Write your headlines for an intelligent friend

By Sharon Burnside, Assistant Managing Editor, Toronto Star

1. If you have a brilliant headline that breaks the rules, break the rules.

2. Clarity. News headlines should pass the crowded room test. If you shouted the headline into the open door of a crowded room, would the people in the room understand what the story is about? Include specifics whenever you can.

3. Use active verbs. Strong, active verbs vastly increase the power of headlines.

4. Simplicity works best. Do not try to say several things in one head.

5. Do not leave bad breaks in main heads. Bad breaks make headlines much harder to read and understand. Please do not break adjective and nouns, prepositional phrases, adverbs and verbs, verbs or proper names.

6. Natural language - in the effort to write headlines we sometimes slip into awkward phrases or combinations of words that we would never speak. Avoid headlinese - horrible words used only in headlines - eyes, axe, blast, chop, slam.

7. Please do not use tab language in headlines - tots, moms, cops, dads, gals. Headlines, subheads and cutlines do more to set the tone of the paper than anything else we do, and people read these elements first.

8. Please don't steal carefully crafted ledes, column punchlines or concluding ideas.

9. Headlines, subheads and cutlines should each add a layer of information. Please don't state the obvious in cutlines: Harris waves to crowd, smiles at camera, etc.

10. If you are writing a headline for a package that includes a photograph, make sure you've seen the photograph and that the headline works with it. People 'read' the photograph first, then the headline.

11. Please do not use quote marks instead of attribution. Use quote marks only to draw attention to a real quote.

12. Please avoid label heads, contractions, exclamation marks, question marks, distracting punctuation.

13. Approach headlines for feature stories differently than news stories. Don't be afraid to use humour, have a little fun or try something different.

14. If the story is about misfortune, accident or tragedy, play it straight.

15. Make every word count.