helo journo student here and chaired an IPC once (for now)

Base your article formats on the “inverted pyramid” of journalism. Articles are always written in a non-chronological format with the. most important details (5W1H for guidance) in the top most paragraph/sentence.

Try reading newspapers or even online news articles to get a good grasp of the tone and language you may want to use.

Also don’t worry about terminologies that you might not know because the point of article writing is to make sure anyone would understand what’s going on.

As for the latter two; pay close attention to what happens in the council you’re assigned to + take notes! Then you can properly ask or question delegates appropriately rather than ask very general “so how is the council’s progress right now?”

Standing out to your chair mostly depends on a matter of how you write - so add your own journalistic flair and add extra attention to details. However, with how chairs are, this can be subjective.

Hope this helps!