remembering?" and, "Will they furnish food for thought?" In clarifying
his purpose by such tests, he will decide not only what kind of
information he desires to impart, but what material he must select, and
from what point of view he should present it.

ARTICLES OF PRACTICAL GUIDANCE. The third general purpose that a writer
may have is to give his readers sufficiently explicit information to
enable them to do for themselves what has been done by others. Because
all persons want to know how to be more successful, they read these
"how-to-do-something" articles with avidity. All of us welcome practical
suggestions, tactfully given, that can be applied to our own activities.
Whatever any one has done successfully may be so presented that others
can learn how to do it with equal success. Special feature articles
furnish the best means of giving this practical guidance.

In preparing a "how-to-do-something" article, a writer needs to consider
the class of readers for which it is intended. A special feature story,
for example, on how to reduce the cost of milk might be presented from
any one of three points of view: that of the producer, that of the
distributor, or that of the consumer. To be practical for dairy farmers,
as producers of milk, the article would have to point out possible
economies in keeping cows and handling milk on the farm. To be helpful
to milk-dealers, as distributors, it would concern itself with methods
of lowering the cost of selling and delivering milk in the city. To
assist housewives, as consumers, the article would have to show how to
economize in using milk in the home. An informative article for the
general reader might take up all these phases of the subject, but an
article intended to give practical guidance should consider the needs of
only one of these three classes of persons.