An article is a piece of writing in a newspaper, magazine, or website that gives information or opinions about a topic. In grammar, an article is a small word like “a,” “an,” or “the” used before nouns.
From Old French “article,” from Latin “articulus” meaning “small joint” or “section,” from “artus” meaning “joint.” It originally meant a small part of something larger.
A news article is like a single bone in the skeleton of a whole newspaper—one small joint in a bigger structure. Even the little words “a” and “the” are called articles because they attach neatly to nouns like tiny connectors.
In many languages, the term "article" in journalism historically referred to work produced in male-dominated newsrooms, where women were often confined to ‘women’s pages’ or soft news. Legal and academic articles likewise emerged from institutions that largely excluded women from authorship and citation networks.
When referring to authors of articles, avoid defaulting to male pronouns or assumptions; use gender-neutral terms like "the author" or names. In historical contexts, note when women’s writing was excluded or published anonymously.
Women journalists, legal scholars, and researchers have long contributed articles under conditions of marginalization, including publishing under initials or pseudonyms to avoid gender bias; acknowledging named and unnamed women authors helps correct the record.
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