Getting Your Nutgraf
A nutgraf, another journalism slang term, is the summarization of what the story’s about. A nutgraf (also written with as “nut graf”) can be a sentence or a paragraph and, sometimes, may also be your lede.
Nutgrafs are incredibly important, and some might argue the heart of a story, since they relay why the story matters. A nutgraf needs to address why the story is being written, whether the piece is about something like the aforementioned murder, or a profile of a famous celebrity. Like ledes, nutgrafs vary wildly from story to story. Nutgrafs can also be harder to identify than ledes so a good exercise to read lots of different stories and try to find the nutgraf. (If you do this outside of a classroom setting, it might be a good idea to find someone who can go over your findings with you.)
How Style Comes Into Play
The basics outlined above apply directly to all stories but, most obviously, to your classic news story. That said all stories have ledes and nutgrafs, no matter what they’re about or where you find them. These elements are applied differently, and often more subtley, in long-form journalism and feature stories, but they’re still there. All (good) stories have ledes and nutgraf.