How to BLUF When You’re Writing Articles
Get to the point by placing the bottom line up front
Published in
3 min readSep 15, 2021
The inverted pyramid is an article writing format that places the most important information at the top of the piece. It’s a structure you see all the time in news reports. You get a summary of the story at the top with details to follow.
In fact, the inverted pyramid is sometimes called a Summary News Lead Style or Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF).
I like how the inverted pyramid gives you a visual image of how to present the content of your piece. Think of an equilateral triangle that’s pointed down.
How to organize your article using an inverted pyramid
The key to using this format in article writing is to prioritize your information. Organize your content in three buckets of descending levels of importance.
- Bucket #1: What is absolutely necessary for the reader to know about your topic? The basics of the article go in Bucket #1. Use the who, what, where, when, why, and how, combined in a sentence or two, to write a summary lead. Or go with the BLUF approach and open with your conclusion first.
- Bucket #2: Add other important details.
- Bucket #3: Expand your article premise with…
