Bull's Eye Business Writing TipsTip #414: Headlines:These
FREE weekly business writing tips
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| Tip # 414: Headlines: Before you start writing, think about your audience. No matter who they are, titles should flow from the lips easily, and give readers some idea of what they'll learn by reading on. At the same time, they should be short enough to be memorable. Two techniques to use are rhyming because it is catchy and fun, and alliteration because it is easy to say, to remember and fun to read. (This tip was adapted from an article by Meredith Pond “Terrific Titles, Happenin' Headlines”). |
Weekly Exercise:
We receive over 200 emails per day. We encourage you to answer our weekly tips, but please, if you are answering this weekly tip exercise, identify the tip number in the subject line of your email.
This week’s quiz:
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Please edit the following sentence by making sure every necessary mark of punctuation is correctly inserted. “How do you account for the fact that, whenever we are about to launch a new product the company cuts the marketing dollars we need to promote the product.”? |
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Comments on last week's exercise:
Oops! I apologize for the terrible proofreading exercise last week (tip #413).
Here are the corrections: similar, breakdown, high-level, corporation’s, attorneys, its, proceeding, negotiations, iceberg. Please see the corrections below:
We had a similar breakdown in communications last May when a high-level executive failed to inform us that the corporation’s attorneys had advised against its proceeding with merger negotiations. However, that was only the tip of the iceberg.
Thanks to all you excellent proofreaders who caught our errors on Tip #413.
Here’s one by Ann Lee Gibson, Ph.D.:
“Uh, Dan ... per your advice to proofread carefully, perhaps you will want to proofread your own corrections more carefully:
"We had a similar break down in communications last May when a high-level executive failed to inform us that the corporation's attorneys had advised against it's proceeding with merger negations.
However, that was only the tip of the iceberg."
1. The noun "breakdown" is one word, not two.
2. When the company's proceeding, it's proceeding. But when its proceeding is advised against, its advisors are advising against its proceeding.
2. Negations? I guess a corporation's attorneys could persuade a company to negate its negotiations. But I expect they'd really rather see those negotiations continue.”
My comment:
Ann, there was another error in “it’s proceeding.”
Change “it’s” to “its”.
Quote of the week:
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“More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.” Woody Allen (Writer, from his “My Speech to the Graduates.”) |
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Answers to this week's quiz: Notice the comma and question mark placement: “How do you account for the fact that whenever we are about to launch a new product, the company cuts the marketing dollars we need to promote the product?” |
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To send the above exercise answers to Gloria for her comments and review, copy the questions, paste them into an email, answer them, and send to Marsha@basic-learning.com.
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These business writing tips brought to you by:
Bull's Eye Business Writing
10 Easy Guides for Getting to Your Writing Target
By Gloria Pincu, M.A. , President of Basic Learning Systems, Inc.
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