Five W's
In journalism, the Five Ws, (also known as the Five Ws and one H) or simply the Six Ws, is a concept in news style, research, and in police investigations that most people consider to be fundamental. It is a formula for getting the "full story" about an event. The maxim of the Five Ws (and one H) is that in order for a report to be considered complete it must answer a checklist of six questions, each of which comprises an interrogative word:
- Who?
- will be involved in the session?
- what names will they use?
- what will the roles and functions of each person?
- will the session be open or closed {can other people join in, and under what conditions)?
- What?
- define session content ahead of time (can it be changed)?
- toys to be (or not be) used?
- a short description of what the session content will look like look?
- Where?
- where will the session be conducted?
- will the session move from a session room to a bathroom?
- what type of security will be provided?
- When?
- what is the start and stop times (never start an open-ended sessions)?
- can the session be extended without breaking scene?
- Why?
- is this session a paid or free session?
- (handle this question before session starts!)
- what are the goals of this session?
- can we tell if they have been met?
- can we do better next time?
- How?
- can the session content be modified after session begins?
- how do you get them to come back?
- SAFEWORDS ?
The principle underlying the maxim is that each question should elicit a factual answer - facts are necessary to include for a report to be considered complete. Importantly, none of these questions can be answered with a simple "yes" or "no". In the context of the "news style" for newspaper reporting, the Five W's are types of facts that should be contained in the "lead" (sometimes spelled lede to avoid confusion with the typographical term "leading" or similarly spelled words), or first two or three paragraphs of the story, after which more expository writing is allowed.
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