Robert Roy Britt
1 min readAug 20, 2019

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Graph vs. nutgraph vs. paragraph. Good question. I and many journalists commonly use “graph” to mean “paragraph,” so I probably wrote it without thinking. First graph, second graph, penultimate graph — shorthand between editor and writer when discussing all the many, many paragraphs that need fixing (especially if I wrote the story). Nutgraph has a particular meaning, as the nut of the story, but in practice it may or may not be a true paragraph—could be just a sentence within a graph, or it could be more than a graph in very long story—but it’s usually one short paragraph, often just one sentence, sometimes two or even three. Side note: I sometimes avoid saying “graph” if I think the person I’m talking to (or emailing or texting) might mistaken it to refer to a graphic or chart in the story, which is one reason I usually use “chart” or “graphic” but never “graph” when describing a chart. TMI?

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Robert Roy Britt
Robert Roy Britt

Written by Robert Roy Britt

Editor of Wise & Well on Medium + the Writer's Guide at writersguide.substack.com. Author of Make Sleep Your Superpower: amazon.com/dp/B0BJBYFQCB

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