what is a lead in essay writing

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Signal and Lead-in Phrases

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In most citation styles, including APA, MLA, and Chicago style, you can add variety to your research writing by not always using the same sentence structure to introduce quotations, paraphrases, or pieces of information borrowed from different sources. It is relatively simple to use a wide variety of different expressions to introduce both direct and indirect citations. These expressions, which usually occur in the parts of sentences that come just before quotes and paraphrases, are called signal phrases (or, in some cases,  lead-in phrases ). 

Often, signal phrases can be distinguished by the presence of a verb like "indicate" or "argue" that references what the author is doing in the original source. However, a few select signal phrases contain no verbs (e.g., "According to [author],").

In the examples below, the author being cited is Jane Doe. The examples in the first section are adapted to APA, which recommends past-tense verbs  in signal phrases. For MLA (as well as Chicago style), the same verbs can also be used in the present tense instead of the past tense, as the second section below shows. 

Be sure each signal phrase verb matches your intention for the in-text citation. Read the whole sentence after you finish to ensure that the signal phrase grammatically coheres with any content that follows the quote or paraphrase.

Expressing Disagreement with a Signal Phrase

Of course, some quotes and paraphrases express disagreement or negative opinions. In these cases, be sure that any verbs in the signal phrase match the nature of the quote or paraphrase. See the examples below.

Doe rejected  the claim that nature is more important than nurture.

Doe denied  the claim that nature is more important than nurture.

Doe refutes  the claim that nature is more important than nurture.

Doe disputes  the claim that nature is more important than nurture.

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from training.npr.org: https://training.npr.org/2016/10/12/leads-are-hard-heres-how-to-write-a-good-one/

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A good lead is everything — here's how to write one

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(Deborah Lee/NPR)

I can’t think of a better way to start a post about leads than with this:

“The most important sentence in any article is the first one. If it doesn’t induce the reader to proceed to the second sentence, your article is dead.” — William Zinsser, On Writing Well

No one wants a dead article! A story that goes unread is pointless. The lead is the introduction — the first sentences — that should pique your readers’ interest and curiosity. And it shouldn’t be the same as your radio intro, which t ells listeners what the story is about and why they should care. In a written story, that’s the function of the “nut graph” (which will be the subject of a future post) — not the lead.

The journalism lead’s  main job (I’m personally fond of the  nostalgic spelling , “lede,” that derives from the bygone days of typesetting when newspaper folks needed to differentiate the lead of a story from the  lead  of hot type) is to make the reader want to stay and spend some precious time with whatever you’ve written. It sets the tone and pace and direction for everything that follows. It is the puzzle piece on which the rest of the story depends. To that end, please write your lead first — don’t undermine it by going back and thinking of one to slap on after you’ve finished writing the rest of the story.

Coming up with a good lead is hard. Even the most experienced and distinguished writers know this. No less a writer than John McPhee has called it “ the hardest part of a story to write.” But in return for all your effort, a good lead will do a lot of work for you — most importantly, it will make your readers eager to stay awhile.

There are many different ways to start a story. Some examples of the most common leads are highlighted below. Sometimes they overlap. (Note: These are not terms of art.)

Straight news lead

Just the facts, please, and even better if interesting details and context are packed in. This kind of lead works well for hard news and breaking news.

Some examples:

“After mass street protests in Poland, legislators with the country’s ruling party have abruptly reversed their positions and voted against a proposal to completely ban abortion.” (By NPR’s Camila Domonoske )

“The European Parliament voted Tuesday to ratify the landmark Paris climate accord, paving the way for the international plan to curb greenhouse gas emissions to become binding as soon as the end of this week.” (By NPR’s Rebecca Hersher )

“The United States announced it is suspending efforts to revive a cease-fire in Syria, blaming Russia’s support for a new round of airstrikes in the city of Aleppo.” (By NPR’s Richard Gonzales )

All three leads sum up the news in a straightforward, clear way — in a single sentence. They also hint at the broader context in which the news occurred.

Anecdotal lead

This type of lead uses an anecdote to illustrate what the story is about.

Here’s a powerful anecdotal lead to a story about Brazil’s murder rate and gun laws by NPR’s Lulu Garcia-Navarro :

“At the dilapidated morgue in the northern Brazilian city of Natal, Director Marcos Brandao walks over the blood-smeared floor to where the corpses are kept. He points out the labels attached to the bright metal doors, counting out loud. It has not been a particularly bad night, yet there are nine shooting victims in cold storage.”

We understand right away that the story will be about a high rate of gun-related murder in Brazil. And this is a much more vivid and gripping way of conveying it than if Lulu had simply stated that the rate of gun violence is high.

Lulu also does a great job setting the scene. Which leads us to …

Scene-setting lead

Byrd Pinkerton, a 2016 NPR intern, didn’t set foot in this obscure scholarly haven , but you’d never guess it from the way she draws readers into her story:

“On the second floor of an old Bavarian palace in Munich, Germany, there’s a library with high ceilings, a distinctly bookish smell and one of the world’s most extensive collections of Latin texts. About 20 researchers from all over the world work in small offices around the room.”

This scene-setting is just one benefit of Byrd’s thorough reporting. We even get a hint of how the place smells.

First-person lead

The first-person lead should be used sparingly. It means you, the writer, are immediately a character in your own story. For purists, this is not a comfortable position. Why should a reader be interested in you? You need to make sure your first-person presence is essential — because you experienced something or have a valuable contribution and perspective that justifies conveying the story explicitly through your own eyes. Just make sure you are bringing your readers along with you.

Here, in the spirit of first-personhood, is an example from one of my own stories :

“For many of us, Sept. 11, 2001, is one of those touchstone dates — we remember exactly where we were when we heard that the planes hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. I was in Afghanistan.”

On a historic date, I was in a place where very few Americans were present, meaning I’m able to serve as a guide to that place and time. Rather than stating I was in Afghanistan in the first sentence, I tried to draw in readers by reminding them that the memory of Sept. 11 is something many of us share in common, regardless of where we were that day.

Observational lead

This kind of lead steps back to make an authoritative observation about the story and its broader context. For it to work, you need to understand not just the immediate piece you’re writing, but also the big picture. These are useful for stories running a day or more after the news breaks.

Here’s one by the Washington Post’s Karen Tumulty , a political reporter with decades of experience:

“At the lowest point of Donald Trump’s quest for the presidency, the Republican nominee might have brought in a political handyman to sand his edges. Instead, he put his campaign in the hands of a true believer who promises to amplify the GOP nominee’s nationalist message and reinforce his populist impulses.”

And here’s another by NPR’s Camila Domonoske , who knows her literary stuff, juxtaposing the mundane (taxes) with the highbrow (literary criticism):

“Tax records and literary criticism are strange bedfellows. But over the weekend, the two combined and brought into the world a literary controversy — call it the Ferrante Furor of 2016.”

Zinger lead

Edna Buchanan, the legendary, Pulitzer Prize-winning crime reporter for the Miami Herald , once said that a good lead should make a reader sitting at breakfast with his wife “spit out his coffee, clutch his chest and say, ‘My god, Martha. Did you read this?’”

That’s as good a definition as any of a “zinger” lead. These are a couple of Buchanan’s:

“His last meal was worth $30,000 and it killed him.” (A man died while trying to smuggle cocaine-filled condoms in his gut.)

“Bad things happen to the husbands of Widow Elkin.” (Ms. Elkin, as you might surmise, was suspected of bumping off her spouses.)

After Ryan Lochte’s post-Olympic Games, out-of-the-water escapades in Rio, Sally Jenkins, writing in the Washington Post , unleashed this zinger:

“Ryan Lochte is the dumbest bell that ever rang.”

Roy Peter Clark, of the Poynter Institute,  deconstructs Jenkins’ column here , praising her “short laser blast of a lead that captures the tone and message of the piece.”

Here are a few notes on things to avoid when writing leads:

• Clichés and terrible puns. This goes for any part of your story, and never more so than in the lead. Terrible puns aren’t just the ones that make a reader groan — they’re in bad taste, inappropriate in tone or both. Here’s one example .
• Long, rambling sentences. Don’t try to cram way too much information into one sentence or digress and meander or become repetitive. Clarity and simplicity rule.
• Straining to be clever. Don’t write a lead that sounds better than it means or promises more than it can deliver. You want your reader to keep reading, not to stop and figure out something that sounds smart but is actually not very meaningful. Here’s John McPhee again: “A lead should not be cheap, flashy, meretricious, blaring: After a tremendous fanfare of verbal trumpets, a mouse comes out of a hole, blinking.”
• Saying someone “could never have predicted.” It’s not an informative observation to say someone “could never have imagined” the twists and turns his or her life would take. Of course they couldn’t! It’s better to give the reader something concrete and interesting about that person instead.
• The weather . Unless your story is about the weather, the weather plays a direct role in it or it’s essential for setting the scene, it doesn’t belong in the lead. Here’s a story about Donald Trump’s financial dealings that would have lost nothing if the first, weather-referenced sentence had been omitted.

One secret to a good lead

Finally, good reporting will lead to good leads. If your reporting is incomplete, that will often show up in a weak lead. If you find yourself struggling to come up with a decent lead or your lead just doesn’t seem strong, make sure your reporting is thorough and there aren’t unanswered questions or missing details and points. If you’ve reported your story well, your lead will reflect this.

Further reading:

• A Poynter roundup of bad leads
• A classic New Yorker story by Calvin Trillin with a great lead about one of Buchanan’s best-known leads.
• A long read by John McPhee , discussing, among other things, “fighting fear and panic, because I had no idea where or how to begin a piece of writing for The New Yorker .” It happens to everyone!

Hannah Bloch is a digital editor for international news at NPR.

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• English Grammar ›

Writing a Lead or Lede to an Article

Rules? What rules? Just tell the story effectively and hold the reader

• An Introduction to Punctuation
• Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia
• M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester
• B.A., English, State University of New York

A lead  or lede refers to the opening sentences  of a brief composition  or the first paragraph or two of a longer article or essay . Leads introduce the topic or purpose of a paper, and particularly in the case of journalism, need to grab the reader's attention. A lead is a promise of what's to come, a promise that the piece will satisfy what a reader needs to know.

They can take many styles and approaches and be a variety of lengths, but to be successful, leads need to keep the readers reading, or else all the research and reporting that went into the story won't reach anyone. Most often when people talk about leads, it's in professional periodical writing, such as in newspapers and magazines. ​

Opinions Differ on Length

Many ways exist as far as how to write a lead, the styles of which likely differ based on the tone or voice of the piece and intended audience in a story—and even the overall length of the story. A long feature in a magazine can get away with a lead that builds more slowly than an in-the-moment news story about a breaking news event in a daily paper or on a news website.

Some writers note that the first sentence is the most important of a story; some might extend that to the first paragraph. Still, others might emphasize defining the  audience  and message to those people in the first 10 words. Whatever the length, a good lead relates the issue to the readers and shows why it's important for them and how it relates to them. If they're invested from the get-go, they'll keep reading.

Hard News Versus Features

Hard news leads get the who, what, why, where, when, and how in the piece up front, the most important bits of information right up top. They're part of the classic reverse-pyramid news story structure. 

Features can start off in a multitude of ways, such as with an anecdote  or a quotation  or dialogue and will want to get the point of view established right away. Feature stories and news both can set the scene with a narrative description . They also can establish a "face" of the story, for example, to personalize an issue by showing how it's affecting an ordinary person.

Stories with arresting leads might exhibit tension right up front or pose a problem that'll be discussed. They might phrase their first sentence in the form of a question.

Where you put the historical information or the background information depends on the piece, but it can also function in the lead to ground the readers and get them context to the piece right away, to immediately understand the story's importance.

All that said, news and features don't necessarily have hard-and-fast rules about what leads work for either type; the style you take depends on the story you have to tell and how it will be most effectively conveyed.

Creating a Hook

"Newspaper reporters have varied the form of their work, including writing more creative story leads . These leads are often less direct and less 'formulaic' than the traditional news summary lead. Some journalists call these soft or indirect news leads. "The most obvious way to modify a news summary lead is to use only the feature fact or perhaps two of the what, who, where, when, why and how in the lead. By delaying some of the answers to these essential reader questions , the sentences can be short, and the writer can create a 'hook' to catch or entice the reader to continue into the body of the story." (Thomas Rolnicki, C. Dow Tate, and Sherri Taylor, "Scholastic Journalism." Blackwell, 2007)

Using Arresting Detail

"There are editors ...who will try to take an interesting detail out of the story simply because the detail happens to horrify or appall them. 'One of them kept saying that people read this paper at breakfast ,' I was told by Edna [Buchanan], whose own idea of a successful lead is one that might cause a reader who is having breakfast with his wife to 'spit out his coffee, clutch his chest, and say, "My God, Martha! Did you read this!"'" (Calvin Trillin, "Covering the Cops [Edna Buchanan]." "Life Stories: Profiles from The New Yorker ," ed. by David Remnick. Random House, 2000)

Joan Didion and Ron Rosenbaum on Leads

​ Joan Didion : "What's so hard about the first sentence is that you're stuck with it. Everything else is going to flow out of that sentence. And by the time you've laid down the first two sentences, your options are all gone." (Joan Didion, quoted in "The Writer," 1985)

Ron Rosenbaum : "For me, the lead is the most important element. A good lead embodies much of what the story is about—its tone, its focus, its mood. Once I sense that this is a great lead I can really start writing. It is a heuristic : a great lead really leads you toward something." (Ron Rosenbaum in "The New New Journalism: Conversations With America's Best Nonfiction Writers on Their Craft," by Robert S. Boynton. Vintage Books, 2005)

The Myth of the Perfect First Line

"It's a newsroom article of faith that you should begin by struggling for the perfect lead . Once that opening finally comes to you—according to the legend—the rest of the story will flow like lava. "Not likely...Starting with the lead is like starting medical school with brain surgery. We've all been taught that the first sentence is the most important; so it's also the scariest. Instead of writing it, we fuss and fume and procrastinate. Or we waste hours writing and rewriting the first few lines, rather than getting on with the body of the piece... "The first sentence points the way for everything that follows. But writing it before you've sorted out your material, thought about your focus , or stimulated your thinking with some actual writing is a recipe for getting lost. When you're ready to write, what you need is not a finely polished opening sentence, but a clear statement of your theme ." (Jack R. Hart, "A Writer's Coach: An Editor's Guide to Words That Work." Random House, 2006)

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