notion that
our life and thought are not really affected by current literature,
that we read the living writers only for utilitarian reasons, and
that our real intellectual life is fed by the great dead writers.
But hugging this delusion does not change the fact that the
intellectual life even of most educated persons, and certainly of
the mass of the population, is fed chiefly by the writers of our own
time....

Every editor of a magazine, every editor of an earnest and worthy
newspaper, every publisher of books, has dozens or hundreds of
important tasks for which he cannot find capable men; tasks that
require scholarship, knowledge of science, or of politics, or of
industry, or of literature, along with experience in writing
accurately in the language of the people.

Special feature stories and popular magazine articles constitute a type
of writing particularly adapted to the ability of the novice, who has
developed some facility in writing, but who may not have sufficient
maturity or talent to undertake successful short-story writing or other
distinctly literary work. Most special articles cannot be regarded as
literature. Nevertheless, they afford the young writer an opportunity to
develop whatever ability he possesses. Such writing teaches him four
things that are invaluable to any one who aspires to do literary work.
It trains him to observe what is going on about him, to select what will
interest the average reader, to organize material effectively, and to
present it attractively. If this book helps the inexperienced writer,
whether he is in or out of college, to acquire these four essential
qualifications for success, it will have accomplished its purpose.

For permission to reprint complete articles, the author is indebted to
the editors of the _Boston Herald_, the _Christian Science Monitor_, the
_Boston Evening Transcript_, the _New York Evening Post_, the _Detroit
News_, the _Milwaukee Journal_, the _Kansas City Star_, the _New York
Sun_, the _Providence Journal_, the _Ohio State Journal_, the _New York
World_, the _Saturday Evening Post_, the _Independent_, the _Country
Gentleman_, the _Outlook_, _McClure's Magazine_, _Everybody's Magazine_,
the _Delineator_, the _Pictorial Review_, _Munsey's Magazine_, the
_American Magazine_, _System_, _Farm and Fireside_, the _Woman's Home
Companion_, the _Designer_, and the Newspaper Enterprise Association.
The aut