How to Write a News Article With The Inverted Pyramid

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By Devero
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An inverted pyramid

One way to write a news article is with the inverted pyramid, placing the most important parts of the story in the beginning and leaving the least important facts toward the end to be cut if needed. This isn't the only way to write a news article, but it is a formula that works and an easy way to arrange facts in a hard news (or other) story. This method can also be used to write concise articles for online writing / Internet writing.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

Something to write about
A computer or pen and paper
A notebook

Step 1

Gather information about what you are going to write about. It could be a fire that burned down the local grocery store, a court case or a new program at the elementary school. Talk to sources about the subject, taking notes and thinking about how your story will be laid out.
Step 2

Begin to write your story. Start with a lead that hooks readers and draws them to read on. A lead can be funny, anecdotal, thought-provoking or paint a scene, whatever it takes to capture their attention.
Step 3

Assemble your notes and begin to type out the most important information. In the inverted pyramid form, the paragraph after the lead is called the nut graph, because it contains the most important information of the story. The nut graph should answer, at least in part, the who, what, where, when, why and how of the story and answer the question, "who cares."
Step 4

For the rest of the story, arrange the paragraphs from your notes in descending order of importance. Start with the most important aspects and work your way down the list, placing the least important elements at the end. This technique is used in journalism because articles must sometimes be cut to fit in the edition. Cutting from the bottom up results in the appropriate information being cut.

Comments

AsktheNurse said

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on 12/18/2009 Well-written. Recommended and 5 stars!

jkopinion said

on 4/27/2009 Great article, thanks for the tips!

guesswhat said

on 4/17/2009 Great article ....keep up the good work...I gave you 5 Stars and RR on 5 of your articles,very informational...ty ...Please return the favor..Al