Presented at Red Sift Research

1. EIGHT APPROACHES TO MAKE ARTICLES
ABSORBING AND INTERESTING TO
READERS
Mithileysh Sathiyanarayanan
Research Scientist
Red Sift Research, London
Email: mithileysh@redsift.io
Workshop on Communication Skills
Ⓒ Copyright 2016-17 Mithileysh Sathiyanarayanan. All Rights Reserved

2. Eight Approaches

3. Semantic Approach
◦This approach provides meaning to the content –
“Does the contents make sense?”.
◦Example: this approach covers contents with short
paragraphs, illustrations, sensible humors, readers
must be able to draw inferences and be able to
synthesise quickly etc.

4. Syntactic Approach
◦This approach provides structure to the content –
“Does the contents sound right?”.
◦Example: simple and natural language, grammar,
language structures, flow of ideas, logical flow, usage
of words, impactful words, right adjectives and verbs,
readable, conceptual, comprehensive, holistic and
interpretable etc.

5. Thematic Approach
◦This approach provides theme to the content - “Does
the contents have a theme and cover a variety of
subjects/topics?”.
◦Example: Interesting, relevant and compelling titles
and/or sections. At a broader level, the content can
have a quick abstract and a take-away
conclusion/summary etc.

6. Texto-visual Approach
◦This approach provides textual cues to the content –
“Does the contents look right?”.
◦Example: Highlight content, make content bold, italics
with/without captions and/or by sectioning/sub-
sectioning/sub-headings, numbers, bulleted lists etc.

7. Storytelling/narrative Approach
◦This approach provides story to the content - “Does
the contents make a compelling story?”.
◦Example: real-life instances, fictions/non-fictions, non-
repetitive of ideas.

8. Visualisation Approach
◦This approach provides visuals within the content –
“Are the contents visually aesthetically pleasing and
do they make sense?”.
◦Example: bar charts, line charts, pie charts, network
graphs, normal graphs, images etc.

9. Multi-media Approach
◦This approach provides multi-media contents within
the written content.
◦Example: audios, videos, internet images, social media
links, professional links, journal/articles/books
references and citations.

10. Pragmatic Approach
◦This approach provides some general considerations
(real, theoretical and practical) in the content based
on the reader’s background, interest and expectations
from the content.
◦Example: sensible, realistic etc.