When reviewing the rules and tips for headline writing, there were many that I felt I already knew, even though I’d never studied how to write headlines before. That is because some rules, such as substitute “and” for a comma, were subconsciously known to me because that’s how I’ve been reading headlines all my life- assuming they meant “and” with their use of the comma. That also describes how I felt I already knew that headlines are always written in the present tense even when describing past events.
Other rules were less obvious to me like the use of single quotation marks when referencing a direct quote. One rule that I felt possibly needed a bit of elaboration was the use of acronyms. It was stated in the powerpoint that they are to be used only if they are an acronym that is widely used. However, I was thinking whether this rule is applied to all publications or if say, a trade magazine, could use an acronym in a headline common in the applicable trade, but unknown to the average person. In other words- should all headlines follow that rule out of respect for any and all readers who potential could pick up the publication, or only those who are regular readers of the publication?
I'm glad we learned more about using single quotation marks in headlines. I made a mistake writing one of my headlines; I used the single quotation marks around a word I thought was slang, but as it turns out I realized they are to be used to reference a quote in the story.
ReplyDelete