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This week we will learn about profile stories, which use a very different method of writing leads.
When you write a hard news story, or a short profile, you use the inverted pyramid form, which puts the basic stories at the top.
When you write a longer profile, you use a story or stories about your subject's life as a way of introducing them. You still give us the who, what, when, where, why and how lead paragraph or graf, but it is delayed. This is what is called a buried lede in journalism. That paragraph, which comes in sentence and/or paragraph one, will wait until paragraph six, seven or eight in a profile.
Here are two links to two profiles from the New York Times Sunday Magazine. One is of actress Cherry Jones. The other is of author Elizabeth Gilbert.
Here is the Jones story:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/22/magazine/cherry-jones-at-the-peak-of-her-powers.html?ref=magazine&_r=0
Here is the Gilbert story:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/22/magazine/eat-pray-love-get-rich-write-a-novel-no-one-expects.html?ref=magazine
Part One -- Read each story. When you do, on your blog, write the lead graf. Where does it come in the Jones story? Where does it come in the Gilbert story? (Write the paragraph number)
Part Two -- Look at the Gilbert story in more detail. It has one long story to introduce it. Here is another such story, on the actress Mayim Bialik:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/23/fashion/from-blossom-to-amy-but-still-always-mayim.html?pagewanted=all
Where is the lead in her story?
For each of these stories, write the title, the paragraph where the lead occurs, and write out the lead sentence.
Part Three
Interview a new person for class. Choose somebody different from the one you spoke to last time.
In this segment, write out questions that will lead to a profile type story for you to profile. Can you get a story or observation of the type you see in the Gilbert of Bialik profiles?
When you write a hard news story, or a short profile, you use the inverted pyramid form, which puts the basic stories at the top.
When you write a longer profile, you use a story or stories about your subject's life as a way of introducing them. You still give us the who, what, when, where, why and how lead paragraph or graf, but it is delayed. This is what is called a buried lede in journalism. That paragraph, which comes in sentence and/or paragraph one, will wait until paragraph six, seven or eight in a profile.
Here are two links to two profiles from the New York Times Sunday Magazine. One is of actress Cherry Jones. The other is of author Elizabeth Gilbert.
Here is the Jones story:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/22/magazine/cherry-jones-at-the-peak-of-her-powers.html?ref=magazine&_r=0
Here is the Gilbert story:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/22/magazine/eat-pray-love-get-rich-write-a-novel-no-one-expects.html?ref=magazine
Part One -- Read each story. When you do, on your blog, write the lead graf. Where does it come in the Jones story? Where does it come in the Gilbert story? (Write the paragraph number)
Part Two -- Look at the Gilbert story in more detail. It has one long story to introduce it. Here is another such story, on the actress Mayim Bialik:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/23/fashion/from-blossom-to-amy-but-still-always-mayim.html?pagewanted=all
Where is the lead in her story?
For each of these stories, write the title, the paragraph where the lead occurs, and write out the lead sentence.
Part Three
Interview a new person for class. Choose somebody different from the one you spoke to last time.
In this segment, write out questions that will lead to a profile type story for you to profile. Can you get a story or observation of the type you see in the Gilbert of Bialik profiles?