The Perfect Diet

The article was short for a change, but it was too short. There wasn't much to dig into. The lead was strong however, laying out exactly what the story was about, and explaining the merits well. There just wasn't much to analyze however, as this is exactly what a how-to should look like.

The End of Men

The story starts off powerfully, not just in the lead, but in the paragraph before it, under the headline. It summarizes a good portion of the story, and in its own way, is a Troutman moment before the story even begins. It shoves so much information into a neat little package and shows off the main thing about the article that's so interesting. It puts right at the fron what this story is about and shows off why its important.

Sources

Mark Rosewater - Head Designer of Magic the Gathering.
- As the man most in charge of making the cards, I think it would be interesting to know his opinion on price fluctuations and Magic in general. He has also been playing the game since its creation, so he knows a lot about card prices from when the game first started. He also championed the rise of the Pro Circuit, so is in a way responsible for a portion of the second Market.

Kelly Reid - Managing Editor & Founding Partner of Quiet Speculation
- As a co-founder of the site I'm looking to write for, Kelly has intimate knowledge of exactly what I'm wanting to write about. He has been a major force in the Financial aspect of Magic the Gathering for a few years, and even owns his own store in Lafayette.

Douglas Linn - Graduate Student at IU and Law expert at Quiet Speculation
- Doug is another important member of Quiet Speculation, and approaches everything in a very business oriented manor. He works specifically within the eternal formats of Magic, and thus would be a great resource when it comes to pricing and strategy of the Eternal crowd.

Stephen Menendian - Leading Expert on Eternal formats with the Magic Community
- Stephen is regarded very highly among the eternal format crowd, and is often on the cusp of any outbreaks in decks or deck tech in the format. As such, he has a lot of influence when it comes to card prices and many people respect anything he says as near gospel truth.

Ross - Person in charge of Black Lotus Project
- While I don't know his last name yet, his email address on his site gives his first. This site catalogs the day by day price changes of magic cards, making it a fantastic tool to work with when trying to determine prices. Interviewing the creator seems like a no-brainer.

ROUGH OUTLINE

Lead - Discuss the idea of Magic, the singles market, the idea of pro-play.

Troutman moment: Revelation of pricing of some of the rarest cards (Ex: Black Lotus has gone for as much as $1000 at different times in it the games life.)

Discuss singles prices, how they are decided, idea of Card Singles as Stock, not regulated.

Discuss pro-play in depth and how this has an important role in determining card prices.
-Discuss the few rares that are affected mostly by the casual market and what the casual market means as well.

Discuss the idea of the power trader and how it has only recently become a factor in the Magic community

Kicker

Setting

The scent of finished wood wafts slowly up from a table situated on the outside of the IMU overlooking the peaceful wooded setting of Dunn Meadow. The building casts its shadows across the trees of the area, those in the shade giving way to their darker colors already as the ones in the sun linger with just a hint more of green. Fall is finally starting to settle in as a squirrel digs through leaves, looking for (and finding) a snack to store away for the winter.

Beating Obesity

I thought that this article was entirely to long. It got to the point where it felt like we were just being told the same information in a slightly different light. Because of this though, I think the online medium worked well for it. Few people really wants to sit down and read a 7500 word article when they only have a few minutes to spare, but breaking the article up into four mini-articles allows you to read it in chunks and come back to it later. Each page on the site feels like its own article, as each one starts off with a few capitalized words. The sections aren't designated by space either, as the second page is shorter than the third. While I felt the article was very heavy handed and to dry, I thought that it was handled in an interesting way, and made it easier for someone who is just curious about obesity to take it in chunks instead of just being beat over the head with so much information at once.

Quotes

"In real life, if one of your friends plays FarmVille and you don't, they probably wouldn't come up to you and say 'Hey, I just got this new cow on my farm,'" he explains in video of the event recorded by VentureBeat. "They might say 'Hey, I found this new game that's really cool that you should check out.'"

"Say 'marketing' to many people, and it's an evil, filthy thing that you use to force people to buy something they don't need," the creators write. "But to us, it starts with designing an experience that makes people so passionate about that they actually pick up the game and tell all their friends."

"Things like 'over 80 levels' or '15 music tracks' aren't as noteworthy as 'deploy obscene gesture for points' is," writes the team.

Without tennis, who am I?

The article was powerful in its dedication to showing everything it could on Capriati, and allowing people to form their own opinion. It slanted more towards the positive, but one Troutman moment stuck out to me in terms of explaining Capriati's dual personality and troubles growing up.

"Capriati was both the effervescent eighth-grader who was worth $6 million the instant she turned pro and the sullen-looking girl with heavy mascara and a nose ring who was in trouble with the law, first for shoplifting a $15 piece of jewelry in December 1993 and then for possession of marijuana five months later."

We see both sides here. Her strength as a tennis player and her weakness off the court. This paragraph does a good job of raising the stakes, like any Troutman moment should. It all gets laid on the table in terms of what she was going through, who she was, and why she is the way she is now.