Talk:Five Ws

How?
how is not a 'w'!!!!!!!!?

It has a 'w' in it though. It's like saying "writing" and "arithmetic" aren't R's - John F

It is spelled whow in this contest.Zginder 20:58, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
 * yes, because in the context of a contest, it's short for "whowon?" k kisses 15:01, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

In my journalism class, the W's were "Who, what, where, when, why, and how if you spell it backwards." Foobaz·o&lt; 02:26, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Duh, That is why it is called "The 5 W's" (Who What Where When Why - that's five)and also called "The 5 W's and 1 H".

How can one cover how by what, when or where? Say Mr.X was murdered by Mr. Y in Washington on 31st July, 1922 for stealing 20$. We have all the 5W's here neatly answered but not a shred of how. The reference given does not explain anything. - Mukt 13:48, 07 April 2015 (IST)

What about "Which"
Would "Which" be eligible as a "Wh" question in this list?

Which is more specific. -bm — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:6:3C00:DBA:E5D7:22B1:AAAA:7D44 (talk) 07:10, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Fixed a deficiency
Article was missing one of the Ws. I fixed it.

Why
When I took journalism in high school (1971), we were taught the 4 W's and the H. "Why" was not included because it was considered subjective and not a statement of fact. Apparently journalism has become more subjective since then. Pity.
 * When I think of 'why', I think more of causality, rather than of a value judgement. So, in a story about the LA Riots, 'why' would address the motivations cited by the rioters, or in a story about some corporate merger, it would focus on the business' plans for the combined company.  Sometimes this area skirts close to the area of "should", but a good journalist can describe without bias or subjectivity.  Many stories are meaningless without explaining 'why' people have done things, and it seems it can be perfectly objective.  --Xyzzyva 22:47, 27 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Journalism has not become more subjective. "Why?" has been a fundamental question of good journalists since at least 1913 when it was written down by Willard Bleyer, Professor of Journalism at the University of Wisconsin. I am guessing that the 1971 high school was attempting to teach the students that "Why?" should be used with care as it is important but can be a source of unintentional bias if not based in facts. B9 (talk) 22:37, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

No why!
There should be no why. Agreed! Flinders 20:40, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Our personal opinions as Wikipedia editors are irrelevant. What matters is what the sources say, and the sources, including Kipling, include "Why?". Uncle G 14:53, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, Uncle G, it's important in this case to remember that this article is dealing with two different but related topics. One is the rhyme, which obviously must include "Why?", because that is indeed what Kipling wrote. The other is the "Five or Six Ws" as taught in journalism of the past and present &mdash; and I'm sure there are primary and secondary sources on both sides in that case. What should be done is that people should go find some reliable sources, from 1971 or 2007 or both, as to whether "why" is included in the journalism side of things, and cite them in the article. --Quuxplusone 08:51, 8 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I think the most definitive reference for "Why?" being part of the 5Ws is Professor Bleyer's book "Newspaper Writing and Editing" . As for why "Why?" is part of the set, you'd have to look to Aquinas who cites Aristotle on Rhetoric, but that gets pretty far afield for this Wikipedia article. B9 (talk) 22:30, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Etymology
It can't be a coincidence that all of these start with Ws, much less that all of them start with WHs and are pronounced like H. Can anyone explain this? Twilight Realm 00:04, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
 * None of the "Wh" words are pronounced as if starting with "H". Powers T 18:19, 22 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Who would have thought that someone would miss "Wh" pronounced as "H". Greyskinnedboy  Talk  19:19, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
 * According to our Wiktionary entry, they're all derived from the same Proto-Indo-European root ("when" is missing from the list there, but the entry also directs to the same PIE root), maybe we should add this? --178.26.171.11 (talk) 11:24, 20 December 2010 (UTC)


 * The modern pronunciation is what makes the alliteration work. The ultimate etymology isn't really relevant. --Macrakis (talk) 17:54, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Sure, but the modern pronunciation is a result of regular sound change, right? (I'm not a pro linguist, so someone may correct me) In this case, PIE *kw came to be represented in English by [ʍ] and later [w] (most dialects) but still written "wh-". Therefore it's not a coincidence that most of these words start with "wh-". Oh, I just saw that we even have an article about that special phoneme: Phonological_history_of_wh. There it says "Because Proto-Indo-European interrogative words typically began with *kʷ, English interrogative words (such as who, which, what, when, where) typically begin with ‹wh›." --178.26.171.11 (talk) 14:09, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Cui bono
Cui bono should be one of these questions, too. Glatisant (talk) 09:57, 5 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Do you have a reliable source giving cui bono as an element of the 5 W's? --Macrakis (talk) 17:54, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Proper name?
What makes the name of this topic a proper name ("Five W's") rather than a common noun phrase ("five w's")? Joja lozzo  18:14, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Semi-protection
I have semi-protected this, due to its importance to more than one WikiProject, its visibility, and the recent spate of adding unsourceable or original content. I am leaving the protection on through the Spring break or Easter holiday, to prevent vandalism by students. Bearian (talk) 19:12, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Pronunciation
How do you pronounce "Ws"? Is it double-ues? Shcha (talk) 18:23, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

:) and :(
On the page I noticed somebody added :) and :( and I can't understand what it means: whether those are faces or it is coincidentally like that.

Etymology
The Latin equivalents are referred to, but are not provided. ISTM that that would be worthwhile. And, then it occurred to me that more Indo-European equivalents, especially Germanic examples, could be included. The article Indo-European vocabulary lists who and what, but not the rest. Does anyone know of a short reference? TomS TDotO (talk) 01:44, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

"Wwwww" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Wwwww. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Invalid OS (talk) 16:56, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

Which and will need to be added
. Abhissmalizard (talk) 09:09, 3 May 2020 (UTC)


 * Why? B9 (talk) 22:21, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Muniyandy 2001:E68:7E8E:5900:48FF:8B27:4313:9A95 (talk) 03:07, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Needed major cleanup
This article should start with a nice summary of the 5Ws as a checklist used in journalism, but instead it gets bogged down with extra details that, if they belong in the article, should be much lower down. B9 (talk) 23:26, 28 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Okay, I figured I'd be bold and fix it myself. I also removed the sentences that were not backed up by the sources they cited, which was most of the introduction, so I rewrote it and gave it better quality sources.
 * There was one source where I cited a well respected authority (Steve Buttry), but I cannot find his original writings online, except on some blog site which makes it look suspicious. It's possible the article was never published formally as it was written not long before he died.
 * I also removed the reference to the 5W's being used for "police reports" as the source cited didn't mention any such thing and, while it's probably true, I'm not sure it's even relevant. When I searched, most places talk about using the 5 W's from journalism to write reports. I'm sure a whole section could be created with applications of Journalism's 5W's to other fields (childhood reading comprehension, detectives, website creation, spy agency intelligence reports, etc.)
 * I did not remove the huge section on various ways that the 5W's may have come to exist from antiquity, but probably somebody should move it to its own article ("Septem Circumstanciae"). I did not read through all the cited sources, but I do not actually see any clear connection with the 5W's. Even the Croatian research paper I added which is titled "The Roots of the 5 W's" doesn't seem to make an explicit connection from Medieval to modern times.
 * It would be good to add a section about how the 5 W's became popularized. Although he didn't call them "the five w's", my suspicion is on Willard Bleyer whose famous book "Newspaper Writing and Editing" (1913) was used to educate reporters. I've seen others online claim Pulitzer's "New Journalism" (~1890) was responsible for the 5 W's, but never citing a source. I'll leave it to someone who actually knows to add that information to this article. B9 (talk) 04:17, 29 January 2024 (UTC)