PRACTICAL IDEAS
26
Making
the Headlines
Debunking the ‘art of compression’
Newspaper headlines often prove
problematic for students. Though small,
they are an important part of language
and deserve more classroom attention.
Here, Nigel J. Ross suggests @ practical
way of analysing the stylistic features of
newspaper headlines: word omissions,
tenses, ambiguity and attention
grabbing and provides some challenging
and fun activities for students.
‘Cops’ Murder Sparks Fear’ yells the
headline, and while mother-tongue
teachers hardly look twice, even many of
cour best learners will be puzzled.
Newspaper headlines are a relatively small
but important part of language, and they
deserve a bit more attention in the
classroom. That stimulating class activity
that ends up with students being invited to
write a newspaper article will be all the
more fruitful when the students have more
of an idea of how to create a successful
headline for their article. A litte bit of
work on the style, vocabulary and
mechanics of headlines ean easily provide
a deeper understanding of the art of
headline writing, aiding comprehension
and spurring on some useful language
work.
Sometimes learners need to be ‘thrown in
at the deep end’. Rather than spending
precious minutes or even hours listening to
long, dreary explanations that hardly seem
to sink in, students can learn so much
more by being asked to work things out
for themselves. OF course a little guidance
is often required, but the results of such a
hands-on approach will be much more
meaningfl
One of the first features that
anyone instinctively identifies
in newspaper headlines is
their ‘telegraphic nature’
One of the first features that anyone
instinetively identifies in newspaper
headlines is their ‘telegraphic nature’
Space is a prime constraint on headlines,
so brevity is essential. This ‘art of,
compression’, as it has been described,
cries out for students to discover what
headline writers miss out, as well as what
verb system they use, what kind of
‘vocabulary and syntax they employ when
they come up with a catchy headline. Here
are some practical ideas for classroom
MET VOL 12.NO 3 2003,activities that stimulate an analysis of
headline style.
What's missing?
Choose a few newspaper headlines from a
paper you have at hand, a faely random
selection of perhaps 10-12, cut out and
photocopied onto sheets or onto an OHP
slide, Alternatively, if time allows, let
students, working in small groups, make
up their own collection from the papers.
‘Then ask the students ~ preferably
working in pairs or small groups ~ to
rewrite the headlines as full, standard
sentences, adding anything that is missing
and making any other changes necessary.
‘The following are some examples of the
kind of headlines that could be used
18 Die in Worst Storm on Record
BIG BOOST FOR LABOUR IN
POLLS
Minister Quits over Leak
20-year friendship ends at altar
Turkish City in Ruins after Quake
lm of heroin found on ship
EU boss hit by scandal
Oldest cat dies
Secret Diary To Be Published
Ban on tobacco ads long overdue
‘Trying to rewrite some headlines such as
these as full sentences is an ideal task for
group work, with lots of exchange of ideas.
Some monitoring will of course help. Any
vocabulary problems should be cleared up
very quickly at this stage with brief
explanations or referral to a dictionary.
Once this rewriting task is more or less
complete, ideas can be pooled. The first
question has to be:‘ What is missing?
And it will quickly emerge (perhaps with a
little guidance) that certain language
clements are often omitted. Working
together, alist can be compiled on the
blackboard, whiteboard or OHP. The list
MET VoL 12NO 3.2003,
PRACTICAL IDEAS
should look more or less like this:
articles (‘the'a', ete): very rarely are
articles used in headlines; examples
where the article needs to be added to
the headlines above include the worst
storms, minister, a Turkish city, a ship,
‘the oldest cat, and so on.
ries: auxiliary verbs are needed
when rewriting headlines such as an
EU boss has been hit by a scandal, a secret
diary is (going) tobe publisbed or L1m
worth of berain has been found on a ship.
Closely related to the lack of auxiliaries
is the tense system in headlines (see
below). Since the tense picture is
actually fairly complex, it is worth
leaving it till later rather than
dignessing at this stage.
the verb ‘to be’: the auxiliaries omitted
are, of course, mainly forms of the verb
to be’, but at times the copula can also
be omitted, as in a Turkish city is in
ruins or the ban on tobacco ads is long
overdue, and at times an initial ‘there’ or
‘this’ can also be added; There has been a
big boost for the Labour party in the pols
prepositions and pronouns: these
omissions will probably not emerge
very clearly from a collection of short
headlines. Prepositions are only 7
omitted very occasionally when the
meaning is nevertheless clear. The lack
of pronouns will be seen much more
clearly if subheads (secondary
headlines, particularly favoured in the
popular press) are taken into
consideration, In subheads, people and
things may be mentioned for a second
time, and this is where pronouns are
omitted more frequently. However,
pronoun-less headlines such as Killed
bby Pet Hamster ase found when the
victim is not anyone of note and the
action itself is of greater interest.
‘miscellaneous omissions: a varicty of
other words may be omitted, again
when the meaning is nevertheless
27PRACTICAL IDEAS
on
self-evident. An example from the
above selection is £1 sworth of eroin
Ina headline such as Escaped tiger in
orror attack, «linking verb phrase such
as has been involved’ would complete
the idea,
punctuation: this isa feature the
students may well have missed, but it’s
worth pointing out that headlines use
very little punctuation. They hardly
‘ever use fll stops, semicolons and so
on. Commas may sporadically be used,
sometimes in place of'and’. Occasional
inverted commas, exclamation marks,
question marks, colons and dashes may
be found. Examples are IRA: Killer
Bomb Ours or Elvis Murdered? ot again
Free At Last! Students sometimes ask
about the use of eapital letters for
words in headlines. The picture is
rather complicated: the selection of
headlines above highlights the
diversity. American newspapers often
give a capital letter to every word in a
headline; most British papers
capitalise all words except articles,
prepositions, auxiliaries and so on.
Nowadays, however, many papers in
Britain in particular only give a capital
letter to the first word.
Perhaps before going on any further, it
might be worthwhile asking students for
comments as to why headlines omit
certain words, Reasons that will probably
emerge include the concept of a
“relegraphic style’ which also suggests a
rather urgent way of delivering the news,
and a basic quest for big, striking
presentation ~ the fewer the words, the
larger the remaining words can be printed.
The tense system
Following straight on from the analysis of
‘what newspaper headlines omit ~ the lack
of ausiliaries has already pointed the way ~
the other main area of change of note is
tenses, When rewriting the headlines as
full, standard sentences, the tenses may
hhave caused some problems and some
gentle help may have been needed to get
suitable forms (the present perfect often
rears its ugly head once again here). A
headline such as Secret Diary To Be
Published should be expanded into: i 0 be
published, is going to be published ot
something similar that suggests a future
time scale. The headline Oldest cat dies will
probably be expanded into The (nation’s)
aldest cat bas died. A table can be built up,
along the following lines, to show the
tense system and the time
periods implied
Tense used Time indicated
inheadiine |
Present (eg dies) | Past (= has died,
died)
Past [passive] =
has been found)
{or occasionally
Present
Past participle
(eg found)
infinitive (eg. to be] Future
published) [going] to be
published)
General [Present,
| No tense (no verb)
or sometimes
Past]
The vocabulary of
headlines
‘The headlines selected above will probably
already have pointed towards another
typical feature: the strong vocabulary used
in headlines. Words such a3 Boost, quit,
leak, guake, bit, ban, and so on ate typical
of newspaper headlines. Students may
know some of these words, others may be
now. Whatever, itis worthwhile giving,
students alist of some common headline
terms and ask them to find synonyms,
words that they might be more familiar
with, It is also a good opportunity for
MET VOL 12NO 3 2008,some dictionary work. The following list,
with some sample synonyms, gives an idea
of what such an activity might entail:
Headline Word _ | Synonym
boost promote,
encourage
talks negotiations
quit resign, leave
back _[ support
leak revelation
ordeal bad experience
quake earthquake
blaze fire
hit affect
haul seizure
ban prohibit
wed marty, get married
hold arrest
itch | failure |
blast explosion
gunman ‘armed man
jobless unemployment
vow _[ promise, pledgé
After working on such a lst, some
conclusions can easily be drawn. Even the
sleepiest of students will notice that, in
nearly all cases, the synonym is much
longer than the original headline word,
‘And, as has already been mentioned,
shorter words mean bigger, bolder
headlines. Colloquial shortenings, such as
‘ad’ for ‘advertisement’ or op’ for
‘operation’, are also pressed into service for
reasons of brevity. But apart from being
just big and concise, headlines also need to
be striking and forceful. This explains why
the attention-grabbing word ‘blaze’ is used
instead of fire’, despite its extra letter. In
fact most of these very effective headline
words combine brevity and forcefulness.
Extra language practice for this fearure can
METVOL 12NO3 2008,
PRACTICAL IDEAS
be given with matching or rewriting exer-
cises, such as the activities shown on the
photocopiable page.
Ambiguity
‘One of the sample headlines given at the
beginning of this article was also chosen
for its ambiguity. The headline 20-year
friendship ends at altar can, of course, be
interpreted in two very different ways —
the friendship ended in a rift at an altar, or
the friendship eventually led to mariage.
Ambiguity is ingrained in headlines
because of their short, uncluttered nature,
making them easy to misinterpret. At best,
when a headline is ambiguous, we may be
intrigued and encouraged to read the
article to find out more; at worst, the result
is comical. A bit of fun can be had by
working out the unintended double
meanings embodied in some famous (and
not so famous) ambiguous headlines (see
websites listed at the end of article for
faller lists):
Ambiguity is ingrained in
headlines because of their
short, uncluttered nature, -
making them easy to
misinterpret.
Giant Waves Dowm Ships Funnel
Prostitutes Appeal to Pope
‘Monty Flies Back to Front
GREEK STUDENTS REVOLTING
Iraqi Head Seeks Arms
Incest more common than thought in US
Drunk Gets Nine Months In Violin
Case
29PRACTICAL IDEAS
30
STOLEN PAINTING FOUND BY TREE
Chinese Apeman Dated
‘Two Soviet Ships Col
, One Dies
Quarter ofa million Chinese ive on water
Hospital Sued by 7 Foot Doctors
And more besides
‘There is even much more to headlines
than what we have identified so fat.
Headline writers, ike journalists in
general, seem to have a penchant for
swordplay. This feature is particularly
evident in British papers, notably in the
tabloids. Puns are especially hard for
foreigners to appreciate, but some easier
puns are perhaps accessible: Clown Prince,
Doctor Will Maintain Swiss Role or New
Plant Joins Kew. A headline such as
(Off the-cuff rescue ~ by the long arm of the
avo clearly makes use of wordplay, but the
true significance of the puns is only
revealed when reading the whole of the
article (a policeman saved a drowning
woman by handcuffing her to him until
more help arrived, but in the process he
suffered a dislocated wrist). Pans ean be
based on a wide range of sources, from
stock expressions to the latest film or TV
programme title.
‘As well as wordplay, headline writers in
their quest for crisp, striking phrases use
nouns as verbs, adjectives as nouns, verbs
as adjectives and so on. This feature,
known as ‘class-shifting’, lends even
agreater flexibility to the headline style. The
results, however, are often confusing, even
for mother-tongue speakers. But as with
the ambiguous headlines examined earlier,
this feature may encourage readers to look
‘more closely at the article itself. ‘Cla
shifting’ becomes especially confusing,
though, when lists of nouns or verbs are
used as adjectives, asin: Cliff Plunge
Horror or German flonds death tll rises ot
again Strike Ban Sbock Probe
‘A final feature to be mentioned is sound,
Headlines can be made to sound more
appealing by using what the poet would
call alliteration or assonance. For a
headline writer, its not a matter of
creating a poetical atmosphere through the
use of sound, it’s simply a matter of
coming up with a phrase that sounds good
and might make readers curious enough to
read the article as in the dramatic Baby
Maimed by Devit Dog, the ttillating
Ex-monk murders frisky fiancée 83, the
ruch-cited Up Yours Delats or the hoax
headline Bus Found Buried at South Pole.
Follow-on activities
‘Once the presentation phase for headline
style has been completed, practice and
consolidation are fairly simple matter.
Opportunities and options are vast, and
the following is just a shortlist of possible
activities:
newspaper search: working in pairs ot
groups, students can be asked to search
through newspapers (even online) to
find headlines that provide good
examples of any or all the features
identified. Alternatively students can
be given a page or two of a newspaper
from which they prepare to commeit
‘on the stylistic features of the headlines
found. Yer another activity, that ends
itself particularly well to a small
homework task, is to get students to
find a newspaper headline or two that
they think is particularly suevessfill and
explain why (in the next lesson).
comparing headlines: by looking at
the same story in different newspapers
for the same day (particularly feasible
online), headlines can be compared.
Students can be asked to say which
headline they think more successful
and why. Some interesting contrasts
will probably emerge by comparing
tabloid headlines and quality headlines.
When a hurricane-force storm hit
METVOL 12NO3 2008,Britain in 1987, the Mirror's headline
was: Fury at the Weathermen as 17 Die,
the Daily Express’ front page
proclaimed it The Wind of Death, while
the Daily Telegraph's headline was a
slightly more sedate 16 Ailled in
burricane devastation.
making up headlines for stories:
photocopy or project via the OHP a
few very short newspaper stories
(simple articles ten-lines long or less
will be ideal) and ask students to think
up some good headlines for them.
Some group brainstorming should be
encouraged here. Once the students’
headlines have been produced, their
efforts can be compared with the
original headlines for the articles.
writing headlines for nursery rhymes,
Timericks, fairy stories, ete: getting
away from newspaper articles
themselves, students can be presented
with some nursery rhymes or limericks
and asked to come up with a striking
headline. Well-known fairy stories ean
also provide the inspiration - the
students themselves can be asked to
ive a brief initial synopsis before
getting down to actually writing an
appealing headline.
Newspapers have always been a
particularly useful source of material in the
classroom, but all too often articles are
used purely for their content, stylistic
features being ignored. In the case of
headlines in particulag, this can often leave
students bafiled or even encourage them
to shun newspaper articles. When
headlines cause problems, reading
newspapers is hardly likely to be an
appealing option. It may not only be just
the Cops’ Murder that Sparks Fear, but the
headline itself A few practical
activities can help to overcome such a
situation, and at the same time they can
give useful language input ... as well as a
bit of fun.
METVOL 12.NO 3 2008,
Some useful Further reading
Ceystal, David (1998) Language at Play, Penguin,
London,
Man, John (1995) iting the Headlines, Reader's
Digert Association, London,
‘Meats Tom (ed) (1992) The Oxford Companion
othe English Language entry under Heading),
Ontord University Press, Oxford (alto online at
_wrwerefercom/entry/442334)
Reah, Danuta (1998) The Language of Newspapers,
Rowtiedge, London.
Robinson, Pauline (1983) Using English, Blackwell,
Ontord,
‘Wateshouse, Keith (1989) On Newspaper Sele
Viking-Penguin, London,
‘Win Free Sex! Gotcha, in Newsweek, October 31
1988,
‘Some online sources for ambiguous headlines
dnup//monster-islnd.ogg/tinashumor/humor!
headline el
sworedepartmentsbucknelL edwingisties!
symhead html
swore. umist.ac.ul/teaching/material/headlines
snshtml
Nigel Ross
—
Nigol J. Ross currently teaches on
degree-level courses a the Institute for
Interpreters and Translators in Mien, Italy
He also trains teachers, writes and
translates. With a particular interest in the
stylistic aspects of language, he has
written various articles for MET, including
an analysis of tho style of American news
‘magazines January 1995) and of TV news
reports July 1994), His most recent MET
contribution ‘The Brainwork of Language’
appeared in March 2001
Email ross @tiscalsit
PRACTICAL IDEAS
31PRACTICAL IDEAS
32
THIS PAGE MAY BE PHOTOCOPIED
Headline Vocabulary
Activity 1
Match the striking words in the following headlines to their more common counter-
parts given below.
MINISTER QUITS OVER LEAK Dawn raid on old-folks’ home i
BID TO HALT NEW CLASHES PM urges probe into rigged polls H
Storm over axed motorway President ousted after cuts i
1 Blaze death tol rises BAN ON TOTS’ CLOTHES i
t people's revelation falsified investigation ;
number resigns attempt removed
argument fire children's prohibition :
fights election cancelled stop/prevent :
| reduction requests attack/incursion of robbers or police i
{ Activity 2 t
Rewrite the following headlines as full sentences in standard English, removing the
striking dramatic vocabulary and using the appropriate tenses.
MASS WALKOUT HITS KEY INDUSTRY
Man held after Commons blast
Jobless total tops 4 million
DRUGS HAUL NETS £5 M
Currency storm - pound plunges
Unions back go-ahead for new plant
BIGAMIST VOWS TO WED AGAIN
Wilkins exits ~ Ferguson to head peace talks
DOCTOR BARRED AFTER AIDING GUNMAN
Kidnap victim’s ordeal ends after police swoop
Government drive to stop drink-drivers
METVOL 12NO3 2003,