Facts and Details

The first sentence of a serious newspaper article is called the lead. Reporters usually place the important facts here.

What are facts and details?

Reporters discover the facts of a story by asking who, what, where, when, why, and how. The answers to these questions are called facts. Writers use facts to support the main idea.

Expository writers rely of facts to support their statements. Facts can include information such as examples, reasons, statistics, causes, and effects. For fictional material, details include information about the characters, plot, or setting. Finally, in descriptive writing, details include information about looks, feelings, sounds, or smells. Recognizing facts and details are important.

It is particularly important when you need to “infer” the main idea, because missing details or misreading details may lead to an incorrect assumption about the main idea.