Types of Leads

“The long line of Khaki-clad youths stood at attention. The last notes of a bu­gle across the parade ground floated through the late-afternoon light. In the dis­tance, a warm window light shone, and John Henry felt a lump growing in his throat.”

• Zinger Lead

• Scene-setting Lead

• Observational Lead

• First-Person Lead

“Howard B. Unruh, 28, a mild, soft-spoken veteran of battles in Italy, France and Germany, killed 12 people with a war souvenir Luger pistol in his home block in East Camden Tuesday morning. He wounded four others.”

• Anecdotal Lead

• Question Lead

• Zinger Lead

• Summary Lead

“Were the best presidents of the United States the sickest ones?”

• Question Lead

• Observational Lead

• Zinger Lead

• Quotation Lead

“It’s the night before Sarah’s wedding. The images she’d dreamed of for years — the perfect dress, the meaningful vows, the sumptuous cake — now seem to reside only in the land of fairy tales. Her bridesmaids are fighting, her groom hasn’t reported on the state of his vows, and the wrong flowers were ordered. Thinking of the disarray around her, Sarah bursts into tears. This isn’t the way her wedding day is supposed to be.”

• Zinger Lead

• Anecdotal Lead

• Descriptive Lead

• Question Lead

“If you have a shape like a pear, don’t let it bother you. You are more likely to succeed in life than most people.”

• Summary Lead

• First-Person Lead

• Direct-Address Lead

• Zinger Lead

“What’s increasing faster than the price of gasoline? Apparently, the cost of court lobbyists.”

• Zinger Lead

• Question Lead

• Descriptive Lead

• Direct-Address Lead

“A picture may be worth a thousand words, but it’s not worth much of anything if it’s out of focus.”

• Cliche Lead

• Zinger Lead

• Anecdotal Lead

• First-Person Lead

“The colorful dark horse wearing a white rose, running headlong into the election of 1872, hoped to buck the ‘superiority of man’ harness off America’s women.”

• Anecdotal Lead

• Summary Lead

• Quotation Lead

• Scene-Setting Lead

``I was furious that that disreputable young man had the audacity to sit in my antique rosewood chair.''

That's how tiny, 82-year-old Louise Freeland today described her brush with a gun-toting escaped convict whom she talked into surrendering to Sheriff's officers.

• Zinger Lead

• Anecdotal Lead

• Quotation Lead

• Question Lead

WASHINGTON (UPI) -- If you are one of 30 million Americans working for a company with a private pension plan, Congress has given you a new bill of rights. It is the Employment Retirement Income Security Act and it promises that if you have worked long enough to earn a pension, you will receive one at retirement age. Nothing -- including bankruptcy, plant closings, dismissal or resignation -- can stand in the way.

• Anecdotal Lead

• Zinger Lead

• Direct-Address Lead

• Summary Lead