Which of these two opening paragraphs engages you more?
• By a 30-5 vote, the Kentucky Senate approved a $30 billion budget yesterday in Frankfort.
• Imagine a second-grade class with 50+ students. At every desk, two children share the seat, squeezed hip to hip. Each morning, the pair receives one piece of paper and one pencil to share for that day. If they need an eraser, they ask to borrow the only one in the classroom.
This scenario could become real under a bare-bones state budget passed overwhelming yesterday by the Kentucky Senate.
While these two openings are written about the same (mythical) event, readers tend to react very differently to them.
And about 95 percent prefer opening #2.
Why? First, #1 is presumptuous. It presumes that a reader would know whether a $30 billion budget is large, small, or somewhere in between. And it presumes that based on that number, the reader would know the impact.
Opening #2, on the other hand, focuses not on a number, but on a picture of school life if the new budget becomes law. We see the result. We feel the impact. We get the message.
As you write the opening lines of your articles, reports and other work, remember to engage readers quickly, or they will go away. Engage readers with clear, concise descriptions that they can touch, taste, see and understand.
Neil Chethik, aka the Grammar Gourmet, is executive director at the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning (www.carnegieliteracy.org) and author of FatherLoss and VoiceMale. The Carnegie Center offers writing classes and seminars for businesses and individuals. Contact Neil at neil@carnegiecenterlex.org or (859)254-4175.