Where you lead, I will follow.

Along with the eight leads that succeed, our textbook named, described, and gave examples of three lazy leads that should probably be put to rest: topic, question, and quote leads. While perusing my news diet I came across a tweet by TIME that I couldn't pass up, and that tweet led me to a "lazy lead" that I rather enjoyed.

"Who can resist a puppy? Especially one given to you by Russian President Vladimir Putin?"

While this lead has some components of a direct address lead or even a startling statement, it's definitely a question lead. The textbook does make sure to point out that it's possible to craft great leads in this style, but it's still frowned upon. Upon reading this lead, several other questions popped into my mind. "Putin's giving out free puppies? Who's he giving puppies to? Is he bartering with puppies? What's he getting in return? Is it a "thank you" puppy? Haven't people given him puppies before? I think it was the Bulgarian Prime Minister and someone else in Japan, right? What's up with Putin and puppies? That's a pretty good alliteration." It was quite the thought process. Any lead that sparks that many questions and prompts me to continue reading is good in my book! (And I was right, by the way. Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borisov gave Putin a Bulgarian shepherd in 2010, and a Japanese governor gave him a baby Akita Inu puppy in June.)

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"AS THEY wake on November 6th, political-science students at Temple University in Philadelphia will receive e-mails reminding them that it is election day, via their department's automated mailing list. Once out of bed, they will find student Democratic volunteers bustling about with iPads and smartphones, ready to tell them which is their polling station and to provide directions..."

I would classify this lead, found on The Economist website, as a scene-setter lead since it lacks the urgency that a hard-news lead has and transports the reader to another place. The tweet that led me to this story says, "The coddling and hand-holding of modern voters is a phenomenon worth pondering with regards to the US election." In this case, I would say that the tweet is more effective than the lead. The scene that this lead creates is a good one, but it's also a bit misleading. From the lead alone, I would have guessed that the article was solely about voting on college campuses, but it isn't. The article covers exactly what the tweet said it would. As a college student, I would have kept reading regardless. I'm not sure that other people would, though. I don't think the lead does the article any favors.

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Every now and then I came across a lead that I couldn't easily identify as one or the other while doing this assignment. Some of them seemed to fit into a few categories and others didn't necessarily fit into any category at all. Take this lead, found on the TIME website, for example:

"As if riding a motorcycle wasn't risky enough, one Michigan man is betting he can ride his Harley-Davidson without using his hands - and without making any stops - from Michigan to Kentucky."

When reading about the leads that the textbook names, I came up with a few potential options. I suppose it could be a lazy topic lead, but it doesn't seem to have all of the necessary characteristics. Topic leads also convey no actual news, and I'd say that this story is news. A lot of people are very interested in setting records and would probably find this interesting, so can it really be a topic lead? My next possible lead was anecdotal/narrative. It definitely sounds like the beginning of a story to me, but it lacks the middle and end that are mentioned in the text. I think that the most applicable lead is the startling statement in this case. Who the heck decides to drive that far on a motorcycle without using his hands? That can't possibly be safe...