Journal 5

November 2

           For this weeks entry I chose two articles, both discussing two separate types of food-markets, and chose to look at the reporter’s use of headings. Both of the articles can be found in the New York Times. One is called, “A Start-up Tries to Eliminate ‘Food Deserts’,” and is written by Jessica Bruder. The other is called “The Lost Art of Buying from a Butcher.,” and is written by Florence Fabricant. 

   

            Similarly to the articles we wrote on Occupy Wall Street, these articles address the who, what, where, when, why. Also, the articles include the economics behind the re-opening of butcher markets, as well as the opening of StockBox Grocers. They discuss the offshoots, and the future life that these markets may have.

    

             In Bruder’s article, she includes headings. There is an excessive amount of headings used, in some cases to outline a section that is only one word long. Some of the students in our class felt that headings were a cop-out, and when reading an article that included them it often felt like reading someone’s notes. Stylistically, I think headings can add a lot to someones article. I think if the article is long, it helps my brain sort through the information at hand. However, Bruder’s article is quite short. She has so many headings in such a short amount of writing that it seems unnecessary to include them. The information is not as complex as the information was in our Occupy articles. It is not discussing a variety of different incidents, or a time line. Her article is simply describing what the Stockbox Grocers are, what they add to the communities in which they are opened,  the affects they could have in the future, and the response from the community. 

             In Fabricant’s article, which is twice as long as Bruder’s, he does not include headings. He does a very good job at maintaining a timeline, (butchers in the past, the replacement of butchers with wrapped styrofoam packages of meat in grocery stores, and the reemergence of butchers in NYC and around the country). He includes a lot of quotes, and adjectives that help with reader fatigue. He even manages to organize his article, in my opinion, better than Bruder did without using any headings what-so-ever.

            When it comes to headings, as we have discussed in class, it is not necessary to include them when they do not add anything to the story. In Bruder’s case, I think the headings actually took away from her report. So when should we use them? I think in the case of our Occupy articles it was okay to use them because the information we were dealing with was so complex and multifaceted. We had info from before, leading up to, during, and even the future of the occupation. In that case, I think if headings are used properly it can only add to the article. When comparing Bruder and Fabricant’s work, which could have been extremely similar considering they both discuss two types of food markets opening, we can see that headings are not always the way to go.