebook, 4 April 2016. Web. 11 June 2016.
Baker, James, These men are not really men. Really men support womens desisions and health.
Real men know women are just as smart as they are. These men are evil, nasty creeps.
Facebook. Facebook, 4 April 2016. Web. 11 June 2016.