Lift ideas off the page with display copy
There is one great thing about the inverted pyramid lead.
“The only benefit of the inverted pyramid lead was that it put a lot of valuable information high in the story,” write Mario R. Garcia and Pegie Stark, authors of Eyes On the News: The Poynter Institute Color Research.
But, they say, there is a workaround: “Some papers are learning to do that with more effective heads and deck[s].”
That’s right: Lift your key ideas off the page with display copy.
Six places to put your key messages
Garcia and Stark recommend that you embed your most important information in:
- A main head
- A deck to expand the head
- Color-coded summaries of the three parts or modules of the story
- Subheads and summaries at each module
- A numbering system where appropriate
- A closing box of more information
What structure draws more readers?
Writers say, “We use the inverted pyramid because readers stop reading after the first paragraph.” But in new research, readers say, “We stop reading after the first paragraph because you use the inverted pyramid.”
If the traditional news structure doesn’t work, how should we organize our messages?
Master a structure that’s been proven in the lab to outperform the traditional news format at Catch Your Readers — a persuasive-writing workshop.
There, you’ll learn an organizing scheme that grabs readers’ attention, keeps it for the long haul and leaves a lasting impression.
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Source: Mario R. Garcia and Pegie Stark, Eyes On the News: The Poynter Institute Color Research, The Poynter Institute for Media Studies, 1991
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