Great Leads

Constructing the perfect lead has always been a little bit of a struggle for me. I have trouble with sounding too corny when trying to get attention. The online PowerPoint tips were SO helpful! Breaking down the typical size and structure of a lead was incredibly helpful. I’ve noticed that my leads tend to be too long as well as corny. This does NOT make for a good lead.

The leads assignment also helped me understand what to look for in a lead. As I went through and read a few leads I was able to pick out which ones were well written and not so well written. Taking the opportunity to really analyze leads helped me understand what most readers really want out of the first paragraph of a story.

I couldn’t really take a picture of the editing mistake for the week, but I can certainly tell you all about it! As I’ve said before, I work as a secretary. Yesterday, one of the ladies I work with asked me to read over a page of information and tell her if it sounded all right. I read it and found SEVERAL mistakes. I corrected each and re-typed it for her. I presented the typo-free information to her, to which she replied, “No no no! I need these in question form!”

“OK…but this sentence here,” I pointed to the sentence, “does not lead in to questions…it leads to bulleted ideas. Questions don’t make sense with this sentence.”

Several minutes of futile effort later, I wrote the bullets in question form for her. Ugh. Though it didn’t make sense, I was tired of trying to show her the logical way to present the information only to be ignored and told I was wrong.