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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. [1] Styles vary widely among the different types and genres of publications, from journalistic news-style leads to a more encyclopaedic variety.
In Wikipedia, the lead section is an introduction to an article and a summary of its most important contents. It is located at the beginning of the article, before the table of contents and the first heading. It is not a news-style lead or "lede" paragraph. The average Wikipedia visit is a few minutes long. [1]
Keep in mind that a Wikipedia lead is not the same as an introductory section or paragraph in other documents. It follows strict rules and is based only on the content of the article, regardless of how poorly that might make the lead appear. If a lead reads poorly, then it may not be written properly, or the article may not cover the subject ...
Articles start with a lead section (WP:CREATELEAD) summarising the most important points of the topic.The lead section is the first part of the article; it comes above the first header, and may contain a lead image which is representative of the topic, and/or an infobox that provides a few key facts, often statistical, such as dates and measurements.
A hard lead aims to provide a comprehensive thesis which tells the reader what the article will cover. A soft lead introduces the topic in a more creative, attention-seeking fashion, and is usually followed by a nutshell paragraph (or nut graf), a brief summary of facts. [8] Example of a hard-lead paragraph NASA is proposing another space project.
The lead sentence should describe the person as they are commonly described by reliable sources. The noteworthy position(s) or role(s) the person held should usually be stated in the opening paragraph. However, avoid overloading the lead paragraph with various and sundry roles; instead, emphasize what made the person notable.
Single-sentence paragraphs can inhibit the flow of the text; by the same token, long paragraphs become hard to read. Between paragraphs—as between sections—there should be only a single blank line. First lines are not indented. Bullet points should not be used in the lead of an article. They may be used in the body to break up a mass of ...
For example, the Cleopatra article (which I picked because it's among the most-viewed FAs) has a 690-word lead, out of a total readable prose size of about 13,000 words, so the lead is just a little over 5% of the total prose size. This falls right into the 4-10% range mentioned above.