Writing headlinesFor newspapers, websites,

and blog posts

You win some, you lose some

Only in her wildest dreams

Teachers helping students Make the grade

100 ways to spend

summer vacation

Locked doors cause students to be tardy

The goals and challenges to good headline writing

• What are the primary goals of headline writing?

• What are some of the challenges?

Keep it simple• Use the active voice when possible: As with any

good writing, good headlines are driven by strong, colorful, precise verbs

• That means avoiding forms of the verb “to be”

• BAD: Sanitation workers are out of a job• STILL BAD: Sanitation workers canned BETTER: Sanitation workers lose jobs

Sanitation workers get pink slips

Capitalize first word only

• Although not a complete sentence, treat a headline like a sentence by capitalizing the first word only, along with any proper nouns.

• Use a colon to eliminate “says.” Capitalize first word after the colon.

• Use a semicolon to separate two thoughts of equal weight.

Lincoln: War inevitable; victory essential

Numbers rule

• Associated Press (AP) style dictates spelling out numbers below 10. In headlines, however, you can break this rule.

• 3 die in plane crash• 2 million fall victim to identity theft each year

Fit the space• Fill each line of the head within two units of

the letter x in lower case. Do not have one line of a multi-line head shorter than the rest.

• Do not center headlines• BAD

BETTER• Lincoln-Douglas debate Lincoln, Douglas at KU’s Dole Center xxx to debate today

at Dole Centerxx

Avoid split ends• For headlines of more than one line, keep subjects and verbs

together• Do not split infinitives over two lines

• BAD: Kerry knocks tax plan because• capital gains loophole too big• BETTER: Kerry opposes tax plan; cites ‘too big’ loophole • BAD: Governor wants to• limit sales tax• BETTER: Governor seeks• sales tax limits •

Some examplesSome good headlines http://web.ku.edu/~edit/headgood.html

Problem Headlines http://web.ku.edu/~edit/headproblem.html

Examples courtesy of http://web.ku.edu

A headline writing exercise

• Let’s share results and see what the real editors decided to write

• http://highered.mheducation.com/sites/0073511994/student_view0/brush_up/part_v-journalistic_practice2/journalistic_practice_02.html

Click Bait• The goals of a website headline are mainly the same as that of a

newspaper headline: 1. To grab the reader’s attention 2. To tell the reader what the story is about

• Often, however, website headlines are designed to entice the reader to click on a link.

Thus the term “click bait”https://www.quicksprout.com/2014/07/03/the-formula-for-a-perfect-headline/?display=wide

Should you “bait” the reader?

PROS:

CONS: