The same campus can be reported through a meeting, a personal essay, a photograph, or a poem. Those forms are not interchangeable: each makes a different promise to the reader. The Cipher's section names are a quick guide to that promise.
Reporting and interpretation
News is for timely reporting: what happened, who is involved, and what readers need to know. Features take more room for people, places, and experiences that benefit from context. Opinion makes an argument, and readers should be able to tell whose perspective they are reading.
Work beyond the article
Sci-Tech can examine technology, research, and their effects on student life without treating every new tool as a breakthrough. Literary gives creative work space to stand as creative work. Campus Life follows the routines and shared experiences that shape a campus, while Multimedia uses formats such as audio, video, or photo essays to tell a story.
Choose the form honestly
A story about a campus event might be News if its main job is to establish what happened, or a Feature if it follows the people living with its effects. A first-person argument belongs in Opinion; a poem does not need to pretend to be reporting. Start with what the work is trying to do, then choose the section that helps readers meet it on fair terms.