Nutgraf: steep drop in Bay State's native birds

“Study finds steep drop in Bay State’s native birds (Boston.com, September 19, 2011)” possesses both an exemplary nutgraf and a compelling expert quote. A rather poetic lede quickens the reader's naturalist heart, then follows with alarming news about declining native bird populations. Native birds are “disappearing” and “other species from Southern States are mysteriously taking their place” “in a “landmark report by Mass Audubon.” That “nearly half of all the state’s breeding birds are declining” raises “questions about the health of the state’s wetlands and other ecosystems”. An “alarmed” E.O. Wilson tells us that these bird disappearances are “unmistakable markers of climate change.”

http://articles.boston.com/2011-09-19/news/30176513_1_common-birds-grasslands-ground-nesting

Great Quote in "The new anti-Semitism"

While reading the The new anti-Semitism in the Reno News & Review, the local alternative paper, I found some really interesting quotes that back up the author's main supposition and came from unusual source material.

“I think there’s somebody out there that called us and said, ‘Hey check this out,’” the officer said. “Did I see you guys praying? No. Do I know what you were saying? I don’t know if you guys repeat the same thing, or if you’re actually over there saying, ‘I hope that I kill a police officer today.’ I don’t know that you’re not saying that.”

The author pulled this quote from a cellphone video recording of an encounter between police officers and some people of the Islam faith that were performing their sundown prayers in a Henderson, Nev. parking lot.

“Why would our President, supposedly a Christ-fearing man, deliberately mislead the American people?” asked one anti-Arab website. “He knows history and has all the intelligence resources of our government at his disposal; why would he deliberately lie?”

This quote the author retrieved from an anti-Arab website.

I found these quotes of particular interest because they came from interesting non-traditional places. The first came from a recording of an police officer performing his duties, a subject that is in much debate in legal circles. The second quote came from a website, you have to wonder the accuracy of such a quote.

Quote not yet determined

I stand corrected regarding Belmont, Mass. The tiny town has more going on than I first realized. Two women were arrested for prostitution and a woman was assaulted in front of the highschool. The focus of this blog is a quote I found today.

I can't find the attribution or quotation marks. It's either a publishing error or a piece is missing. The paragraph below is from the Belmont Citizen-Herald. http://www.wickedlocal.com/belmont/news/x8414948/-14-6-Million-approved-for-Belmont-Trapelo-Corridor#axzz1Z4OOdixZ

No quotation marks were used - As Selectman and since 2007 as state representative, I have followed the MPO process carefully to keep the project on the MPO’s radar screen and to assure that all questions raised by MPO members and staff were promptly answered. I also worked with Congressman Markey’s office to procure a $330 thousand federal earmark for design funding for the project. Congressman Markey’s successful efforts on this earmark gave the project very important additional boost in the process.

Maybe I'm missing something?
Valerie

Snooping in the Age of E-book by Bruce Feiler

I loved this article in the style section of The New York Times yesterday. It's funny, fresh, and a new take on the old e-book story. The gist of the story is that Bruce Feiler, author of Walking the Bible,  used to gauge friends' real interests and personalities by what was on their bookshelves. Do they read political biographies? Rock-n-roll memoirs? Bodice-ripping romances? In the world of e-books, he can't snoop in the same way. So in the article he set out to find other efficient ways of snooping to uncover the inner life of his friends

Here's the nutgraf: "My heart sank. I suddenly felt trapped with an obsolete skill, like being a virtuoso manuscript illuminator in the era of Gutenberg. Even worse, I was facing an alarming predicament. How do I nose around friends’ houses when their bookshelves are freeze-dried in 2007. How do I snoop in the age of e-book?"

He finds some engaging sources who comment on the benefits of snooping in a kitchen, a bathroom, etc. They add to the story's thoroughness and liveliness. Here are some choice quotations:

“Places reflect long series of behavior. If I have a conversation with you, I just get snippets of behavior. Your books, your chairs, your wall hangings represent an accumulation over many years. A space distills repeated acts. That’s why it’s hard to fake,” said Sam Gosling, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin and the author of Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You. This quotation validates Feiler's desire to snoop.

“You walk in the door and see a towel on the dinner table, boom that person’s a mess. You walk in and see toothpicks, boom that person is orderly,” said Eric Abrahamson, a professor at the Graduate School of Business of Columbia University and the author of A Perfect Mess, a book about the benefits of disorder. This quotation helps the reader think about clues in their own house. Do I leave my toothbrush on the kitchen counter? My clean, but unfolded, laundry on the dining table?

And then the last paragraph adds a wonderful spin...“Maybe the fact that my host didn’t have an active bookshelf would send me back to the actual people. I would have to walk back to the cocktail party and ask my friend, ‘Hey, what do you like to read?’ ” said Anne Fadiman, an unabashed bookshelf snooper and the author of Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader.

A shout-out to Garrison Keillor

Lee's post about Garrison Keillor reminded me of a terrific Keillor quote I heard several months back, while listening to Prairie Home Companion. Keillor was telling a story about an aging baseball player, and he said something along the lines of, "You can't run your body on memories of grace."

That's pure Keillor; he describes a fairly complex thought in the most elegant and deceivingly simple sentence (using almost entirely monosyllabic words!). Most writers--including myself--would have made that sentence far more complicated and far less descriptive.

I don't know how he does it...

Great quotes

The New York Times published an article yesterday called "Vermont Town Shaken by a Co-op Killing." Last month, the wine manager at a Brattleboro co-op (a small grocery store owned in part by residents) fatally shot his supervisor after a poor performance review.

The quotes, mostly from townspeople or co-op employees, do a wonderful job in highlighting people's stunned reactions. The shooting was a very unusual tragedy in a town filled with artists and hippies:

1) “It’s not Walgreens or Price Chopper or Hannaford’s,” said Kelly Salasin, a member from neighboring Marlboro. “It is something that belongs to us, and there’s a sense of responsibility. It’s as if a murder happened in your own family.”

2) “There’s a part of me that feels a little shameful,” said Aimee Denette, 31, who works in the co-op’s bulk foods department. “Now there’s this very weird energy in the co-op because, I mean, someone was murdered here.”

The quotes do important work by bolstering the shock and weirdness that most of the townspeople seem to be feeling. Obviously a murder anywhere is gruesome, but there's something particularly odd about it happening in a co-op grocery store.

-Lauren

Wonderful quotes

Bruce Lerch of the Boston Herald wrote a piece in today's edition focusing on Central Catholic student and football player Fortune Kalala. Kalala is a high school senior, but what makes him so unique in the Greater Boston area is that he grew up in Democratic Republic of the Congo during the great War of Africa.

The family was forced to flee, and eventually became separated. There were some heart-wrenching quotes:

“I remember it was hot all the time and we had to sleep in a tent outside in the camp,” Kalala recalled. “We had one mattress for us three, one pot and very little clothing. We thought we were going to split up for a couple of months and then meet up with my mom, but the papers here were delayed so we ended up staying split up for four years.”

“When we finally made it to Logan Airport, I first saw my uncles and then I saw my mom in the background, and I just ran over and hugged her as hard as I could,” Kalala said, choking up at the memory. “That was the best day of my life.”

If you would like to read the piece, here is the link:
http://bostonherald.com/sports/high_school/football/view.bg?articleid=1368071&format=text

Quote--The Cult of Physicality--by Natalie

Read the full article here--THE CULT OF PHYSICALITY

In addition to a fantastic lead and nut graf, this article had some notable quotes:

(The name of their gym is Gym Jones, which is a reference to the cult leader, Jim Jones, who lead more than 900 people to suicide) “We knew some people would call us a cult,” Ms. Twight said, “so we decided to own the joke.”

“ ‘No’ is a complete sentence,” Ms. Twight said. “I don’t need to give a reason.”

In reference to working out, the gym's owner said:  “It’s like sex,” she said. “You can’t just get up and leave afterwards. This is a relationship.”

This article was interesting, but the quotes from the exercise-intense gym owners and the manager really liven the whole thing up and give it some character.

Great read!!

One more nutgraf - not on Franconian beer this time

This one is from the New York Times, titled

Let’s Hear It for Aunthood

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/18/fashion/lets-hear-it-for-aunthood.html?pagewanted=1&ref=fashion

I think this nutgraf is well done:

In June, the Pew Research Center reported that nearly 1 in 5 American women in her early 40s has never had a child — compared with 1 in 10 in the 1970s. I suspect the Census Bureau doesn’t have a line tallying the current aunt population. But it stands to reason that as women marry and have children later, if at all, they have more time to enjoy being an aunt. How many of these single, childless women wonder, as I have, if being an aunt beats being a mother?

--------------------

The article is two pages long and the nutgraf is in the third paragraph. It really tells you why this article was written and what to expect. I definetely wanted to continue reading... to learn more about that topic.

Justin's nut graf:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/11/opinion/sunday/quality-homework-a-smart-idea.html

Annie Murphy Paul's "The Trouble with Homework" from September 10 in the New York Times has a real solid nut graf found in the third paragraph:

The quantity of students’ homework is a lot less important than its quality. And evidence suggests that as of now, homework isn’t making the grade. Although surveys show that the amount of time our children spend on homework has risen over the last three decades, American students are mired in the middle of international academic rankings: 17th in reading, 23rd in science and 31st in math, according to results from the Program for International Student Assessment released last December.

This works well because it directly stated the importance of the piece. It is the quality of the homework that is the focus, and the reader finds numerous examples throughout the piece (fortunately, a couple of which I even incorporate with my students and athletes), as well as states -- with facts -- the poor academic ratings for American students.

I've enjoyed reading everyone's posts so far.

Gerda's nutgraf story

from Erlanger Nachrichten, Sept. 14
http://www.nordbayern.de/region/erlangen/experten-fur-hopfen-und-malz-1.1505535

a story about a topic my region is famous for: beer

Title:

Experts for hop and malt

Lede:

For almost ten years, the "association for conserving the Franconian brewing culture" has been in existence, unifying 126 amateur beer brewers. They met in the atrium of the monestary malthouse in Frauenaurach for discussions and, of course, to present and taste their newest creations.

Nutgraf:
( I think this is the nutgraph...sorry, but this is the "hottest" story from my hometown...)

Once a group of 30 idealists were into the old craftmanship of brewing beer, its tradition and culture. For this reason, they founded the "association for the conservation of the Franconian Brewing culture" on Feb. 2, 2002. Today, the club consists of 126 amateur brewers regardless of age, gender or nationality. Also, it is not obligatory to be a beertrinker, states the present chairman, painter Kurt-Maria Adler from Möhrendorf. But that seems rather hypothetical since they are all drinking beer, at least at the summer festival in the atrium of the monestary malthouse in Frauenaurach.


The original text is in German.

What follows is a more detailed description of what happened at the summer festival (nothing special) and a despription of the different sorts of self-brewed beer, like "India Pale Ale".
So the nutgraf gives a pretty good idea of what the story is all about - and indeed, after that the reader is free to decide if he wants to go on reading...

Yissel's Nutgraf Story in New York Times

"Is It weird Enough Yet?" from the New York Times

I liked the following story by Thomas L. Friedman title "Is It Weird Enough Yet?" because Friedman does an excellent job of capturing my attention with a powerful first line:

Nutgraf -
Every time I listen to Gov. Rick Perry of Texas and Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota talk about how climate change is some fraud perpetrated by scientists trying to gin up money for research, I'm always reminded of one of my favorite movie lines that Jack Nicholson delivers to his needy neighbor who knocks on his door in the film "As Good As It Gets." "Where do they teach you to talk like this? asks Nicholson. "Sell crazy someplace else. We're all stocked up here."

Thanks Mr. Perry and Mrs. Bachmann, but we really are all stocked up on crazy right now. I mean, here is the Texas governor rejecting the science of climate change while his own state is on fire - after the worst droughts on record have propelled wildfires to devour an area the size of Connecticut. As a statement by the Texas Forest Service said last weed: "No one on the face of the this earth has ever fought fires in these extreme conditions."

In a humorous and somewhat offense manner he is able to clearly state where he stands regarding Perry and Bachmann’s recent response to climate changes. Friedman uses a few lines from the popular 1997 movie “As Good As It Gets,” to emphasize how outrageous and weird he thinks Perry and Bachmann’s comments are regarding “the science of climate change.” Then he clarifies and states exactly what he is about to tell you in the second paragraph.

Since this is an OP-ED, I would most likely have not have been interested in reading someone else’s opinion about climate changes and green job creation but Fieldman made me curious enough to read the story to the end.

Lauren's Nutgraf Example

I read a Boston Globe story called Lynch: USPS can be saved, but not with union layoffs.

The lede explains that the U.S. Post Office is in dire straits, and the postmaster general believes that in order to survive, union layoffs are needed. Former union president Stephen Lynch counters that the union layoffs are "not an option."

Soon after a quotation from Lynch to bolster the lede, we get the nutgraf (I would argue both of these paragraphs are part of the nutgraf):

----------------------
"The service suffered a staggering $8.5 billion loss last year and $20 billion over the last five years, according to the Government Accountability Office. Postmaster General Patrick R. Donahoe told a congressional committee last week that the service is now on the brink of financial collapse, and will default unless lawmakers take action by month’s end.

Online bill-paying and competition from private parcel companies have battered the service’s finances. Without radical change, Donahoe said, the service is headed for catastrophe. He wants to close thousands of post offices and processing centers, reduce the work force by 120,000, restructure its health care plan, and drop Saturday delivery, all with an eye toward saving $20 billion by 2015."
----------------------

Here the author does a fine job in putting this problem in context. The U.S. Post Office certainly is struggling more than ever before--we get the weight of that when the author references the postmaster general's comment that it will default unless Congress takes action immediately.

I also like this nutgraf contains some numbers to back up the urgent nature of the problem; it sounds more serious to "8.5 billion dollar loss last year" than to use a more qualitative description.

The author then focuses back in to the issue at hand, including this pesky union layoff problem.

All in all, well done.

Reno Gazette Journal Nutgraf

Article:
Graduation rates soaring in Washoe County

Lede:

"Washoe County’s high school graduation rate climbed to 70 percent in 2011, 7 percent higher than the previous year and soaring 14 percent in two years, district officials will announce today."

Nutgraf:

"The national high school graduation rate is about 72 percent.

District’s chief accountability officer Paul LaMarca said that staff was still working late afternoon Tuesday to finalize numbers for all subgroups. The information will be revealed today at a news conference at Sparks High School.

LaMarca said the increase of 7 percent from the previous year was a surprise, more significant than the identical increase the previous year and also exceeded the target the district had set for the 2011 graduation class."

I felt that this nutgraf did a good job explaining why the lede was important. It is nice that Washoe County high school graduation rates have risen to 70 percent, but why is that important? In the nutgraf Michael Martinez tells that Washoe is now close the to national average for high school graduation, when only two years earlier Washoe had lagged far behind the rest of the country. We also learn that this years increase in graduation rates exceed the target set by the school district, surprising officials. The nutgraf also made me want to keep reading to learn how the Washoe County school district had been increasing the high school graduation rates at such a fast pace.

Sarah Baker's nutgraf in The New York Times

I found a likable nutgraf in For Idaho and the Internet, Life in the Slow Lane: "And, according to a new study, they are among the problems that have earned Idaho an unfortunate distinction: it had the slowest Internet speeds in the country earlier this year for residential customers who were downloading things like games--a "dismal" average of 318 kilobytes per second."

I like this nutgraf because it succinctly sums up the article, mentions a study, and teases me enough to want to continue reading. By mentioning "slowest internet speeds in the country" it makes me wonder as a Cambridge resident how we fare. It turns out Andover, Mass is the fastest city and Rhode Island is the fastest state so I guess I live smack in the middle of the fast lane. I also appreciate the specificity of "318 kilobytes per second." Since those numbers mean nothing to me, I continue the article to find out more.

Natalie's Nutgraf from the GLOBE

From The Boston Globe (online):

A 13-year-old girl sought criminal charges v. Hewitt in '81

Nutgraf:

"The 13-year-old girl received a love letter that ended with an urgent instruction: 'Destroy this and the last [letter] NOW. I love you, BOB.’

The recipient was Twiggy Tolken, a seventh-grade tennis prodigy in suburban Johannesburg, South Africa. The author, Tolken said, was her 40-year-old coach, Bob Hewitt, one of the greatest doubles players in tennis history.

Tolken, who has given the Globe copies of the letters, is one of six women from the United States and South Africa this month to publicly accuse Hewitt, a 1992 inductee in the International Tennis Hall of Fame, of sexually abusing or harassing them as their coach when they were underage. Tolken said Hewitt became sexually involved with her when she was 12 and wrote the letters in 1981, soon after she turned 13."

Why does this nutgraf work?

The lede is sensationalist and immediately grabs your attention. It capitalizes on the age of the girl and the self-conscious perversity of the love letter with the quote.

The second paragraph gives us all the information we need to know about Who is involved: Twiggy and Bob--highlighting the age difference between the two. We also learn how the 13-year-old girl and a 40-year-old man knew each other and the story starts to unfold. In addition, Bob Hewitt is a tennis star, which is another big attention grabber.

This paragraph really seals the deal--I'm going to keep reading! We find out that Hewitt is not only facing accusations from Twiggy but also from five other women in the U.S. and South Africa. So, he has a history. Now, the Lolita(s) story is in full swing...

GREAT story with nutgraf in NYTIMES

Couldn't resist sharing. Good example of writing a story based on a study!!! Aren't you writing a story based on a study for class?

http://http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/13/health/research/13testosterone.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

In Study, Fatherhood Leads to Testosterone

Cracking the Nutgraf

Now that you know what a nutgraf is, share the best example from a story in your local paper. Post the nutgraf, with a link to the entire story. And explain why this nutgraf works!