“ournalists have long adhered to the inverse approach: start the article by telling the reader the conclusion (“After long debate, the Assembly voted to increase state taxes by 10 percent”), follow by the most important supporting information, and end by giving the background. This style is known as the inverted pyramid for the simple reason that it turns the traditional pyramid style around. Inverted-pyramid writing is useful for newspapers because readers can stop at any time and will still get the most important parts of the article. On the Web, the inverted pyramid becomes even more important since we know from several user studies that users don’t scroll,(*) so they will very frequently be left to read only the top part of an article. Very interested readers will scroll, and these few motivated souls will reach the foundation of the pyramid and get the full story in all its gory detail.”
— Writing Inverted Pyramids in Cyberspace (Alertbox)-Jakob Nielsen
