Crafting a Beautiful "Nut Graph"

Here are tips for crafting a beautiful "nut graph" -- journalists' slang for a slab of background that puts the story in context. Although often discussed as vital components of feature stories, you can also think of it as the "so what" paragraph. That is, the bit that explains why the story matters. For a helpful discussion of how this works, watch a replay of a chat with Roy Peter Clark, a top writing coach at the Poynter Institute's News University.