Headlines

I never realized how important headlines can be.  They can be the deciding factor for reading a story or skipping over it.  I liked how our reading stated that people who write headlines are some of the most read writers in the world.  

It is amazing how powerful a sentence or a few words can be.  Whenever I think about the impact words can have I always think about a line from one of my favorite movies, V for Vendetta.  In the movie he tries to spark a revolution and says, "Words are the means for meaning, and for those who will listen, the annunciation of truth."  

One other point in the reading that really stood out to me was near the end of the chapter.  It said that just because a story has a bad headline doesn't mean it is a bad story.  Also a good headline doesn't mean it’s a good story.  You may have loved a story that you passed over because of the headline and you might have no interest in a story that you look at because of the headline.  It makes me wonder how many things I have passed over, that I would have enjoyed, because the headline didn't catch my attention.  

Editing Experience of the Week

This week instead of showing a mistake I encountered throughout the week I wanted to talk about an experience I had when I got to share some of the information we have learned in class.  

I got a call from my sister the other day and she was completely stressed out.  She goes to the U of U and she told me that she had to write a paper on the effects that business has on our society.  She was writing the paper with 3 other people and said she had been working on one paragraph for 4 days.  She couldn't get her paragraph to go along with the other person’s paragraph before hers.  

I felt really smart because I was able to tell her that what she was looking for was called a transition.  I went on to explain how a transition links one paragraph to the other.  The transition acts as a road map for the reader by letting them know where the thoughts and information are going.  I told her since she was talking about a different aspect of business but building on the subject she should use a line like "In addition to...."  The information I was able to share was exactly what she was looking for.  She had been stuck for 4 days but after I helped her realize that she was looking for a transition she was able to complete her paragraph in 20 minutes.