SYMMETRY AND SENSE
Each head must be written according to a fixed typographical plan. There is a definite limit to the number of letters and spaces each type line will contain, and the copy reader who exceeds that limit is sure to be reminded, sarcastically, that “type isn’t made of rubber.” “Long heads”—heads that will not fit into the allotted space—are a source of vexation and delay if they are not repaired before being sent to the composing room. The copy reader should take pains to make each head fit the pattern before it leaves his hands. Until he has familiarized himself with the heads he must write, he may find it convenient to keep at hand a style card on which is pasted a sample of each head used, with notations showing the number of letters and spaces to be written in the different divisions. Each type line is said to contain so many units, counting spaces as well as letters. All the letters of a line set in “caps” are one unit each, except I, which is one-half, and M and W, which are one and one-half each. The line, “WILLIAM SMITH DIES,” contains 17½ units (not counting the quotation marks). A unit beyond the usual limit may be crowded into the line by thin-spacing—that is, by allowing less than the regular space between words. The same system of counting is used for a line set in capitals and small letters, allowance of course being made for the greater width of the capitals.
The head should be symmetrical, but it is not required that it fit the pattern with absolute exactitude. Insistence on mechanical perfection would cause waste of time and might result in hiding the meaning. Sense should not be sacrificed to form. As between a mechanically exact head that is not clear and a head that is less symmetrical but tells the story plainly, the copy reader should choose the latter. For each line of a head there is a maximum and a minimum limit, and if the copy reader keeps within these the head will be as near to the standard as can be expected.
[Figure 6.]—Two-deck head consisting of drop line in caps and pyramid in caps and lower case.
TOO MUCH FLABBY
EDUCATION, HE SAYS
President Schurman Talks on
Character to Victorious
Cornell Crew.
(See [Figure 6] shows a two-line head with the top deck set in 30-point condensed Gothic type and the second deck in 12-point Wayside. The top deck here is a drop line: the sentence drops down from one type line into another. The second is called a pyramid. In writing such a head a word in the first deck should never be divided. In the second deck division is permissible, but the head is better if it can be avoided. Fifteen to seventeen units in each line of the top deck make a symmetrical head, when both lines are approximately the same length. In writing the pyramid the copy reader after a little practice can tell at a glance whether a sentence will fit. Care should be taken not to place an indivisible word where it will cause trouble. For example, if the first line of a pyramid, set with the usual spacing between words, ends on the letter “m” in “Schmidt,” the word must be shifted to the second line, with the result that too much white space appears in the first. The dash is generally used to separate distinct ideas in the same deck of a head. (See [Figure 5].)
Various arbitrary rules affecting the mechanics of the head are observed by different newspapers, and the copy reader going from one paper to another is likely to find a brand new set of patterns to work by. These mechanical details, however, are easily mastered after one has acquired the knack of putting the story into terse, meaty sentences. The only way to learn how to write heads, after one knows the general principles, is to write them.