Feb. 2 What's my lead? Where's my Quote?

The lead is the most difficult part of a story to write because you have to summarize the news, and interest the reader, usually in 30 words or less. A summary lead contains most or all of the five news elements -- who, what, where, when, why -- and can sometimes be awkward. Here's one with most of the elements. Summary leads can be limiting, especially for feature stories. 

Some leads put most of the stress on one or two elements, often the newest. The summary is in the then in the 2nd paragraph. This is a good lead because it is in active voice, with subject-verb-object construction.
Here's an example of science lead from the NYT science section. It delays "the news" to paragraph 3 in favor of setting up some fun: male flies like to fight.

Other times we'll use a more story telling approach, putting the initial emphasis on a person, then setting the scene, then widening out to the big picture. In this lead, the news is in the fifth paragraph, but the emphasis on a person helps interest readers in what may seem a dry topic.

Usually we don't emphasize the when, unless we're writing for The New Yorker. Other times, we're interested in who is doing something, because the person is famous.

Other times, we don't name the people in the lead because their names aren't known, it's their roles (for example, as victims or suspected criminals) that are important. 

Finally, notice how quotes help bring this story to life. We will talk a bit more about quotes and their punctuation. Finally, we'll try to write a science story lead. Pretend that the placebo study and the underwear study were just published today.