Category: Blogging

Blogging

8 Rules for Writing Grammatically Correct Headlines

Headlines is a tricky thing.  The world of headlines writing is different from the normal world of writing and grammar rules for articles.  Many new rules are invented and many established ones are trashed due to the punch needed and the paucity of space and characters.  In fact, Headlinese is a special word coined for the language used in the headlines and the rules around it.

While many articles are out there for bloggers on how to write titles that work best with the searches and key words, it is also important to be grammatically consistent.  Specially if you want your blog to carry weight in the minds of educated readers.  After all, those who have learnt English properly will find your writing jarring even when it carries important information.  Let us go through 8 important lessons in writing good headlines for maximum impact.

1. Keep ’em Short: Long Headlines hurt in many ways. Most importantly, they are truncated by several sites which may carry your articles. Also, it takes away the punch that may draw any reader to your article. As Ogilvy says, Headlines are 80% of the whole impact.

2. Don’t copy the lede: A lede is the introductory section of a news story that is intended to entice the reader to read the full story (or excerpt in the case of blogs). Don’t simply copy the words from the lede into the headline or it will be jarring and repetitive!

3. Should be here and now:  The headlines should be direct, straightforward, in active voice, and in present tense.  The idea is to make the headlines as powerful as they can be and not be “beating around the bush”.

4. Don’t be vague and inaccurate: Correct, consistent and factual headlines always help.  Those which are inaccurate, inconsistent and vague having little or no relationship with the body of the article and the points therein or just plain inaccurate on their own show the writer in a very bad light!

5. Headlinese has its own rules:  Headlinese is the word used for abbreviated writing style that is used in newspaper headlines.  Some of the rules, contrary to normal grammar rules in similar sentences, have become the norm around the world.  Editors have acknowledged the paucity of space and characters and the need to convey ideas in a short format.  Some of the important and interesting rules of Headlinese are:

  • Articles are usually omitted.
  • Most verbs are in the simple present tense, e.g. “Governor signs bill”.
  • The future is expressed as “to” followed by a verb, e.g. “Governor to sign bill”.
  • In the US (but not the UK), conjunctions are often replaced by a comma, as in “Bush, Blair laugh off microphone mishap”.
  • To save space, a long word is sometimes replaced by a shorter word with not quite the same meaning, e.g. “attack” to mean “criticize”.
  • Country names are often used instead of their adjective form, for example “Belgium troops deploy to patrol streets” (instead of “Belgian troops…”).

6. Capitalize or not to capitalize:  The jury is out there and it has become a matter of individual choice.  Whatever you do, follow it consistently.  So, the choice is – The first word in the headline should be capitalized as should all proper nouns vs capitalize the first letter of every word.  But surely follow the following – Capitalize the first word, capitalize the proper nouns, and do capitalize the first word after a colon.  If you choose to capitalize every word as per your choice, then follow it consistently.

7. Bring on the numbers baby: In the headlines, it is always recommended to use the numbers and not spelling them out.   Even if that number is below 10, you don’t need tto spell it out.

8. To be or not to be is the question: Verbs like to be, is, was etc are not necessary and should be omitted.  Unless it is absolutely necessary for clarity, these verbs shouldn’t be part of the headlines.

 

Image source: Flickr

04Nov
Blogging

25 Basic Styles of Blogging

There are different styles of approaching a blog.  Knowing how you propose to position your blog, you may want to treat it in different ways.  Here is a very interesting presentation discussing the...

04Nov
Blogging

Benefits of Guest Blogging (Infographic)

Guest Blogging is a very useful way to popularize your own blog and create more and more visitors.  Many people disregard this great way to market and promote one’s own blog.  Bt what are the...

16Oct
Blogging

Seth Godin and Tom Peters on Why should you blog

Here is a small but very eloquent validation of the blogs by two of the stalwarts – Tom Peters and Seth Godin.  Interesting to see both of them gushing over this simple, free (many options), and...

15Oct
Blogging

Ghost, Node-js based Blogging Platform opens to public

We have a new kid on the block of blogging platforms.  Ghost.   The site gives the following benefits of the new platform: Never stop writing, format on the fly No messing around...

15Oct
Blogging

Photopin: Find, Download, Credit free Creative-common Photos and Add them to your blog like a breeze

Getting creative commons pictures is a pain for the bloggers.  The best source is obviously Flickr.  But it is not easy to download pictures from Flickr.  And then to tag and give credits etc. Now all...

06Dec
BloggingDrupalWordpress

Self Hosted Blogging Platforms: Comparing Drupal, WordPress and Joomla

We have looked at the various options we have for the platforms we can use for our blog. We have also looked at the comparisons for the free hosted blogging tools. Now let us look at the three main...

29Nov
BloggingDrupalWordpress

Starting a Blog: Comparing the platforms

There are many platforms for blogging out there today and new ones keep coming. We can segregated between the Self-Hosted and Hosted (by the blog provider). Both the categories have Free and Paid options....

26Nov
Blogging

Killer Strategies for Writing Great and Engaging Blog Posts

Creating new and better content is a challenge for all bloggers. Some of the bloggers are prolific and can write well. But writing well does not translate into great content. It is important to learn...

FOLLOW @ INSTAGRAM