Writing in the Inverted Pyramid Style May BeUseful for Communicating to a Wide Audience

May BeUseful for Communicating to a Wide Audience

In order to appeal to the widest audience possible with the limited space and the limited attention span of its readers, newspapers around the world make extensive use of the Inverted Pyramid Style in their stories.

This method has proven to be effective in quickly communicating the main points of a story to almost any kind of reader.The Inverted Pyramid Style consist of placing the broadest, most essential details at the top, beginning with the headline.

Then, paragraph by paragraph, the writer brings in the more preciseand minor details. In this way, the headline and each of the paragraphs actually encapsulates the entire story on its own, first in broad terms and then in more and more precise terms.

The Inverted Pyramid Style allows almost any kind of reader to quickly grasp the story, whether he briefly scans the first few sentences or carefully reads the whole way to the end. Since the headline and the paragraphs each encapsulate the story, this method also allows the reader to quit reading at any point throughout the article and still have grasped the essence of the story.

If a reader is only interested in the main points, he can simply read the headline or the first few paragraphs. If he is interested in the nuanced details of the story he can read the entire piece. It also allows the reader to quickly get an overview of the day news by reading the headlines and then diving into the fewer number of stories that he wants to know more about.