ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the importance of what print and web journalists call display type— headlines, titles and blurbs— and the words, called captions or cutlines, that accompany still photographs. For the print or web journalist, these are critical means of drawing an audience. Newspapers and magazines developed headline writing, or title writing as magazine journalists call it, into an art form. Readers read the headline first, then the story. Editors work in reverse; they first read the story, and then write the headline. This often leads to confusing heads because editors mistakenly assume that if readers will only read the story they will understand what the headline is trying to convey. Except in rare cases deliberately designed to tease the reader, the headline must be instantly clear. In most cases, the reader will not read a story simply to find out what the headline means.
