An intro or a lead or a lede is an important part of your story. Once you have mastered the writing of an intro, I can assure you that you will not struggle with the shaping of the rest of the story.

There are many types of leads but we will limit our discussion to only five leads as these are common and are mostly used when writing hard news. These are summary lead, immediate identification lead, delayed identification lead, impact lead, and follow-up lead.

You will explore the other types of leads when you register for the feature and review writing, radio, TV, and digital journalism, but for now, you need to understand these four.

In journalism, news stories are mainly classified into two broad categories - hard news and soft news.  As a journalism student, you will be trained and you must master the art of writing for these two broad categories.