A lead paragraph (sometimes shortened to lead; in the United States sometimes spelled lede) is the opening paragraph of an article, book chapter, or other written work that summarizes its main ideas. Styles vary widely among the different types and genres of publications, from journalistic news-style leads to a more encyclopaedic variety.

Types of leads

Leads vary enormously in length, intent, and content depending on the genre of the piece.

Other introductions

In journalism, there is the concept of an introductory or summary line or brief paragraph, located immediately above or below the headline, and typographically distinct from the body of the article. This can be referred to with a variety of terms, including: the standfirst (UK), kicker (US), bank head(line), deck, dek, or subhead (US). A foreword is a piece of writing sometimes placed at the beginning of a book or other piece of literature, written by someone other than the author to honour or bring credibility to the work, unlike the preface, written by the author, which includes the purpose and scope of the work.

Spelling

The term is sometimes spelled "lede". The Oxford English Dictionary suggests this arose as an intentional misspelling of "lead", "in order to distinguish the word's use in instructions to printers from printable text," similarly to "hed" for "head(line)" and "dek" for "deck". Some sources suggest the altered spelling was intended to distinguish from the use of "lead" metal strips of various thickness used to separate lines of type in 20th century typesetting. However, the spelling "lede" first appears in journalism manuals only in the 1980s, well after lead typesetting's heyday. The earliest appearance of "lede" cited by the OED is 1951. According to Grammarist, "lede" is "mainly journalism jargon".

"Bury the lead" expression

The colloquial expression "burying the lead" refers to a writer intentionally hiding the most important aspects of a news story in a later paragraph. This could be done for several reasons: to tease the reader into reading through other information and/or viewing various advertisements, or to hide a politically inconvenient or embarrassing revelation, such as when a theory or position of the writer, publisher, or their benefactors has been revealed to be incorrect.