How to Write Strong Headlines

When writing a story for the public eye, besides the typography on the page, the headline is one of the most important parts of the page itself. Without an interesting headline, no one would have the motivation to read it. The purpose of a headline is to grab the reader. For a journalist the headline is the most important words of there writing because a headline is words that are bound together to summarize the subject of the story in which he/she writes about. When conducting your headline it should be in sentence form meaning it is a complete thought and no more than ten words. You must also keep in mind that the headline has to be accurate with what your story is about. It must correspond to the main idea of your story. It is also important that your headline does not have the exact words that are in your story. The headline is its own separate part of the story, so it should have its own words as well. Basically if your story makes a statement then your headline should as well, again you need to keep in mind that this is the first thing the reader reads when picking it up. As far as using verbs in your headline, your headline should never start with a verb. If your story is in the past tense you should use present tense verbs. If it is about the future then you should use infinitive verbs. When thinking about punctuations you should try and avoid using conjunction words and use a comma in its place.

All headlines are going to be different. It depends on the type of story it is and how you plan on advertising it. Is it going to be a flyer, a news story, a paper for class, is it for a magazine etc.? All these different prints can determine how your headline will look. No matter what it should have the guidelines listed above. As far as looks are concerned then that’s a different set of rules, with some similarities. Just like mentioned above, the headline is designed to catch the reader’s attention. You want to make the reader pick up your story and read what you have to say. So when designing it you need to have that in mind. The color, font, size, design needs to be interesting enough for this to happen, still keeping in mind if it corresponds to the story itself, because that is truly the most important part in writing a strong headline. Without a head line your story wouldn’t be complete and it would be very dull. I guess you can say that the headline is the “cherry on your sundae,” it makes it complete.

Sources:

http://www2.uncp.edu/home/acurtis/Courses/ResourcesForCourses/WritingHeadlines.html

http://web.ku.edu/~edit/heads.html

http://notashamedofthegospel.com/social-media/how-to-write-great-headlines/#2

http://goinswriter.com/catchy-headlines/

http://www.columbia.edu/itc/journalism/isaacs/client_edit/Headlines.html