diff --git a/app/models/article.rb b/app/models/article.rb
index 08e9ac3..e25e015 100644
--- a/app/models/article.rb
+++ b/app/models/article.rb
@@ -9,4 +9,19 @@ class Article < ActiveRecord::Base
 
   acts_as_versioned
 
+  # retrives all articles belonging to the given +profile+ that are not
+  # sub-articles of any other article.
+  def Article.top_level_for(profile)
+    self.find(:all, :conditions => [ 'parent_id is null and profile_id = ?', profile.id ])
+  end
+
+  # produces the HTML code that is to be displayed as this article's contents.
+  #
+  # The implementation in this class just provides the +body+ attribute as the
+  # HTML.  Other article types can override this method to provide customized
+  # views of themselves.
+  def to_html
+    body
+  end
+
 end
diff --git a/test/unit/article_test.rb b/test/unit/article_test.rb
index db16cb8..6e8e865 100644
--- a/test/unit/article_test.rb
+++ b/test/unit/article_test.rb
@@ -59,4 +59,11 @@ class ArticleTest < Test::Unit::TestCase
     assert_equal 'another-name/child-article', Article.find(b.id).path
   end
 
+  should 'provide HTML version' do
+    profile = create_user('testinguser').person
+    a = Article.create!(:name => 'my article', :profile_id => profile.id)
+    a.expects(:body).returns('the body of the article')
+    assert_equal 'the body of the article', a.to_html
+  end
+
 end
--
libgit2 0.21.2