This next section examines the different parts that many stories share. Although many of these elements are typical of feature articles, you will find some of them in other types of stories, too.
Experts say that if you fail to catch a reader’s attention in the first couple of minutes, you’ll likely lose them forever. If a casual reader were flipping through a magazine or surfing the Web, the lede or introduction must be compelling enough to catch her attention or she would likely spend time reading somebody else’s piece, chatting up a flight attendant, watching television, playing Xbox, walking the dog …
With most features, the lede, or first part of the article, and the conclusion are probably the only parts of a story that truly belong to the writer. They provide an opportunity to showcase a writer’s voice. A good lede should be simple, relevant, engaging, and focused. It should also have a good hook. A hook is the element of an article that makes it interesting and newsworthy. Ultimately, the lede makes a promise to the reader on which the rest of the story delivers.
Different writers have different preferences about how to begin a story. For example, many writers like to use an anecdote when constructing the lede. Oftentimes good ledes tie back to the greater theme of the piece using narrative or storytelling elements. For many stories, the lede is a four- or five-sentence paragraph. With longer pieces, the lede may span a few paragraphs.
With short features, the lede can be as short as a sentence—for example, a summary sentence; a question; or a witty, irreverent, or insightful comment. Such a lede may be written along with a thematic sentence in a single paragraph (reminiscent of a nut paragraph or “nut graph”—discussed later in this chapter). If you’re clever enough, you may be able to create a sentence that serves the purpose of both lede and theme.
Keep in mind that, as with many other style and structure considerations, categorizing different types of ledes is, to some extent, an artificial and arbitrary practice. It may be best for a writer to consider the following options when constructing a lede (but by no means treat these options as dogma).
“I believe that these are models to follow,” says Dr. David E. Sumner, a professor of journalism at Ball State University, “but there is some disagreement about how you would interpret them. I like to think of them more as models instead of specific rules, and I think that this is generally true in writing. I believe there are certain principles you have to follow in order to be a good writer, but beyond that, it leads to 30 to 40 percent creativity as well. I tend to be pragmatic as well because I think if you can write and make it interesting and engaging—hey, whatever works.”
Ledes fall into several categories. The following is an explanation of different types of ledes that work. This explanation is, in part, based on information gathered from various texts, including Feature & Magazine Writing: Action, Angle and Anecdote by David Sumner and Holly Miller. For anybody interested in learning more about feature writing, I highly suggest reading the most recent edition (third, at time of printing) of this book.
The summary lede touches on the five Ws and one H (who, what, where, when, why, and how). News articles often start with a summary lede that introduces an inverted-pyramid structure (see Chapter 12). Summary ledes are useful with complex subjects, too. For example, if you were writing an article on hydraulic fracturing or “fracking,” you may want to introduce the process with a summary lede. (Fracking is a process whereby high-pressure fluids are used to break an underground rock layer in order to release petroleum and other types of fuel.)
In a Newsweek story titled “What’s That Doing in My Head?,” writer Amanda Schaffer begins with a summary of microchimerism, wherein male cells, usually from a fetus, slip across the placenta and implant in the mother’s brain. The rest of the article provides hypotheses on how the cells got there and possible benefits and repercussions.
In case any doubt remained that guys get into girls’ heads, for the first time scientists have found male DNA in the human female brain. Researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle examined dozens of women’s brains and discovered that the majority of them contained genetic material found only on the Y chromosome.
This lede starts off with a quotation. Approach this lede with care. The quotation that you use must be darn good—brief, interesting, and topical. If you like the gist of what a source is saying but it’s hard to pull a specific quotation from the speech, then you may want to create an indirect quotation. For example, Gary Busey, an actor just as well known for his work in movies as his time on Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, is sometimes unintelligible—he rambles in hilarious fashion. (I often wonder whether this is some sort of affectation, but I digress.) If you were doing a piece that involved him (celebrities who have lost their way?) you may consider paraphrasing whatever relevant gibberish that Busey happened to articulate on the day that you interviewed him.
In a short feature in AARP The Magazine titled “Everybody Loves Tony … and the feeling is mutual,” Tony Bennett talks about his early days when he was mentored by Frank Sinatra. The author, Bill Newcott, starts with a quotation lede.
Tony Bennett remembers as if it were yesterday: “I was playing the Fairmont Hotel in Dallas, and Bob Hope came to see me,” he says. “When he was leaving, one of my musicians scooted out and asked him, ‘How do you like Tony?’”
This lede uses narrative to describe a place. Narrative ledes are good to use when the place that’s described is important to the story—almost as if the place is another character in the story. For example, in 2012, James Cameron, of Titanic fame, designed and took a vessel to the deepest part of the ocean. Apparently, the landscape was barren, and Cameron described the setting as isolated and desolate—like he was on another planet. If writing a story on this adventure, it may be prudent to construct a lede that describes this barren, deep-sea environment.
In a story published in The Atlantic and titled “Swamped!” writer Matt Siegel describes how he visited Tuvalu and was unable to secure interviews with any government officials. Tuvalu is a small country in the South Pacific that may become the first to be swallowed by rising sea levels secondary to climate change. The country received a glut of international attention, and government officials spend almost all of their time in meetings or traveling. In the lede, Siegel sets the scene for an article, which lacks any important interviews, by describing the bureaucratic wasteland.
On my first morning in Funafuti, the capital of Tuvalu, I left my hotel, walked across the streets to one of the country’s few modern buildings, and climbed two flights of stairs to the prime minister’s office. The minister was not in, his assistant said, nor was she sure when he would be back. Later today? Could be. Tomorrow? Sure, anything’s possible. Still, better to try the foreign minister, she offered; he’s just around the corner.
A narrative lede could incorporate creative-writing elements, including allegory or figurative language. You may want to consider using a narrative lede when introducing a chronological story. For example, if you were documenting the success of Dr. Augustus A. White III, a black orthopedic surgeon at Harvard and advocate against health-care disparities who broke all types of educational and cultural barriers, you may consider starting a chronological account by describing his roots in the Jim Crow South.
In a 2012 article on Lance Armstrong’s doping strategy, writer Juliet Macur uses a narrative lede to introduce the story.
To start what was deemed a new and better doping strategy, Lance Armstrong and two of his teammates on the United States Postal Service cycling squad flew on a private jet to Valencia, Spain, in June 2000, to have blood extracted. In a hotel room there, two doctors and the team’s manager stood by to see their plan unfold, watching the blood of their best riders drip into plastic bags.
This lede starts off with a story. The story can be provided by a source, the author, a friend, another author, a leader, some professional, or so forth.
In an article from The New Yorker titled “Head Start,” author Ben McGrath uses an anecdotal lede to introduce a story about Steve Clarkson, a “quarterback guru” who coaches young quarterbacks and charges up to a thousand dollars an hour to do so. Some of his previous clients include Ben Roethlisberger and Matt Leinart. The lede begins the story of David Sills V, who was offered a football scholarship to the University of Southern California when he was thirteen years old.
When David Sills V was eight, he attended a summer football camp at the University of Delaware, a few minutes from his family’s home, in the town of Bear. Sills was a precocious kid, a pee-wee quarterback who actually threw the ball instead of scrambling on instinct. He seemed to see patterns and systems at work amid the chaos of swarming defenders in front of him.
Be careful when using yourself in an anecdotal lede. Some editors and publications prefer that writers avoid interjecting themselves into a feature unless the feature directly relates to the author in some way.
Ted Spiker, an associate professor of journalism at the University of Florida and contributing editor at Men’s Health, has thought a lot about the first-person anecdotal lede. “The clean answer is to keep yourself out of the lede,” says Spiker. “But it’s certainly a lot more nuanced than that. … We’re in this day and age when there’s so much information out there, and you can find out a lot in seconds … so the whole key to writing a good story is not just your writing ability and your tools that you use but [if] you have original content … content that’s different, interesting, compelling, and original. … A lot of times, [the reason] why the first-person works is because the situation ‘I’ just went through is unique because I went through it and you didn’t … in a lot of cases that’s why it’s a decent device. … If it’s done right, the first-person lede can work. You have to have that critical ability to say when can I use it, and when should you not and try some other tactic.
“I try to tell my students to use the test: ‘Can you cut yourself out of there and still convey that scene?’ … In a lot of different settings there is a danger of it being gratuitous or being a very easy device to use. If that’s the case, you have to be critical enough of yourself to be able to make that judgment because it can be an easy device, and it can be the easy way out. But I also think that it can be a smart way in. Depending on what you’re writing about, your readers may connect with something that’s unique, and you can use it as a bridge to get your point across.
“We see the first-person lede in a lot of different settings. I’ll use it in weight loss or health. We see that tactic used in celebrity stories … to create dialogue or to create scenes. … I actually think the subtle first person is a pretty nice way to do it. … Maybe you’re profiling somebody, and in the middle of the lede, you have a little interaction with that person, and you can introduce yourself softly. It creates a nice little three-dimensional aspect to a story. If you create a tension with the reader that they relate to, and they see that you’re vulnerable, they see that you struggled and you’re sharing and open about it.”
This lede starts off in a counterintuitive or contradictory fashion. For example, if you were writing a profile on Stanley “Tookie” Williams, you may consider a paradoxical lede that juxtaposes his criminal past with his humanitarian efforts while in prison. (Stanley Williams was a prominent gang leader who co-founded the Crips and was later incarcerated for murder. While on Death Row, he became an influential antigang activist and author.)
Here’s the paradoxical lede from an article in Forbes aptly titled “Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Bankrupt Dad?”
Robert Kiyosaki, author of the bestselling Rich Dad, Poor Dad series of financial advice books, is offering his fans yet another lesson in how the rich are different than you and me: They file for bankruptcy not because of ill health or unemployment-related issues, but instead as a strategic business move.
Here’s another paradoxical lede from an article titled “Florida’s Last Frontier,” published in Cowboys & Indians.
In the land of Disney and Daytona, amusement parks and beaches come to mind more than open range and cattle. But Florida, people are surprised to discover, has the longest history of ranching of any state in the country and a legacy of cowboying as long as the peninsula itself.
Many readers are engaged and entertained by ledes they find shocking. If the story involves some unexpected financial, sexual, or criminal element, you may consider using a shock lede. Let’s consider Jack Ryan, who ran for the U.S. Senate in 2004 and was caught up in an alleged sex scandal that involved his then-wife Jeri Ryan, a prominent actress who starred in Star Trek: Voyager and was a former Miss Illinois. The story dripped with salacious detail; a good lede for this story may allude to the candidate’s alleged dalliances in sex clubs.
In a Men’s Health story titled “The Dirty Truth about Hospitals,” writer Laura Beil starts with a shock lede that questions where a spate of infections after knee surgeries came from. It turns out that the surgical instruments used during the procedures housed crevices that weren’t being cleaned properly.
After the fifth soldier turned up with a post-op knee infection, the staff at Madigan Army Medical Center in Tacoma, Washington, halted all anterior cruciate ligament surgeries. Something was very wrong, but no one could say what. In a little more than three months during 2003, the men had undergone routine reconstruction of ligaments torn when knees had twisted under 100-pound pack loads or ankle ligaments snapped during pickup basketball games. It’s usually a safe procedure, and infections are rare (though not unheard of). In four years of repairing ACLs, doctors could recall just one other infection. Now five?
This type of lede is similar to a shock lede, but instead of shocking with content, it shocks with lack of content; some important detail is left out. For example, every year many people start successful businesses, but few of these businesses are started by small children. Leaving out the detail that a little kid started a multimillion-dollar business and then mentioning it later for effect may make for a good blind lede.
In a National Review article titled “What ‘Lost’ Decade’?” which questions the Pew Research Council’s findings that suggest a declining middle class, Scott Winship presents the following blind lede. Note how the lede leaves out important details integral to the story.
Pop quiz: Which of the following is true? (a) Over the past forty years, the middle class has shrunk; (b) Over the past forty years, the middle class has grown poorer; (c) The middle class just suffered through a “lost decade”; (d) All of the above.
You could be forgiven for answering (d), given the angst-producing state of discourse on the economy, but the truth is that none of these claims about middle-class decline—made most recently by the Pew Research Center (PRC)—are supported by the best evidence. …
This lede serves as a call to action and instructs the reader to do something. By using pronouns such as you and we, it connects with the reader. A prescriptive lede may work well with a social issue that affects all of us. For example, in 2012 antibullying efforts became a focus of politicians, educators, and parents alike. Invariably, we’ve all experienced bullying—as either victims or perpetrators—and have the ability to contribute to antibullying efforts. Consequently, a lede that implores the audience to do all they can to stop bullying may make for a strong opening.
Magazines such as Men’s Health and Women’s Health have a history of publishing prescriptive content in the form of service pieces. In a department titled “Know It All,” writer Kate White uses a prescriptive lede in a service piece that advises readers of Women’s Health on confidence.
Confidence is sexy and exciting. People want to be around someone who has it—to hear what she has to say and learn what she knows. I’m not talking about haughtiness or smugness. Those qualities, I’ve always found, tend to spring from insecurity and are totally off-putting. Real confidence is both authentic and inviting. And, as your self-assurance grows, you also tend to become gutsier and less afraid of taking risks.
Adopting a prescriptive tone can be tricky. When doing so, it’s important to remain authoritative without patronizing or belittling the reader. Ted Spiker recounts how it took him time and experience to master the magazine’s prescriptive tone: “It took me two years to really feel comfortable with the tone … it took a while to find that sweet spot where you weren’t talking down to people but you were still goofing a little bit. It was tough.”
You’ll find opinion ledes in editorials. Moreover, in many cases, opinion ledes can be equated to the introduction of an editorial written in essay format.
Here’s an opinion lede from an article titled “100 Years in the Making,” published in Medical Economics. In the article, author Neil McLaughlin argues that the foundation for the Affordable Care Act—a push toward universal health care—is both decades old and bipartisan. He also argues for universal health care.
That was a rough 100 years.
And the past year of debate on healthcare reform seemed like all 100 wrapped into one. In fact, if you look at the chronology on preceding pages, you will see that what has happened since 2009 in many ways encapsulates the U.S. reform war that has raged since the early 20th century. The intense partisanship and the cries of ‘socialized medicine’ and the ‘death of freedom’ are like reruns of a bad soap opera.
This lede is of my own design. In some ways, this lede is similar to a summary lede, a paradoxical lede, and a shock lede. In addition to summarizing key points, it also rejects a deeply seated counterintuitive belief. At face value, this rejection can appear both shocking and paradoxical. Before I introduce this lede, I’ll first explain what a transformative explanation is.
People are psychologically motivated to protect belief structures and perceptions, especially when such belief structures are ingrained and intuitive. Consequently communication scholars suggest a systematic approach to repudiate such deeply rooted, false perceptions. This systematic approach is called a “transformative explanation.”1
According to Katherine Rowan, written transformative explanations can be broken down into five steps:
Imagine that you’re writing a piece for a pregnancy magazine about having sex while pregnant. According to your anecdotal experiences, you’ve found that a large percentage of people still erroneously believe that having sex while pregnant will hurt the baby. You want to help people understand that it’s okay—and even enjoyable—to have sex while pregnant. The rest of your article fleshes out this angle with facts and narrative. For the lede, you may consider the following transformative one:
Many people believe that having vaginal intercourse during a normal pregnancy will hurt the baby. These people suppose that an erect penis thrust toward the cervix and uterus can physically harm (poke) the fetus. Additionally, people think that the quivering during an orgasm may crescendo into preterm labor and result in a miscarriage. The baby, however, is protected from the erect penis by both a plug in the cervix and a layer of amniotic fluid, which fills the uterus. Furthermore, although uterine contractions can occur during an orgasm, they’re different from the uterine contractions that occur during labor. Because the baby is protected from the outside world—which includes erect penises—sex during pregnancy doesn’t hurt the baby. Furthermore, even the biggest, mind-blowing orgasm won’t cause preterm delivery.
For every example of how to build a good lede, one can probably think of many more examples of how to mess one up. As with the information I presented on how to construct strong ledes, much of the information in the following list is derived from a must-read text titled Feature & Magazine Writing: Action, Angle and Anecdote. Here are some tips on avoiding a botched lede:
She made a mean beef stroganoff, followed her husband from job to job, and took eight years off from work to raise three children. “The world’s best mom,” her son Matthew said.
This lede is taken from a March 30, 2012, obituary for Yvonne Brill, which ran in The New York Times. Reader reaction was strong; people complained that presenting Brill as a homemaker first and a rocket scientist second marginalized her accomplishments and appeared sexist. At best, this lede was a failed attempt to be funny.
This example of an insensitive and ignorant lede reflects poor judgment. Had the author (editor, newspaper … ) exhibited better judgment, this lede could have been avoided. (In all fairness, it’s rare that the Times makes mistakes of this magnitude, but when it does, it’s interesting for many writers and editors to point out.)
I’ve seen the nut paragraph referred to in various ways: “nut graph,” “nut,” “theme paragraph,” and “billboard paragraph.” Whatever you decide to call it, the nut graph is a paragraph in a feature article that follows the lede and summarizes the rest of the story. The themes brought up in the nut graph are then expanded on in the body of the feature. The nut graph serves a thematic function, and there are different ways to compose it. Many writers bring up key topics or summary sentences that touch on the five Ws and one H: who, what, where, when, why, and how.
The nut graph serves at least two purposes. First, by using supporting information, it explains why the story is newsworthy and important. Second, it acts as a transition between the lede and the body of the story. Like ledes, nut graphs are found in both newspapers and magazines articles and can be used with trend stories, analytical pieces, breaking news, and more.
Here’s a good example of a nut graph. It’s from a feature originally published in Policy Review titled “Supply, Demand, & Kidney Transplants,” written by Dr. Sally Satel, a psychiatrist who received a kidney transplant herself. As the title of the article suggests, the story describes how difficult it is to secure a kidney for transplant. The piece was later republished in The Best American Science Writing 2008.
Uneasy questions of allocation arise in environments of scarcity. Who will get to stay on the crowded lifeboat, and who will be tossed overboard? This age-old tension between utility to society—the maximum good for the maximum number—and fairness to the individual is notoriously hard to resolve. In the case of the shortage of transplantable kidneys, it is made gratuitously more difficult by a ‘transplant community’ that resists experimenting with bold ideas to increase the supply.
An interesting way to think about how to write the nut graph can be traced back to the interview process. When interviewing, it’s a good idea to be able to summarize your story in a few sentences so your sources will understand where you’re coming from. This summary can then be used as the basis for your nut graph.
Another easy way to set up a nut graph is to ask questions that will be answered in subsequent paragraphs. For example, if I were writing an article on a new medical treatment, in the nut graph I may write, “What is the benefit of treatment X? How does treatment X differ from treatment Y?” It should be noted that some editors find this a tired practice.
The length of a nut graph is often directly proportional to the length of the piece—the shorter the piece, the shorter the nut graph. For example, in a feature that only spans a few hundred words, the nut graph may only be a sentence or two. In news articles, which are structured using the inverted pyramid, there’s often no need for a nut graph because the introduction provides basic information about the rest of the piece—namely, the five Ws and one H. Furthermore, in features that use a summary lede, there’s no need for a nut graph because the lede answers many of the basic questions that a nut graph would.
When the nut graph emerged in the 1970s, many publications felt that the information in the nut graph must be attributed. Predictably, such attributions in the nut graph felt forced, and by the 1990s, even the staid Associated Press allowed the information in the nut graph to be presented without attribution and based on the journalist’s knowledge, research, and expertise. Moreover, much of the information within the nut graph will be re-presented in the body of the story with the appropriate attribution.
One word of caution: Make sure the nut graph doesn’t serve as a spoiler and discourage audience members from reading the rest of the article. Remember that the nut graph isn’t a full-blown summary … just an invitation to the rest of the article.
The angle is the emphasis of the piece; it holds a story together. For example, if a piece concerns weight loss, the angle may focus on surgery and compare the benefits of malabsorptive procedures such as gastric bypass with restrictive procedures such as the laparoscopic adjustable gastric band (LAP-BAND). Research, quotation support from experts, data analysis, and so forth are then used to support this angle. Anecdotes and other narrative elements spice up the facts.
Without an angle, all the writer is left with is the general topic of weight loss. The topic of weight loss is broad and meant for a book or series of seminars. It’s not restricted to surgical weight loss and incorporates diet and exercise, too. There’s no way a writer could adequately survey all aspects of weight loss with sufficient interest or depth in a 1,000-word article.
If your editor allows you latitude with your piece, you may be able to change your angle while fleshing out your topic. Doing so can be especially helpful when dealing with a topic that’s controversial or confusing. After learning more, a writer may decide to adopt an angle that’s better supported by research and expert opinion. Of note, when referencing primary sources such as scientific journal articles, a good place to get an idea for the potential angle of a piece may be the discussion section of the article. If you do decide to change the angle, make sure to notify your editor, and be prepared to establish a strong argument for your decision.
Imagine that you were assigned a service piece on weight loss. At first, you establish an angle that focuses on the promising benefit of the new weight-loss drug. But after doing some research, you discover that the drug has numerous intolerable and unpleasant gastrointestinal side effects, including bloating and diarrhea. These side effects make it difficult for people to take the drug. You may instead decide to choose an angle that expounds on the discomfort caused by the weight-loss drug.
In more scientific terms, the angle is analogous to a hypothesis. You will then test this hypothesis through your research, interviews, and so forth.
When interviewing sources for a piece, experts can also provide clues that make for a good angle. For example, while conducting interviews, if a physician tips you off that an established drug has promising off-label uses for weight loss, you may decide to make this observation the new angle of your story. (Off-label uses refer to uses of a drug that are unrecognized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.) Quotation support from medical experts and further research may support this new angle.
I once wrote a piece on virtual patients. Virtual patients are computer simulations that mimic clinical interactions. They are teaching tools primarily used by medical students. In my estimation, the topic had never been fully explored in the mainstream media, and after months of research and several interviews, I was able to develop an angle for the piece. My angle examined whether the development of virtual patients should be a public effort—which involves open-source resources—or a private or industry-led effort. This angle was based on the work of several researchers and experts in the field—information that was already extant.
When discovering the angle of a story, it may be useful to consider archetypes. Archetypes are the basic models of storytelling. They are general themes that recur over and over again in the literary canon, in comic books, in graphic novels, in plays, in movies, on television, and more. They also play a prominent role in religion. Archetypes are as old as time. To learn more about archetypes, I suggest reading the work of Joseph Campbell.
The story of Rod Blagojevich, a former governor of Illinois, reflects a classic archetype: fall from grace. Blagojevich rose from immigrant working-class roots. He worked his way up the ladder and clinched one of the top political offices in the country before being undone by his own greed. In 2011, Blagojevich was convicted of several conspiracy charges, including those related to his attempt to “sell” Barack Obama’s open senate seat. He’s currently serving a fourteen-year prison sentence. With respect to recent books and movies, The Hunger Games series is a prime example of archetypes at work. The story, which is set in the distant future, focuses on a pair of teenagers who are pitted against twenty-two other sacrifices in a game to the death. These “Hunger Games” are televised and sponsored. The whole incident is reminiscent of the archetype of gladiators fighting in the Roman Coliseum.
The distinct organizational elements of a feature consist of a headline, a deck, and headers (subheads). Keep in mind that some of the best articles are divided into portions that are easily consumed by the reader.
Headlines introduce stories and can be used to promote the article on the cover, in the table of contents, or in Internet search results. Readers also encounter headlines before the lede, and, as such, headlines play an even more pivotal role in advertising the piece and drawing in readers. Many editors like to come up with headlines on their own, but some turn to the author for advice on headlines. After all, the author of the piece is more intimately associated with the content and can sometimes come up with an excellent headline. Whenever I tender an article manuscript to an editor, in addition to listing my name and the word count at the top of the piece, I also suggest a few headlines. It can be quite satisfying to see that your editor has accepted your suggested headline.
Researchers at the Poynter Institute tried to define and test good headlines. Although their studies didn’t yield statistically significant results, their parameters are intriguing. For example, researchers looked for headlines that spoke directly to the reader; used onomatopoeia or other forms of word play; used I, we, or they; had a conversational tone; asked questions; or surprised the reader.
An article on the Poynter Institute website titled “10 Questions to Help you Write Better Headlines” by Matt Thompson does a pretty good job of explaining how to come up with a good headline. Information applicable to creating headlines can also be found in Ian Montagnes’ timeless tome Editing and Publication: A Training Manual. (A PDF version of this book is offered for free by the International Rice Research Institute.) Here’s a list of pointers derived in part from these two sources:
Here’s an example of a headline I came up with which incorporates some of the aforementioned advice. If I were going to write a piece about how diet soft drinks filled with artificial sweeteners cause weight gain, the headline may be “Diet Drinks Fatten Your Booty.” I like this headline because it sums up the message, uses an active verb (fatten), is a bit irreverent (booty means buttocks), uses alliteration, and is counterintuitive.
It’s important to mention that headlines for print and online media should be written differently. Online headlines show up without context in RSS feeds, in database or search-engine results, and on news-aggregator sites such as Google and Yahoo!; consequently, they should be specific and use proper nouns and searchable key terms. Because print headlines can be paired with images and have context within the print publication, they can be punchier and more playful.
A source told me about the following headline, which appeared in a 2000 issue of The Sun, a British tabloid: “Super Caly go ballistic, Celtics are atrocious.” When written devoid of context, the headline makes little sense. But when accompanied by a picture and plastered on the printed pages of a regional publication whose audience members are familiar with the soccer teams Inverness Caledonian Thistle and the much mightier Celtic organization, the headline is genius. A headline for the corresponding online story may read, “Inverness Caledonian Thistle Beat Celtic,” which is less catchy but more searchable.
A deck is another line of text that appears below the headline and further expounds on the article’s content. The deck adds to the headline and helps the reader decide whether to read the article. In the case of the diet-soda story, the deck may be “Research suggests diet soft drinks can cause weight gain.”
Scientific American is a mainstream consumer magazine that does a good job with its headlines, decks, and headers. Anybody who has read a few pieces from this magazine can attest to how complicated its topics can be. Apparently, the editors realize that their articles are mentally taxing and do their best to keep them well organized. For example, in an article titled “Eyes Open, Brain Shut” by Steven Laureys, the deck does a good job of hinting at the content of the article: “New brain imaging techniques are giving researchers a better understanding of patients in the vegetative state.” The article deals with the difficulty in diagnosing people in comas and vegetative states.
Headers (also known as subheads) subdivide the text of the story and establish clarity. Headers mark and thematically introduce each ensuing section. They should also flow with the headline, deck, lede, nut graph, and conclusion. When constructing headers, it’s a good idea to keep each header in parallel form. Here’s a brief list of possible headers for the diet-soda piece. (By the way, research shows that diet soda may be associated with diabetes mellitus, too.)2
Now for a real-world example: Here are the headers for the aforementioned article “Eyes Open, Brain Shut” from Scientific American. Each header is thematic with respect to the section of the article it introduces.
A sidebar contains extra information that’s pertinent to the story but isn’t placed in the actual text of the story. For example, I once wrote a story about how an osteopathic medical school was planning on opening an allopathic counterpart. (Osteopathic and allopathic physicians represent different medical pedagogies.) The story was controversial, and only one other medical school in the country had both types of medical schools operating on the same campus: Michigan State University. Although I referred to the allopathic and osteopathic coexistence at Michigan State University in the text of the article, I described this unique academic environment in more detail in the sidebar.
Editors like sidebars because they offer another point of entry for the reader. In other words, a reader may take interest in the sidebar and then decide to read the whole piece. Sidebars also offer visual relief from lines and lines of text.
Obviously the subject of a sidebar depends on the content of your piece. Remember that a sidebar’s content should complement the piece. Here are some ideas for possible sidebars:
Sometimes graphs, flowcharts, diagrams, and tables can help a reader visually interpret the information presented in an article. For example, USA Today, America’s third largest newspaper (behind The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times respectively) is well known for offering up appealing statistics and other information in the forms of graphs, diagrams, and so forth. (Technically, such offerings can be labeled alternative story forms.) These USA Today “Snapshots” complement the publication’s news offerings.
If you’re going to use a graph, consider the following. First, make sure the graph is clear, easy to interpret, and doesn’t contain too much clutter. Space out the units on the x- and y-axes and make sure the baseline in any line or bar graph is zero. Furthermore, when rendering a line graph, don’t use more than five lines on any one graph. Finally, don’t make bar and pie graphs three-dimensional—doing so confuses the reader.
Information that appears in figures, graphs, diagrams, flowcharts, and tables should be labeled with an informative title and complement the information in the text of the article without repeating it. For example, unless a statistic serves a specific purpose, resist the temptation to repeat it in the text of your article. If you’re writing an article that deals with Mega Millions lottery winners from Georgia and you decide to include a table listing the number of winners by state during the past ten years, there’s probably no need to rehash much of this information in your article.
When possible, avoid specifically mentioning a graph or flowchart in the text of your article. The reader should be able to appreciate the added content without being pointed to it. Nevertheless, if you do need to refer the reader to one of these elements, do so in an unobtrusive manner. Embed references to accompanying elements in the prose of your piece rather than devoting an entire sentence to it. In other words, make any references cohesive. Ultimately, you don’t want your article reading like a journal piece.
UNADVISABLE: “See Table 1 for more information.”
BETTER: “For those interested in comparing the number of lottery winners by state, take a look at the table accompanying this article.”
When readers sit with your piece, they’re forming a relationship with it—even if it’s a short relationship. If they have read it to the end, then they’re willing to see this relationship through and expect some closure. Consequently, the good writer will continue to deliver quality writing all the way to the end of the piece.
You may conclude your article by expanding the perspective of the piece, looking toward the future, revisiting the introduction, or inserting a relevant quotation.
Throughout the article, the writer establishes a way of thinking about some topic. In the conclusion, the writer may decide to bring home the point by explaining what it means to the reader. When expanding on the perspective of a piece, make sure that the idea you introduce would appeal to any reasonable person—for example, an unbiased expert—with knowledge of the subject.
A feature in The Economist titled “Looking for a Google” provides perspective in the conclusion. In part, this short article deals with the difficulties of setting up large and successful companies in developing countries. The ending provides perspective by means of a possible solution: learning about the management of big business from abroad.
Learning from abroad, though, makes a big difference. In 1979, Desh, a Bangladeshi garments firm, sent 130 of its staff for an eight-month course at a South Korean textile plant. At the time, Bangladesh had no textile exports and no modern industry. When the trainees got back, almost all of them set up their own firms. Today Bangladesh has 3.6m textile workers, 80% of them women, generating $13 billion of exports a year …
If you’ve done enough research and interviewed enough people, you may be able to predict how the issue will unfold. Much like when your conclusion expands on the perspective of the piece, when you look toward the future, your predictions should be reasonable and appeal to anybody with good judgment, such as an unbiased expert in the field.
In an article published in High Times Medical Marijuana titled “The Emerald City Goes Green,” the conclusion discusses the future of medical marijuana in Seattle. (As its title may suggest, High Times is a magazine that serves an audience of marijuana aficionados, growers, and so forth. It advocates for the legalization of medical marijuana.)
And so, while the state of medical cannabis in Seattle depends on many factors—and no one can say for certain what the next few years will hold—with patients and collectives working together, the future is looking bright green.
One popular way of ending the article is to revisit the beginning. This approach especially works well when the lede is an anecdote. For example, in the piece “Head Start,” which focuses on “quarterback guru” Steve Clarkson, the ending returns to David Sills V, the quarterback protégé readers met in the introduction. The piece ends with a bunch of kids who are under Clarkson’s tutelage, asking how Sills, who is now fifteen years old, garnered a scholarship when aged thirteen.
“I don’t know,” Sills said, sounding a little bashful, and then glanced over at Clarkson, awaiting further instruction.
Of note, in addition to revisiting the introduction, the conclusion also ends with a quotation.
As with any other quotation that you use in your piece, keep in mind that if you choose to end your piece with a quotation, it must be credible and preferably precise, too. Additionally, the quotation could express an emotion or opinion that is better expressed in somebody else’s words. Finally, the quotation should provide a sense of closure.
In addition to starting with a quotation, in the AARP The Magazine article “Everybody Loves Tony … and the feeling is mutual,” author Bill Newcott also ends with a quotation. The story starts by explaining that during the early years of his career, Tony Bennett was mentored by Frank Sinatra. Bennett then talks about how he had recently collaborated with and mentored younger artists, including Sheryl Crow, Queen Latifah, and Mariah Carey. The feature provides closure in Bennett’s own words. Bennett says, “For me, it felt like graduation.”
Keep in mind that there are different ways to end a piece, and as with most aspects of article writing, there is no absolute “right” way to proceed. As long as the ending is engaging and it works, you should feel comfortable with it.
Sara Quinn, director of The EyeTrack Studies at the Poynter Institute, which examine both newspaper and online reading habits, explains the bailout point and suggests that a writer entice the reader with “visual gold coins.”
“I wanted to find out … the average amount of time spent reading the first story that somebody came across, and it was about 1.5 minutes or 98.3 seconds—that was the average. And then I [wanted to see] if there’s a common point where a person would commit to or stop reading the story altogether, and it was 78.3 seconds. I started to think of that as the ‘bailout point,’ the point at which somebody thinks, ‘Maybe there’s something better that I haven’t looked at yet,’ or they’re just not ready to commit to the story.
“At that point, it’s important to think about adding a little gold coin to keep people reading. … Something that’s pretty substantial, that gets people to realize that there’s more to the story. It’s just craftsmanship—even of the design. … It might be a quote from someone who hasn’t appeared yet in the story. … It might be a small graphic or something that might give more pertinent information. … Maybe it’s another informative link … maybe it’s something that’s fairly transparent and says, ‘You’re not going to believe what you see at the end of this story.’ … “Maybe the real benefit would be to give readers a summary of what they read so they have a level of satisfaction … just two or three key points, so even if they do stop reading there, they come away from that experience feeling satisfied with clarity.
“We can extrapolate and look at print reading. If you turn the page and it’s just a galley of type and the design doesn’t support it, [in this case] the subheads are very important … or [you can add] a nice visual element that keeps people reading so there’s kind of a design or editing point.”
Quinn goes on to suggest that gold coins be placed throughout a story. In the case of online stories, these gold coins may be placed every couple of screens. “It’s important [that for] every couple of screens, something compels somebody to read … but [it shouldn’t be] overdone. … You don’t want to muck up a story.”
It should be noted that Quinn bases this recommendation to use “gold coins” on the most recent EyeTrack studies, which tested readers using tablets in a controlled environment.
It’s admirable that Quinn and Poynter are considering rewarding the reader with some type of “gold coin.” It should be noted, however, that the reward system has neuroscientific underpinnings that warrant further examination. The reward system is mediated by dopamine, and its effects are prevalent in a variety of “reward”-triggering activities, including the use of illicit drugs, gambling, and even video gaming.
In order to sufficiently trip the reward system into kicking out “feel-good” dopamine, the gold coin must be appealing enough to the reader. Simply representing information from an article in novel, visual, or textual forms may not provide sufficient impetus to continue reading. Rewards may need to be more significant and may take the form of monetary, social, or virtual payment.
To help illustrate this point, let’s consider an online publication that runs long features. In order to attract readers—and thereby generate revenue from targeted online advertising—the publication may consider posing challenging questions to the audience at specific intervals that punctuate reading. These questions require the reader to pay close attention and appreciate each article thoroughly, thus reinforcing interest in the publication (even if by means of cognitive dissonance). In return for answering these questions, the reader could be paid with some type of gold coin. These gold coins serve as feedback that perpetuates the dopamine-reward system and could slowly accrete to some system of material rewards—starting, with say, a special-edition T-shirt—or unlock special content or invitations to exclusive online chat sessions with a celebrity, politician, scientist, or so forth. Alternatively, the payment could take the form of a virtual point system that appeals to reader ego and promotes the reader to some level of expertise.
1 Most of the following information is taken from a blog posting titled “Myths and Pregnancy” that I wrote for Psychology Today.
2 To learn more, please read a blog posting that I wrote for Psychology Today titled “Diet Soda Double Whammy.”