I have been paying extra attention to headlines in the news lately, which has become almost an annoyance! It’s like knowing what goes on backstage and I can’t simply read the headline anymore without analyzing the wording and the format. If I see a particularly long headline, I try to figure out how I would reword it to shorten it. Since I don’t plan on a career in journalism, I certainly hope this new obsession doesn’t stick forever.
The thing I’m still learning is to replace “and” with a comma and a period with a semicolon. I’m going to admit that headlines are not my thing. I love writing leads and also rewording lengthy leads, but headlines are something I’m not great at. I can edit a headline, but coming up with one from reading an article is difficult for me. I miss the simple days of the leads assignments. I’m still having trouble with the different headline formats, but hopefully doing the second headline assignment will help with my questions.
Is anyone else having trouble with headlines? What are some tips and tricks you've used?
This made me laugh because I have been doing the same thing with headlines. I keep over analyzing them. For pretty much this whole semester I have been more aware of what I am reading. The biggest thing that has helped me, is when I am writing the headline I ask myself, "Would someone understand what this story is about by just reading the headline?"
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