While it might appear to the casual news article reader that there is no logic to the information that is presented there is. Many news writers who write news stories for the major newspapers use a strategy known as the inverted pyramid to present their news stories. Here is a look at the inverted pyramid writing structure.

Imagine a pyramid that is standing on its tip. That is structure that many news writers use. The idea of the inverted pyramid is that all the important information is available to the reader at the top of the article. The headlines, leads and first paragraphs all contain everything that they want to know. However, as the reader continues to read the article the information becomes less important, until the article ends.

Here is an example of a news story that would be structured and written in a style that uses the inverted pyramid.

There as a tragic double murder in the local apartment complex. A news writer that was using the inverted pyramid structure would start out the story with a headline that reads “Tragic Ending For Two Apartment Dwellers”. This headline grabs the attention of the readers and makes them want to start reading the news article.

The first sentence of the news story would read something like “Two residents living at the local apartment complex were murdered last Thursday. They were found dead by their neighbor”. Under the inverted pyramid structure this presents all the information that a reader could want to know about the news story. If the reader were to talk away from the article they would know all the important facts.

The rest of the article would focus on the murder but could talk about evidence that might have been found, suspects, who was involved or even an interview with the local police chief. While these facts have to deal with the story they are not as important to the reader or the story.