‘Sir! I have broken a leg, sir!’
When copyeditors at The Oregonian needed a headline for a piece on car seat safety, they wrote:
NO, YOU’RE NOT THERE YET
New pediatric guidelines call for the little ones to stay in their safety seats a lot longer
Searching for a good headline? Use a quote, colloquialism or sound bite. That’s what these winners of the American Copy Editors Society’s (ACES) National Headline Contest did. How can you model these masters?
Five … four … three … two … ‘one more time’ for NASA
With Atlantis liftoff, shuttle program is just days from end
— copyeditors at The Star-Ledger
This divorce just isn’t working out: Will you (re)marry me?
Brain chemistry and the simple passage of time can bring couples back together
— Rick Schindler, copyeditor at Today.com/MSNBC.com
Omaha chamber asks business to come, stay
Efforts to lure entrepreneurs from Illinois brought a do-it-yourself dog wash to Omaha.
— copyeditors at Omaha World-Herald
Honestly, who is Abe Lincoln?
Nationwide test reveals history to be American students’ worst subject
— copyeditors at The Dallas Morning News
Sir! I have broken a leg, sir!
At Marine boot camp, injuries once routinely disdained are now treated with a sports medicine approach.
— copyeditors at The Los Angeles Times
What colloquialisms could you use for your next feature headline?
Lift Ideas Off the Page
Some 60% of your audience members aren’t reading your copy, according to estimates by professors at the University of Missouri.
If so, bring Ann in to present Catch Your Readers — a one- to two-day persuasive-writing course — to your team.There, they’ll learn how to reach “readers” who spend only two minutes — or even just 10 seconds — with their piece … a simple test to run on their copy to make sure they’re reaching flippers and skimmers … and how to craft the piece of copy that 95% of people read — but that 95% of communicators drop.
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