ARBITRATORS ARE TO
DECIDE DIFFERENCES
Representatives of Workmen
and Employers in Equal
Numbers, With Impartial
Chairman, to Have Supreme
Authority.
Like the story, the head should be simple. Here again the short Anglo-Saxon words are the best. Indeed, the head writer is put to the necessity of using short words if he would make the head tell the story. The head is a mosaic. Words must be fitted into a certain fixed space, in such a way that the meaning will not be obscured. This is the head writer’s chief problem—to meet the mechanical requirements of the head and at the same time make the thought so plain that none can fail to understand. (See [Figure 2].)
A cardinal rule of head writing is expressed in the curt injunction: Get action into the head. Make the head a statement of fact, not a mere label. Never say “Shocking Accident” or “Terrible Fire,” but tell what happened as specifically as possible. Try to get a verb in the head, either expressed or implied. This rule, like all others that have to do with newspaper work, is not to be applied literally under all conditions. Exceptions may often be made in handling the feature story. But in nine cases out of ten the best headline is one that states a complete thought in the simplest possible manner.
[Figure 2.]—Conservative type of head, from the Boston Transcript. Notice that the second line of each deck after the first consists of a single word.
TWO HOTEL GUESTS MAY DIE