The copy-editing and headline handbook / Barbara G. Ellis.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ellis, Barbara G.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Copy editing.

Newspapers--Headlines--Editing.

Newspapers.

Newspapers--Headlines.

Editing.

Physical Description:

xiv, 337 pages ; 21 cm

Other Title:

Copy editing and headline handbook

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. : Perseus, 2001.

Summary:

Whether editing on a computer or on the printed page, for a newspaper or for a magazine, Ellis shows how to clean, organize, and proof copy like a pro. Special sections focus on libel, captions, forbidden words, job hazards, and head counts.

Contents:

Part I Headlines

1 Headlines: The Prime Seller of Newspapers and the Copy Editors Who Write Them 3

What Kind of People Work on the "Desk"? 4

A Career That Lasts Beyond Retirement 9

2 Headlines: The Door to Copy-Editing Mastery 13

It's Your Turn to Write a Headline 14

A Gallery of Classic Headline Gaffes 16

Serious Stories = Serious Headlines 17

3 "Counting" the Headline 21

The Copydesk Routine 22

Two Systems for Doing the Count 24

System 1 Counting in Numerical Sequence 26

System 2 Counting by Character Widths 27

Into Action 27

Deciphering the Head Order 28

Learning Attitude Adjustments 30

4 Specialty Headlines 33

Kickers 34

Hammerheads (a.k.a. Hammers) and Wickets 35

The Slammer 37

Tripods 38

Sidesaddles 39

5 The Master Lists of Forbidden Words in Headlines 43

Forbidden Words: Sports 44

Forbidden Words: Hard News 46

Alleged and Accused 49

6 Setting Up a Work Regimen and Determining the First Word (the Subject)

and the Second (the Verb) 53

Setting Up a System 54

Find Out "Whodunit" and the Headline's First Word Will Appear 54

What to Do When You Hear "Voices" 56

The Headline's Second Word: The Verb 57

What to Do About "Is" and "Are"

the "To-Be" Verbs 58

Agreement of Subjects with Their Verbs 59

Down Among the Collectives, Agreement Is Still in the Eye of the Beholder: Is It "The Couple Was" or "The Couple Were"? 60

The Verb as the Headline's First World: The "Verb Head" 61

7 Headline Punctuation, Abbreviations, and the Use of Numbers and Symbols 63

Periods 63

Commas 63

Semicolons 64

Quotation Marks 64

Colons 65

Dashes and Parentheses in Feature Stories 68

Apostrophes 68

Question Marks 69

Exclamation Points 69

Numbers and Symbols 74

8 Line Breaks, Decks, Jumps

and Second-Day Headlines 77

Line Breaks 77

Decks (a.k.a. ROS or Read-Outs) 80

Subheads 81

Second-Day Heads 82

Jump Headlines and "Continued" Lines 82

9 The Art of Writing Feature Headlines 85

The Clever-Headline Writer 87

The Masters of the "Clever" Head 88

10 Different Papers, Different Head Styles 93

Boning Up on Style Before Starting on a Copydesk 94

Counts Too Short or Too Long? 95

Names in Headlines 97

Headline Styles for News of Fires, Accidents, and Major Disasters 99

Part II Copy Editing

11 An Overall Look at Copy Editing Today 105

The Impact of the "Maestro" System and Pagination 106

Attitude and Editing 109

12 The Editing Routine 111

Into Action 113

Editing Features and Opinion Pieces 117

Editing by Computer 118

Hard-Copy Editing 122

13 Editing for Organization 125

A New Method for Editing a News Story's Organization 126

The Basics of Newspaper Story Organization 127

Hard-News Organization 128

How to Code a Story 132

Coding "Delayed" Leads and Discovering Buried Leads 134

Feature Story Organization 137

Organization of Second-Day Stories and a Series of Articles 137

Some Last Words on Editing for Organization 139

14 Editing the Lead 141

Editing Hard-News Leads 142

Immediate Leads 144

Editing Other Styles of Immediate Leads 147

Delayed Leads 148

The "You" Lead 150

Editing Feature Leads 150

15 Editing the Close and Quotes 153

The Hard-News Close 154

Feature-Story Closes 157

Editing Quotations 158

Detecting "Phony" Quotes 161

Editing Quotes from the Unschooled or the Foreign Born 163

Which Quotes Should Be Killed? 164

Partial Quotes 166

Placement of Quotation Attributions 167

16 Adds and Trims 169

Adds 170

Trims 171

Major Trims 172

Notebook Dumping and Stray-Fact Hitchhikers 174

Minor Trims 175

Lancing the Boils and Bloodsuckers in Sentences 177

17 Editing Stories Involving Numbers 179

Suspicious Numbers 180

Recognizing Statistical Bias 182

Suspicious Research Numbers 185

Understanding Property Taxes 186

Editing Percentages 188

How to Calculate Percentages 190

Figuring the Percentages of Increases and Decreases 192

Stock Market News 195

Editing the Market's Ups and Downs 196

"Times as Great" Is Not "Times Greater Than" 198

Nautical Numbers 199

Betting Odds 200

The Writing Style Used for Numbers 201

18 Attributions, Identifications, and Second References 203

Attribution Form and the Venerable "Said" 204

Attribution Placement 206

Identifying Sources in Attributions 209

Coping with Long Titles 210

Second and Subsequent References to Sources in the News 212

Pronouns in Second References: When "He" and "She" Become "Their" and "They" 215

19 Catching Errors in Grammar and Usage (That/Which, Who/Whom, Parallelism, Subjunctive Mood, and Other Pitfalls) 219

As and Like 220

Because and Since 221

Lay, Lie, and Pay 222

Like and Such As 223

On 223

Should and Shall 225

Where 226

While 226

Who and Whom 226

Who's/Whose and It's/Its 227

Parallelism 228

Relative Pronouns: That, Which, and Who 229

Verb-Agreement Dilemmas 231

Split Infinitives 234

Subjunctive Mood 235

20 Transition Words and Forbidden Words in Text 237

Hard-News Transitions 237

Feature Story Transitions 239

The Master List of Forbidden Words and Expressions in Copy 243

Forbidden Terms in Text 245

21 Writing and Editing Captions 255

Making Captions Fit 256

Writing the Caption 257

The State of the Caption Elsewhere 259

L = Look Before You Leap 262

O = Subtract the Obvious by Adding Substance 263

M = Reflect the Mood of the Illustration 265

I = Check Identifications 267

S = Spelling and Grammar 268

A = Accuracy and Preventing Litigation 271

Part III Accuracy and Libel

22 Two Safeguards for Headlines and Copy: Pursuing Accuracy and Avoiding Lawsuits 275

Joseph Pulitzer: "What a newspaper needs ... is ... accuracy, accuracy, accuracy!" 278

Time, Inc. Publications: Role Models for Exemplary Accuracy 280

Lawsuits: College Publications Are Eligible Too 282

Even When Papers Win, the Lawsuit Is a Lose-Lose Situation 283

"Serial Killer Arrested," "Marijuana Cases," and Other Libelous Headlines 284

War Stories of "Near Misses" and "Direct Hits" May Be the Best Libel Teachers 285

The Increase of Multimillion-Dollar Lawsuits and the Uniform Correction Law 286

A Sampler of Practical Protective Systems for Copy Editors 288

23 Job Hazards: Dealing with Too Many Earthquakes, Monicas, and Shootings 293.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 323-326) and index.

ISBN:

0738204595

OCLC:

50731474