One bores you and the other interests you. One bores you because it
seems remote. The other interests you because the writer has had the
skill to translate his facts and ideas into terms that are personal
to you. The minute you become personal in this world you become
interesting.

COMBINING APPEALS. When the analysis of a topic shows that it possesses
more than one of these appeals, the writer may heighten the
attractiveness of his story by developing several of the possibilities,
simultaneously or successively. The chance discovery by a prominent
physician of a simple preventive of infantile paralysis, for instance,
would combine at least four of the elements of interest enumerated
above. If such a combination of appeals can be made at the very
beginning of the article, it is sure to command attention.

DEFINITENESS OF PURPOSE. In view of the multiplicity of possible
appeals, a writer may be misled into undertaking to do too many diverse
things in a single article. A subject often has so many different
aspects of great interest that it is difficult to resist the temptation
to use all of them. If a writer yields to this temptation, the result
may be a diffuse, aimless article that, however interesting in many
details, fails to make a definite impression.

To avoid this danger, the writer must decide just what his purpose is
to be. He must ask himself, "What is my aim in writing this article?"
and, "What do I expect to accomplish?" Only in this way will he clarify
in his mind his reason for writing on the proposed topic and the object
to be attained.

With a definitely formulated aim before him, he can decide just what