Nut grafs are important. Nut grafs do two important things: they fill in some of the blanks and details from your lede, and they offer a smooth transition to the body of a story.
In this exercise, some of you had inadequate nut grafs.
What a few of you did was write a lede, followed by a nut graf that left key questions from the lede unanswered before going into the chronology of what happened, like here:
A store clerk in Okemos lost his job after he shot an armed robber last night was called self-defense by the Ingham County District Attorney's office.
In this exercise, some of you had inadequate nut grafs.
What a few of you did was write a lede, followed by a nut graf that left key questions from the lede unanswered before going into the chronology of what happened, like here:
A store clerk in Okemos lost his job after he shot an armed robber last night was called self-defense by the Ingham County District Attorney's office.
Michael Ernest Layoux, a 22-year-old student at Lansing Community College, shot and killed Robert A. Wiess during his night shift at O-Mart. Layoux shot Wiess three times before Wiess ran away.
Then the author began a chronology. While the nut graf did answer some questions created by the lede -- who is the store clerk? Who died? What store did this happen at? -- it failed to answer another key question: why was he fired?
Make sure you are touching all the major bases from your lede in your nut graf.
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