How Great Writers End Their Articles

What you can learn from the final paragraphs of 100 top feature articles from Malcolm Gladwell, the Atlantic, Fast Company, and the New York Times

Published in 39 min read Jan 31, 2019

O ne of the unfortunate truths about writing is that most of your readers bail midway through your piece and never get to the ending.

Two elements that affect your read ratio (how many people read to the end) are length and popularity:

The longer the piece, the more likely a time constraint or other distraction will keep them from getting to the end.
The more popular the piece, the more likely it is that your article will find its way in front of someone who isn’t your target audience, and that they will quit reading after skimming the first few paragraphs.

Earlier this year, I published a massive analysis of the 13 patterns of introductions that appear in great writing, based on my analysis of 94 articles from the Atlantic, Fast Company, and the New York Times Op-Ed section. It has been viewed 21,000 times and shared online by journalism professors, marketers, English departments, and tech CEOs.