Alead paragraph (sometimes shortened tolead; in the United States sometimes spelledlede) is the openingparagraph of an article, book chapter, or other written work that summarizes its main ideas.[1] Styles vary widely among the different types and genres of publications, from journalisticnews-style leads to a moreencyclopaedic variety.
Journalistic leads emphasize grabbing the attention of the reader.[2] In journalism, the failure to mention the most important, interesting or attention-grabbing elements of a story in the first paragraph is sometimes called "burying the lead". Most standard news leads include brief answers to the questions ofwho, what, why, when, where, and how the key event in the story took place. In newspaper writing, the first paragraph that summarizes or introduces the story is also called the "blurb paragraph", "teaser text" or, in the United Kingdom, the "standfirst".[3]
Encyclopedia leads tend to define the subject matter as well as emphasize the interesting points of the article.
Features and general articles inmagazines tend to be somewhere between journalistic and encyclopedian in style and often lack a distinct lead paragraph entirely.
Leads vary enormously in length, intent, and content depending on thegenre of the piece.
Injournalism, there is the concept of an introductory or summary line or brief paragraph, located immediately above or below the headline, and typographically distinct from the body of the article.[4] This can be referred to with a variety of terms, including: thestandfirst (UK),[4]kicker (US),[4]bank head(line),deck,dek, orsubhead (US).[citation needed]
Aforeword is a piece of writing sometimes placed at the beginning of abook or other piece ofliterature, written by someone other than the author to honour or bring credibility to the work, unlike thepreface, written by the author, which includes the purpose and scope of the work.[5]
The term is sometimes spelled "lede".[6] TheOxford English Dictionary suggests this arose as an intentional misspelling of "lead", "in order to distinguish the word's use in instructions to printers from printable text",[7] similarly to "hed" for "head(line)" and "dek" for "deck". Some sources suggest the altered spelling was intended to distinguish from the use of "lead" metal strips of various thickness used to separate lines of type in 20th century typesetting.[8][9][1] However, the spelling "lede" first appears in journalism manuals only in the 1980s, well after lead typesetting's heyday.[10][11][12][13][14][15][excessive citations] The earliest appearance of "lede" cited by the OED is 1951.[7] According toGrammarist, "lede" is "mainly journalism jargon".[16]
The colloquial expression "burying the lead" refers to a writer intentionally hiding the most important aspects of a news story in a later paragraph. This could be done for several reasons: to tease the reader into reading through other information and/or viewing various advertisements, or to hide a politically inconvenient or embarrassing revelation, such as when a theory or position of the writer, publisher, or their benefactors has been revealed to be incorrect.[17]
^abCarol (November 28, 2000)."The Mavens' Word of the Day: lede".RandomHouse.com. New York: Random House/Bertelsmann. "Maven's Word of the Day" blog (defunct as of 2012). Archived fromthe original on 19 February 2012. Retrieved2012-02-28. Thistertiary source reuses information from other sources but does not name them.
The dictionary definition oflede at Wiktionary