Other things being equal, the active voice is better than the passive. “Jones Defeats Smith for Mayor” is preferable to “Smith Is Defeated by Jones.”
Avoid the monotony of beginning each division of a three or four-deck head with the same subject. The following is an extreme example of this fault: “She Died To-day—Esteemed Lady Passes Away at Her Home West of City This Morning—She Was 85 Years of Age—She Leaves Five Children and Thirteen Grandchildren.” An even more glaring defect in this head is the omission of the name. The reader learns only that “she” died.
Don’t build any part of the head on a fact that is tucked away near the end of the story and hence may be pruned off in making up the paper. In handling a story that is likely to be cut down between editions, base the head on features well toward the beginning so that the head will not have to be changed.
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