Joy English · Level C2 · Feature articlesjoy-english.com

A feature article on the vanishing of quiet

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Write a magazine feature with a scene-setting opening, a quoted voice, figurative language and a closing image.

Listening for the last quiet places

At six o'clock on a Tuesday morning, the botanist Imre Valk stands at the edge of a drained reservoir and does nothing at all. For eleven minutes he listens. A distant tractor, a wren, the faint tick of cooling stones: that, he says, is as good as it gets.

Valk has spent the best part of a decade mapping what he calls acoustic refuges, places where no human-made sound intrudes for a quarter of an hour at a stretch. When he began, he expected to find them in the remoter reaches of the country. Instead he found that they were vanishing everywhere, shrinking like ice at the edge of a warming sea. Of the three hundred sites he surveyed, fewer than forty still qualify.

The causes are unglamorous: ring roads, delivery drones, the ceaseless hum of ventilation plants. But Valk is more interested in the consequences, which are subtler than mere irritation. Studies he cites suggest that sustained noise nudges up stress hormones even in people who claim to have grown accustomed to it. Habituation, he argues, is not the same as immunity; we simply stop reporting a cost that we continue to pay.

Not everyone is persuaded. Critics point out that cities have always been noisy, and that the clatter of a nineteenth-century street would make a modern commuter wince. Valk concedes the point with a shrug. "Noise is not new," he says. "What is new is that there is no longer anywhere to retreat to."

That, perhaps, is the heart of the matter. Silence has become a scarce resource and, like most scarce resources, it is beginning to be sold. Hotels advertise rooms free of electronic hum; some retreats charge a small fortune for the privilege of being told to say nothing. It is a curious irony that something once available to anyone with a field and a free afternoon should now come with a price tag.

Valk has little patience for such enterprises. His own modest campaign aims to have a handful of the surviving refuges protected, much as ancient woodland is. Whether it succeeds is hard to say. As the light strengthens over the reservoir, a car door slams somewhere beyond the trees, and his eleven minutes are over. He writes the time in his notebook and, with the air of a man making a modest entry in a ledger, closes it.

Tone, imagery and effect

Choose the best option.

Which opening is best suited to a magazine feature?
- a) This article discusses the problem of noise in cities.
- b) Noise is a problem for many people nowadays.
- c) At six o'clock on a Tuesday morning, a botanist stands at the edge of a reservoir and does nothing at all.
"Shrinking like ice at the edge of a warming sea" is an example of which device?
- a) metaphor
- b) personification
- c) litotes
- d) simile
"Habituation is not the same as immunity." What does the writer imply?
- a) People who stop noticing noise are still affected by it.
- b) Noise protects people from stress.
- c) People never get used to noise.
- d) Noise has no effect on health.
"Valk concedes the point with a shrug." What does the shrug suggest?
- a) He is angry with his critics.
- b) He accepts the point without feeling threatened by it.
- c) He has no interest in his own research.
- d) He is unable to answer the criticism.
Silence has become a ___ resource.
- a) sparse
- b) scarce
- c) meagre
- d) slender
Which ending is most effective for a feature article?
- a) In conclusion, noise is a serious problem.
- b) Therefore, more research is needed.
- c) He writes the time in his notebook and closes it, like a man making an entry in a ledger.
Which phrase attributes a claim most cautiously?
- a) Everyone knows that
- b) Studies he cites suggest that
- c) It has been proved beyond doubt that
- d) There can be no question that

Complete the sentences

Type one word, or the form in brackets, to complete each sentence.

Valk has spent the best part ___ a decade mapping acoustic refuges.
Valk has little patience ___ such enterprises.
Of the three hundred sites he surveyed, fewer ___ forty still qualify.
It is a curious irony that something once available ___ anyone with a free afternoon should now cost money.
Critics point ___ that cities have always been noisy.
He wants a few refuges protected, much ___ ancient woodland is.
The refuges were vanishing everywhere, ___ like ice at the edge of a warming sea. (shrink)

Writing task

Write a feature article for a magazine about a craft, a place or a tradition that is slowly disappearing. Begin with a scene, include at least one quotation from a person you invent, use at least one simile or metaphor, acknowledge a sceptical view, and end on an image.

280–340 words

Check your writing

My opening is a concrete scene, not a statement of the topic.
I included a short, natural-sounding quotation with a framing verb.
I used at least one well-chosen simile or metaphor and did not over-explain it.
I acknowledged a sceptical or opposing view fairly.
I varied sentence length and avoided summarising phrases such as in conclusion.
I ended on an image or gesture that echoes the opening.

Answer key

Tone, imagery and effect

c) At six o'clock on a Tuesday morning, a botanist stands at the edge of a reservoir and does nothing at all.A concrete scene with a surprising detail draws the reader in. The other openings simply announce or state the topic.
d) simileThe word like makes a direct comparison, so it is a simile. A metaphor would say the refuges were ice.
a) People who stop noticing noise are still affected by it.The point is that getting used to something does not remove its harm.
b) He accepts the point without feeling threatened by it.A shrug here shows relaxed acceptance: the point is true but does not damage his argument.
b) scarceScarce resource is the fixed collocation for something that has become rare. Sparse describes things thinly spread, and meagre and slender describe a small amount someone has (meagre resources), not something that has become hard to find.
c) He writes the time in his notebook and closes it, like a man making an entry in a ledger.Features often close on an image or gesture. The other endings summarise or state a conclusion mechanically.
b) Studies he cites suggest thatSuggest keeps the claim proportionate and attributes it to a source. The other phrases overstate the certainty.

Complete the sentences

ofThe best part of means most of.
for / withPatience for or with something are both correct.
thanFewer than is the comparative with a number.
toAvailable to someone is the usual pattern.
outTo point out means to draw attention to a fact.
asMuch as means in the same way as.
shrinkingThe participle shrinking describes how the refuges were vanishing.

Model answer

On the second floor of a building with no lift, above a shop that sells only buttons, Dalia Reyes bends over a torn map of the Aldermoor hills and begins, very gently, to mend it.

Reyes is one of perhaps a dozen people in the country who repair paper maps by hand. She learned the trade from a retired surveyor, who paid her in tea and sharp criticism. Her tools are few: a bone folder, a jar of wheat paste, tissue so thin that it clings to the air. "You are not fixing the map," she says. "You are persuading it to forget it was ever damaged."

The work is slow. A single fold, worn through after decades in a coat pocket, may take an afternoon. Customers are mostly walkers and the families of the recently deceased, who arrive carrying an atlas annotated in a hand that nobody else will recognise. Reyes treats such pencil notes as sacred, working around them as a gardener works around a seedling.

The difficulty, of course, is that nobody needs her any more. A phone can show the same hills, in real time, and with a blue dot to say where you are standing. Reyes does not disagree. "A screen tells you where you are," she admits. "A map tells you where you might go, and who went there before you." It is a fine line, and one that few of her customers could articulate, but they feel it in the hands.

Her business survives, narrowly, thanks to a small number of loyal clients and a waiting list that she suspects is mostly sentimental. She has taken on one apprentice, a nervous student who, for the first month, was not allowed to touch the paste.

By late afternoon the Aldermoor map lies flat and almost whole, a faint seam running across its highest ridge. Reyes holds it to the window, and the light passes through the hills like a thought.