Words, words, words. That's what we're made of. Herewith some of my thoughts on what we're doing with them.

Did they make you write headlines in school? They did me, and I am grateful for the training. Once, I applied for a freelance job with a magazine. One part of their test – which I passed – involved writing headlines. The editor said, 'For one article, we liked yours better than the one we used.' I was proud.

Headlines are a genre of their own. A good headline tells the reader what the article is about, and why they will want to read it. That's important: 'just the facts' is not the only consideration here.

Some periodicals have elevated the headline to an art form. In fact, for Variety, the show business newspaper, headlines form a special language, anticipating the invention of 'txtspk' by several generations. Readers are not only amused by the headlines, but also feel clever for being part of the 'in-group' that understands such classic communications as:

What does that mean? 'Rural audiences dislike films about life in the country.' Makes sense now, doesn't it?

Some headlines have become famous. In 1975, when the US President refused to aid New York City, the headline of the New York Daily News expressed outrage:

A well-written headline can draw the reader in. Who could resist the urge to read this story?

These days, our headline writing runs up against another desideratum: SEO, which stands for 'Search Engine Optimisation'. You see, when we write online, we want readers. Readers mean mouseclicks. Mouseclicks mean revenue from advertising. So, if we want to help our beloved website, we want headlines on our entries and journal items that show up on search engines like Google. How do we do this?

For years, this author had a low-level feud going with certain editorial personages employed by a British institution which shall not be named. They meant well, I insisted, but their concept of SEO left much to be desired. I asserted – and I still assert – that one must combine searchable terms in headlines with something that makes the article stand out. This should be done in the headline, for preference, or, failing that, in the tagline copy under the headline.

Compare this headline, which appears in the Edited Guide:

With this one, which I wrote to get PR to finally read my guide entry:

The second one worked. Nobody much read the guide entry. I am not above invoking sex, drugs, rock'n'roll and NASA in my effort to get my reader sucked in. Don't talk about Brâncusi, mention 'art' and 'kitchen utensils'. Then they'll read it. Know your audience: don't ask them to read about the War of 1812 and the song, 'The Battle of New Orleans'. Half of these readers are British, another half from the US¹. So call it 'Brits in Briars and Brambles: The Battle of New Orleans in Song'. Now, the Brits will read it out of paranoia, and the US folk out of Schadenfreude. What could be better than that?

The last thing we should say about headlines is: BE CAREFUL. Headlines use a truncated form of English. The infelicitous juxtaposition of words can lead to embarrassing moments. Who can forget these (real) headlines?

Or simply:

You get the idea. Watch those verbs that can be nouns, and nouns that can be verbs. Don't insult the clergy. And watch your spelling:

Writing Right with Dmitri Archive

Dmitri Gheorgheni

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