I’ve decided to share an example of an online magazine article from the Harvard Business Review https://hbr.org/2021/08/how-to-work-with-someone-who-creates-unnecessary-conflict?ab=hero-main-text . What’s distinctive about this type of writing is that it offers advice and it’s written in the first person. So, although this piece is meant for anyone who works in or owns a business, and is published in a business magazine, the author makes it friendly and as though she were having a conversation with a colleague. She also breaks down her advice into chunks with explanatory headers. The author quotes experts, as well as the experiences of those in the workplace, and includes links to research and other relevant articles. I appreciate the conversational tone and, as I too plan on doing, the links to other articles. These links help to provide evidence to back up her statements without changing the flavor of the article into something more scholarly. This made me realize that what I’ve written for my project so far might need to be tweaked a little to sound more advisory and less explanatory. I also like how the author used several case studies to demonstrate the issue being discussed. I think I may lean on some examples of situations I’ve encountered as a union rep. as my own case studies. In the sample article, there are step-by-step instructions on how to tackle the stated problem. Later, the author offers best practices that are being used successfully by other companies. I probably won’t be able to offer step-by-step instructions, but I will be able to suggest what can help create the cultural change I want to see in organizations.
Great work, Sherri–what you’re talking about here is a shift in purpose to suit your audience. They’re likely to be more interested in actionable information than in explanation for the sake of explanation. The kind of HBR article you’re referencing here is a good example of that type of writing for busy professionals who want to quickly synthesize material and then be able to make use of it.
Embedded links will probably be a useful way to credit many of your sources, though if you are working with scholarly texts that are from password-protected databases, you’ll need to use another approach (i.e. in-text attribution with a references list). Let me know what questions you have as you continue. I’m looking forward to seeing the finished product.