The lead only restates the title
no-leadon by default (info)Japanese / English
A first paragraph under the title that only says the title again
Example
How to fix
Put in the lead what the title alone does not say (the conclusion, a figure, who it affects, from when). If there is nothing to add, drop the lead and start with the body.
Why it matters
The paragraph right under the title (the lead) is where a reader decides whether to read on. When it only restates the title ("This article explains X"), the reader gets nothing before the body starts. chaff reports a lead that repeats at least half of the title's character sequence and adds only a few content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, numbers) the title does not have. A line with only a date or a byline does not repeat the title, so it is not reported.
What it does not flag
A paragraph that repeats less than half of the title's character sequence (a date, a byline, a lead on another point) is not reported. When a list, a table or an image comes right under the title, there is no lead to check. Only the title (the first top-level heading) is checked. Legal, literary and speech genres do not run this rule. When the lines right under the title are fields (an invoice number and its value) or a name alone (a letterhead), the document is a form and has no lead to check.
Turning it off or relaxing it
Technical details
- Layer
- L1
- Status
- stable
- Severity
- info
- Languages
- Japanese and English
- Suited to
- blog, business, technical, docs, academic, legal, literature, speech
- Reads from the document
- pos
Levels
Set a level for this rule under rules in chaff.yaml. With nothing set, it runs at the level its genre gives it (see By genre below).
| strict | reported when the lead adds fewer than 6 content words the title does not have |
|---|---|
| normal | reported when the lead adds fewer than 5 content words the title does not have |
| relaxed | reported when the lead adds fewer than 3 content words the title does not have |
By genre
- Runs by default in
- technical/spec, technical/readme, blog/tech, blog/essay, blog/owned-media, business/proposal, business/report, business/email, business/press-release, business/meeting-notes, docs/manual, docs/faq, docs/glossary, academic/paper
- Turned off by the genre in
- legal/contract, legal/statute, legal/judgment, legal/patent, literature/fiction, literature/essay, literature/poetry, literature/play, speech/address, speech/transcript
Message
The paragraph after the title "{title}" adds only {count} words the title does not have
Rewrite depth (chaff fix-plan --depth): structure — sections, headings and paragraphs are reorganised
This page is built from the rule's definition file:packages/chaff/rules/no-lead.yaml