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I'm curious to know if this style of writing (pattern) has a name. They can sometimes take up almost a full paragraph giving background about a specific person or subject when introducing them into an article.

"At the Saturday briefing, Dr. Stephen Hahn, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, co-author of the critically claimed book "XYZ", told us that..."

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  • Maybe "journalism"?
    – wetcircuit
    Apr 5, 2020 at 22:49

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In news writing, it might be called an attribution or background clause or sentence. Reporters attribute a fact or description to a source; that is, they identify a person, publication, document as the source of the information. Those sentences often include background or identifying information, as in the question. I don't believe most reporters have a formal name for that -- a string of non-restrictive clauses with biographical information after referring to a person or source.

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  • Thank you! I'm building a pattern recognizer and this is one that kept coming up, but I didn't have a label for it. I'll ask it in journalism, but attribution seems right so far.
    – M4cJunk13
    Apr 6, 2020 at 1:01

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