The Economist Worksheet
Choose an article from The Economist to read and analyze. You can read the work online or the paper copy of the magazine—your choice. You must choose an article that has been published in 2016 (business is all about staying up-to-date!). It is a weekly publication, so this should be difficult to find something current. Additionally, I’d like you to focus your article searching to two specific sections: Business & finance and Economics (for obvious reasons). However, if you find an article from another section that deals with business in a specific and relevant way, email me to get the okay.

I’ve spoken to many successful business executives and once they find out I teach business writing, they always offer similar reading advice: make sure your students read The Economist once a week (among other advice that I’ll relay throughout the semester).

So, with this worksheet, I’d like you to hone in on what makes The Economist special (and why business majors should be reading it weekly). However, I’m framing the approach to help you with getting into the mind frame of Project 1.

Please work closely with the article you’ve chosen and respond to the following questions:

1. Include an APA citation of the article.
2. What drew you to this particular article? Its title? Its content?
3. Summarize what the article is about in 3-4 sentences. What is it about?
4. What is the article’s purpose? How do you know? A specific instance in the article, perhaps? Explain.
5. Describe some issues of style in terms of language and tone. Note issues of article length, paragraph length, sentence length. Is the language easy to read? Technical? Is the tone objective? Slanted or biased? Explain. Discuss the layout, formatting, use of images, etc. Try to describe the article’s personality. Use examples of language directly from your chosen article to help illustrate your points.
6. Who is the specific intended audience for the article? How do you know this? How has the work been crafted for that audience? Explain.
7. Briefly look through the rest of the website. (Pop around to see the different tabs and skim over article titles. See if anything catches your eye.) What else about the site might give you an indication of the publication’s intended audience? Explain.

Now… see if you can keep up with reading The Economist at least one a week through this entire semester.

The Economist Worksheet
Choose an article from The Economist to read and analyze. You can read the work online or the paper copy of the magazine—your choice. You must choose an article that has been published in 2016 (business is all about staying up-to-date!). It is a weekly publication, so this should be difficult to find something current. Additionally, I’d like you to focus your article searching to two specific sections: Business & finance and Economics (for obvious reasons). However, if you find an article from another section that deals with business in a specific and relevant way, email me to get the okay.

I’ve spoken to many successful business executives and once they find out I teach business writing, they always offer similar reading advice: make sure your students read The Economist once a week (among other advice that I’ll relay throughout the semester).

So, with this worksheet, I’d like you to hone in on what makes The Economist special (and why business majors should be reading it weekly). However, I’m framing the approach to help you with getting into the mind frame of Project 1.

Please work closely with the article you’ve chosen and respond to the following questions:

1. Include an APA citation of the article.
2. What drew you to this particular article? Its title? Its content?
3. Summarize what the article is about in 3-4 sentences. What is it about?
4. What is the article’s purpose? How do you know? A specific instance in the article, perhaps? Explain.
5. Describe some issues of style in terms of language and tone. Note issues of article length, paragraph length, sentence length. Is the language easy to read? Technical? Is the tone objective? Slanted or biased? Explain. Discuss the layout, formatting, use of images, etc. Try to describe the article’s personality. Use examples of language directly from your chosen article to help illustrate your points.
6. Who is the specific intended audience for the article? How do you know this? How has the work been crafted for that audience? Explain.
7. Briefly look through the rest of the website. (Pop around to see the different tabs and skim over article titles. See if anything catches your eye.) What else about the site might give you an indication of the publication’s intended audience? Explain.

Now… see if you can keep up with reading The Economist at least one a week through this entire semester.