Captions and catchlines definitely help in telling the story. It is true, according to a Chinese proverb that “a picture is worth a thousand words,” yet some pictures are not independent by themselves or are self-explanatory. Pictures that particularly lack background may not be capable of sending the message to the readers as they are. They need some words to put across the message intended for the readers. That’s why we need captions and catchlines.

What is a catchline? A catchline appears to be a subtitle for a caption which is usually printed in different size or point, type or style. Some catchlines form part of the captions sentence as they are necessary to complete its thought.

What is a caption? A caption is also called a cutline, constitutes the line or lines or text that basically describe, explain, or tell something about the picture. Captions should not be so long that they become as thick as or even thicker than the picture. The standard is at least four lines for a good caption.

Guidelines in writing captions:

1. As in newswriting, the basic 5w’s and 1h are used in presenting the facts.
2. The present tense is preferred to the past tense.
3. The news elements such as prominence, proximity, timeliness, human interest, and the like are also considered.
4. A caption must be written while the picture is being viewed. It is impossible to caption a picture appropriately without looking at it.
5. Captions are basically informative yet they can be written also in such a way that they tickle readers’ emotions and minds by making them a bit intriguing.
6. Describing the obvious in the picture should be avoided.
7. Expressions like “photo shows”, “not in picture are…” do not really help to arrest readers’ attention but may insult them instead.
8. Credit lines which indicate the name of the photographer or photojournalist may be placed right under or just at the side of the photograph.

Related posts:

1. Kinds of Editorials
2. Elements of News

Editorials can be categorized according to their functions. Basically, all editorials comment on a certain issue, topic, subject matter ornews event, so editorials of comment are most common. The different types of editorials may interlap, as a single editorial may serve various purposes. Yet for the purpose of identifying some common types, we can have the following:

1. News editorial. This editorial is based on a news item; sometimes it is an interpretative news with subtle opinions.

2. Informative editorial. It presents more factual background on an issue which needs proper and probably immediate dissemination to the public while it interprets and explains the significance of such to readers.

3. Editorial of commemoration or tribute. This represents the views of the campus paper and the school, as they pay tribute to leaders, organizers, heroes or heroines, achievers and other persons or institutions particularly on certain anniversaries, celebrations, and dates to remember.

4. Editorial of argumentation. This presents both sides of an issue or may cling to one side then proves its stand.

5. Editorial of appreciation or commendation.  This editorial praises or commends a worthy deed, an achievement, victory, or success.

6. Editorial or interpretation. This interprets and explains a particular situation or event and helps in some decisions to be made.

7. Editorial of criticism. This can be positive or negative yet costructive, for it comments on a wrongdoing, an evil act, or a futile action, yet it does not particularly attack the person/s involved.

8. Editorial of crusade. This seeks to obtain people’s support for a particular program or project.

9. Editorial of reputation. This is written in response to editorials of other papers contradicting their expressed opinions.

10. Editorial shorts. These are also called editorial liners, ten-second editorials, or one-punch editorials. These are short, meaty articles, usually of one to two sentences that appear below an editorial.

11. Picture editorial. This consists of a picture or group of pictures that exposes a wrongdoing and how it can be made right or be corrected.

12. Pooled editorial. This refers to a common editorial published by different papers which comes from a single source.

13. Editorial column.  This is a personalized editorial since it is by-lined by the columnist.

14. Editorial cartoon. This is a caricature, sketch, or drawing that portrays a message, usually commenting on, reacting to, or even predicting some incidents of wide interest.

15. Editorial of analogy. This analyzes a situation and compares it with something else.

(Note: Some editorials defy classification.)

Related posts:

1. Kinds of Features
2. Tips in Editorial Writing
3. Servito Lectures on Feature Writing

1. Answer as many W’s as possible in the headline without making the headline appear kilometric.

2. The headline should not state something that is not included in the story.

3. Positive heads are preferable than negative ones.

Examples:

a. P’sinan team unable to win over NCR rookies (Negative)

b. NCR wins over P’sinan team (Positive)

4. Use a verb, expressed or implied, in main heads and subheads.

5. The active verb is preferred to passive verb, except in the instance that the event is more important than the doer.

Examples:

a. GMA opens Palaro 2010 (active verb)

b. Agro-industrial fair opened (passive verb)

6. Delete article like a, an, the, and all forms of verbs of being.

7. Use the present tense even for past stories, and the infinite form for future events.

Examples:

a. Region I hosts Palaro 2010

b. South Cotabato to host Palaro 2010

8. Write numbers in figures or spell them out depending upon the alloted space for headlines.

9. Use the comma (,), the punctuation mark, instead of the conjunction and in headlines.

10. Write the position of a general word to identify a person, place, or thing that is not popular or common.

Examples:

a. Mario dela Cruz digs gold in backyard. (person is an ordinary farmer)

b. Farmer digs gold in backyard (rewritten)

WHAT TO AVOID IN WRITING HEADLINES:

1. Fat head — letters or words that are fat are so crowded that there are no more spaced between them.

2. Thin head — has wide spaces between letters or words

Example:

N  S  P  C    v  i  c  t  o  r  s    f  e  t  e  d

3. Label head — not considered a headline but merely a title or label.

Example:

Campus journalism

4. Wooden head — does not follow the S-V-O pattern (Subject-Verb-Object); considered a weak headline because of the absence of a subject or a verb.

Example:

To conduct meeting

5. Screaming head — headline of big and bold letters but story is very short and even unimportant. Headlines or some sensational papers are screaming.

6. Mandatory head — a headline that seems to command readers for it starts with a verb.

Example:

Conduct seminar on headline writing

7. Hanging preposition — in a headline, the preposition and its object should not be separated.

Example:

MNHS holds seminar on headline writing

Improved:

MNHS holds seminar on headline writing

8. Coined words — uncommon acronyms and abbreviations

Related posts:

1. Tips in Headline Writing
2. Frequently Asked Questions in News Writing
3. What are captions and catchlines?

1. Timeliness. Based on the idea that news is something you didn’t know before which is significant or interesting to a group of readers, news items are basically timely or immediate. In other words, items are fresh and new as usually indicated in the news by the use of words “today” or “yesterday” or “at present time” and the use of the present tense in news headline as one principle in journalism. Although news is basically timely, it may not be always new or fresh, for it  can be the development of an old event. There are news that are drawn from the historic past and are made to come alive by playing on or reporting the newest angle or latest development of the story. For example: Jose P. Rizal’s death in 1896 will always be presented on its newest angle as readers recall his death anniversary.

2. Popularity. Popular or prominent persons, places, or events make news. persons become popular due to their position, rank, wealth, intellect, talent, skill, personality, and achievement. Well-known places make news due to their tourism value, historical, political, economical, and social significance. Popular events are usually those that involve a multitude of people or some well-known personalities as in the case of the NBA games, Miss Universe Pageant, and film festivals. Most of the events or activities or any gathering that involves the president of the country is newsworthy. Besides, the president of a country is a significant figure and is undoubtedly a popular person. So even if the incident is routinary like the raising of the flag, if the president of a country does it on a certain occasion, it is a page one story.

3. Nearness. What readers consider interesting and important can be news but the degree of interest and importance will vary from place to place and from one set of readers to another. What is news in the province may not be news in Manila. What is important or interesting to high schoolers may not be that significant to professionals or businessmen. Nearness to the event affects readers’ interest. Reports or events that happen nearest to the readers or to those that directly involve them will be most interesting to them. However, nearness is not merely physical, it can also be emotional. As such news in Japan will be more of interest to the Japanese than to the Filipinos. But a report on the life of Filipinos in America will be interesting to the people of the Philippines because of family ties or emotional links. The election of a Filipino-American lawyer, Ben Cayetano, as governor of Hawaii has dramatically touched the Filipino nation as the story was prominently displayed on page one of the local papers.

4. Conflict. Events of ideas that involve physical or mental struggle, though these are not encouraged, would make news. These range from wars, rebellion, crimes, chaos, duel, or fist fight, and from games, competitions and even writing contests. As the various elements or criteria overlap, one event may have two or more elements portrayed as in a “word war” of two prominent personalities on a very significant issue. For this example of event, there are at least three dominant elements reflected: conflict, popularity or prominence, and significance.

5. Significance. Persons, places, events, or things that are of value, use, and significance are necessarily interesting to a set of readers. The reading public has to be warned of an approaching typhoon, an impending war, rise in prices of commodities and services, and bandits at large, even of new tax exemptions or measures. If it is worthknowing, then that must be news. Why should people be informed of such events of significance? It is because the newspapers has to serve the public and make people be more prepared and better equipped to face the trying times and life’s difficulties and tragedies.

6. Unusualness. Anything that deviates from the normal or usual flow of happenings attracts attention and, therefore, to some extent, are of interest to readers. The writer’s watchful eye, nose for news, and keen senses are for catching the peculiar, the special, the odd, the unique, the different, the rare, and the bizarre. Of course, you have heard of the Siamese twins, the mudfish baby with human lips, the three-legged cock, and thing like one for Ripley’s.

7. Emotions. Events, situations or ideas that cater to the emotions of people(not only those that tickle the minds), also make news. The poor, the street children, the disabled, the sick, — AIDS victims, are subject of emotional news reporting. Human interest situations draw various feelings from readers. Such may make the readers do something about some particular tragic events. For instance, reports on the victims of earthquakes influence readers to react to some charitable knocks to their hearts. Dramatic events like suicide, coup de tat, massacre, or hunger strikes appeal to the emotions of people, and are, therefore, newsworthy.

8. Gender. Newspapers cater to different groups of readers due to the varying interests and activities of men, women, and “in betweens”. A news is created when women invade men;s usual territories or vice-versa. Like when women first went into space exploration, or when a woman ruled a nation or when men dominated the cuisine and even reigned the laundering which society considers places for women. Example: When former President Corazon Aquino became the first Philippine woman president and when she was subsequently chosen as Time Magazine’s Woman of the Year, these two instances made big events for newspapers.

9. Progress. Reports on progress, whether physical, mental, economic, emotional, or social, constitute good news. Newspapers carry both good and bad news, for people learn from both events. It is just sad to note that generally speaking, some newspapers if not all the local papers consider “bad news as news”and “good news as no news.” The advent of development communication in the Philippine setting is good news. More developed countries in Asia like Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand practised development journalism in such a way that freedom of the press is utilized in support to the economic growth of the country as in writing articles to support government programs aimed at improving the quality of life of the people is a healthy measure for the Philippines media to practice.

10. Change. Changes that affect the majority or certain groups of people make news. Some of these changes are change in administration and policies,  change of name or popular places or events, changes of weather, fluctuating rates of exchange, change of partners of party mates, change of schedule or postponement and other major or even insignificant changes that may pave way for big events.  While some changes are unexpected, there are also expected ones.

11. Names and Numbers. Figures, statistics, numbers, and series of names also make news. Many names would also make many readers. Numbers or figures are parts of reports on a good number of newsworthy events like election results, scores in games, ratings in examinations, and percentage of passing, vital statistics for beauty pageants, number or fatalities  or casualties in catastrophes, accidents, and battles; prices of goods and services, increase in salaries, and other events that deal with figures. Names and numbers usually come together for these are two basic facts that reporters need to complete their news stories.

Related posts:

1. Tips in News Writing
2. Kinds of Features
3. Frequently Asked Questions in News Writing

1. News Feature. This is some kind of a news event but the story goes deeper than a news item as more background information and related details are presented and expounded on.

2. Character Sketch or Profile. This article features a person, popular or not, rich or poor, but has done something worth publishing or is currently engaged in an interesting or profitable endeavor.

3. Developmental feature. This features some current or newly launched projects or programs of the government that need to be disseminated and that would draw public support.

4. Service feature or “how to.” This deals with instructive articles that help readers cope with everyday living.

5. Informative feature. This is an article that is highly informative but entertaining. Eufemia Estrada’s item on “Flatulence” which educates readers on  the causes of producing such an unwanted air that may come out with a loud sound or which is soundless at times but definitely with a foul odor, is indeed informative but entertaining.

6. Personal experience feature. This emanates not only from earthshaking experiences like riding an airplane that was hijacked; being caught inside a movie house on fire, or being one of the survivors of a volcano eruption or earthquake but also even from ordinary experiences that happen everyday.  Experienced feature writers say even the most common experience can be made into an interesting feature if it is handled well.

7. Featurettes. These are very short features that can be categorized into “string of pearls”, “bright” and oddities. “String of pearls” is a collection of ideas, views and opinions on one common subject written by different persons. You may, for example, ask some few persons to write about their happiest moment, ideal teachers or how they celebrate Christmas.

“Brights” are short human interest stories that touch the readers’ hearts or make them grin, smile, or laugh.

Oddities or even “incredible” are also short human interest features that deal with unusual things, animals, and events designed to entertain the reader or make him wide-eyed for amazement, surprise, or awe.

8. Travel stories. This maybe a combination or personal experience and descriptive features. (Note: some types of features may interlap.)

Related posts:

1. Kinds of Editorials
2. What is Feature Writing?
3. Tips in Feature Writing #2

Frequently Asked Questions in News Writing
Source: Secondary Schools Handbook in Campus Journalism
By: Dr. Lourdes D. Servito

1. What is a straight news?
Answer: A straight news story as its name implies, is an article that reports about an event, incident or happening in a straight-forward manner, without embellishments.

2. What do reporters need in order to write a news story?
Answer: Each reporter needs facts.
FACTS can be taken from a lot of sources and ways.

3. Where does one get facts?
Answer: From anywhere – North, East, West, and South.
From your beat or outside of it.
From within the campus or outside. Inside or outside the classroom.

4. How does one obtain facts?
Answer:  Ask the 5 W’s and 1 H.
Interview. Read. Research. Listen. Take notes. Write. Take pictures. Compile ideas.

5. What are the 5 W’s and 1 H?
Answer: I hate it when some male lecturers would refer to the 5 W’s and 1 H as 5 wives and 1 husband. That’s polygamy!
Sometimes I want to think about the 5 W’s and 1 H as 5 walls in a house. Can you imagine that? Where is the 5th wall? Where should you put it? You may put it behind you then sit back and relax. Write your news.

The 5 W’s and 1 H are the reporter’s best friends:
a. What?
b. Who?
c. Where?
d. When?
e. Why? And How?

6. How do you call the title of a news story?
Answer: headline or head

7. What are the parts of a news story?
Answer: headline, lead, and body

8. What is the other meaning of headline?
Headline also refers to the most important and most prominent news story on the front page of a newspaper.

9. Does the news have conclusion?
Answer: The news does not end with a reporter’s conclusion, instead, the body flows naturally to a sense of finality, as in a straight news, it ends up with the least important details of the story.

10. Is it not alright to have a conclusion? Why?
Answer: If the news story would have a conclusion, it is tantamount to injecting an opinion. The news story should not be opinionated.

* photo courtesy of www.mnit.com

Related posts:

1. Tips in News Writing
2. Rules on Headline Writing
3. Tips in Editorial Writing

Tips in Feature Writing

1. Avoid Wordiness.

If you can express your thoughts in one or a few words or phrases the better. This would make your feature story more profound and would avoid the “elementary” and running-round-the-bush effect. Prefer words or phrases that are featurized and concise. The most effective way to avoid wordiness is to have a wide vocabulary.

Example: “She was not given her rights to be educated,” is good, but “She was deprived of her rights to be educated” is better. Even though the two sentences have the same number of words, the vocabulary word “deprived” makes the difference.

“He did not know what to do” could be elevated to “He was confused.”

“Was not given” and “did not do know what to do” were replaced by more exact phrases and word “deprived of,” and “confused,” respectively.

However, you can be intentionally wordy with a purpose, especially when writing a descriptive feature story.

2. Make sure your feature story triggers your readers’ emotions.

Unlike straight news, where it plainly states facts, a feature story initially appeals to the emotions of the readers. The kind of emotion the feature writer wants or aims to draw from his or her readers varies. It could bring out happiness, inspiration, motivation, loneliness, pity, sense of importance or belonging; it could also squeeze out anger, realization, or spiritual uplifting. The feature story may possess one or more of these emotions at a time depending on the writer’s will.

3. Avoid a plain informative feature story, or a plain narrative feature story.

If your feature story simply throws out information, or is merely relating a story, it would probably lead to boredom or monotony. It is highly suggested that an informative or a narrative feature story be coupled with one or more types of features, or one or a variety of emotions, as aforementioned (tip #2).

Example, an informative and inspiring feature story, or a narrative/descriptive feature story are better than a plain informative or narrative.

There is one exception though, a pure narrative or informative feature story could stand reader-friendly by its own if the information or the events in the story itself, by nature, is undisputedly interesting, which could easily draw a certain emotion, except boredom.

But, still, you should be careful in taking this risk because the delivery of information or how the events of a story are related through pen is still very vital.

4. Use words and phrases that are excitingly appropriate and related to your feature story’s focus or topic.

One of my favourite entrepreneurial books is the Gonegosyo’s celebrity edition.

Example, on page 142, Lucky Ann Llanes’ feature story on artist Dominic Ochoa’s ice cream business (Thumbs Up!) stated: “…it seemed like everything that they had planned was about to happen – scoop by scoop.” Another line expressed: “The strategy of making him the face behind the business worked so well that soon enough, Thumbs Up! Managed to have a freezing breakthrough in the industry.”

Notice how the phrases “scoop by scoop” and “freezing breakthrough” were creatively composed and uniquely used by the writer as they fit perfectly with the feature story’s topic – an ice cream business!

Karlo Jose R. Pineda, on page 26, featured Marvin Agustin’s restaurant business and penned: “More breaks came, which he deliciously accommodated.” “And so Albert [Martinez] continues, much like a well-oiled machine that just keeps on going, fuelled by passion and determination,” concluded Michelle Elaine Valete on her feature story (page 74)  about Martinez’s gasoline station business.

5. Revive or renovate old idioms.

Idioms undoubtedly enhance one’s speaking and writing; but using a worn-out idiom defiles the purpose and does nothing but the opposite. Just like how termite-infested houses need renovation, and time-stricken songs need revival, old idioms as well need a nose-lift.

Saying “She is looking for a needle in a haystack” sounds century-old. We could revive the idiom and create a newer version which doesn’t compromise the meaning, only improving your feature story. You could rewrite it in a different format keeping its essence in tacked. You may say, “The needle enshrouded in a haystack could not be found.” Rearranging the words from the idiom and injecting a vocabulary word make the sentence more interesting and thoughtful, straying away from the old idiom’s close-to-boredom effect.

Another, instead of saying “She is not used to poverty because she is born with a silver spoon in her mouth,” revive the idiom and say “The silver spoon in her mouth makes her unacquainted with poverty.”

The meaning of the sentence stays the same, but the composition and delivery of thoughts with idiom revival make the dainty difference. You also did not use the aged idiom verbatim but played with it (even omitted “born with”) giving your readers a unique and a fresher one. Also, notice the change of a phrase with a more profound, featurized, and concise phrase: “is not used to” is substituted by “unacquainted with.”

Related posts:

1. What is Feature Writing?
2. Tips in Feature Writing
3. Tips in Headline Writing

1. Headlines are telegraphic or short cut, basically because space on newspapers is highly considered. So some words can be substituted by punctuation marks.
Example 1: 800 mentors and students participated in the writing workshop

Headline: 800 mentors, studes attend writing workshop

Note: and is substituted by a comma.

Example 2: “Feature writers have rich vocabulary,” says Dr. Servito

Headline: Feature writers have rich vocabulary — Servito

Note: “says” is substituted by a dash, and the quotation marks were omitted

2. Shorter words are preferred I headline writing.

Example: 800 mentors and students participated
Headline: 800 mentors, studes attended
Note: “Participated” and “students” were substituted by shorter words “attended” and “studes”, respectively.

3. Active verbs used in headlines should be in the present tense.
Example: 800 mentors and students participated in the division journalism workshop
Headline: 800 mentors, studes attend division journalism workshop
Note: Use “attend” NOT “attended” in place of “participated.”

4. Enrich your vocabulary:
Long words Short words

participate = attend
celebrate = mark
students = studes
senators = solons
conflagration= fire
inundated = flooded
pledge = vow
frightens = cows
arrests = nabs
conference = confab, gab
emphasize = stress
embark = launch
elucidate = clarify
inaugurate = install
employment = job
finished = done
exchanged married vows= married
duplicate = double
cases = raps
names = tags
mother = ma
father = pa
South Korea = Sokor
North Korea = Nokor
Pangasinan = P’sinan
Corazon Aquino = Cory
Constitutional Convention= Con-con
Charter Change = Cha-cha
vice president = veep
president = prexy

5. Delete redundant words/phrases.
Examples:
Personal opinion = opinion
Final completion = completion
Repeat again = repeat
Return back = return

6. Delete articles a, an, the, and expletives this is, these are, that is, those are, there was, there were in headlines.
Example: There were 800 mentors who attended the journalism workshop
Headline: 800 mentors attend journalism workshop

Related posts:

1. Rules on Headline Writing
2. Servito Lectures on Feature Writing
3. 1,600 studes, mentors attend division training in journalism

By: Dr. Lourdes D. Servito

1. Answer crossword puzzles for fun.

2. Play word games like scrabble, text twist, word factory, and the like.

3. Write your diary or journal.

4. Compile new words learned and use them in context.

5. Engage in dictionary habit. Better still; read the thesaurus.

6. Read a lot everyday. Set a goal to read at least 3-5 books per month.

7. Compile ideas for writing, like topic file, scrapbooks, photo file.

8. Keep a list of adjectives or your favorite words and phrases.

9. Keep a file of sports lingo.

10. Have your headline vocabulary file.

11. Write to friends and relatives.

12. Engage in professional blogging.

13. Create your website and interact with other websites too.

14. Books and magazines should be at an easy reach at home, or in the office.

15. Have a corner or bulletin board for vocabulary-building.

16. Learn to take notes while reading, or while listening to speeches, talks, or lectures.

17. Have a regular visit to the library.

18. Create or enrich your own library.

19. Have magazine subscriptions at home, and in the school or office.

20. Talk to and/or write to native speakers of the language.

Related posts:

1. Tips in Feature Writing #2
2. Tips in Headline Writing
3. Reading-Writing Connection

School Administration and Management

1. Have a burning desire to continually learn.

2. Be an advocate of changes for the better (reforms) and continuous improvement.

3. Create teams, innovative activities to develop talents and achieve goals.

4. Set targets, goals, vision and mission, and plan, work towards attaining such.

5. Establish open lines of communication.

6. Inspire people to do good continuously.

7. Help others succeed in their chosen fields and lines of interest.

8. Be a role model of positive values/attitudes/behaviour.

9. Work,laugh, and celebrate achievements with your staff.

10. Praise good works/dees…reprimand violators and “lazy bones.”

11. Power up commitment and dedication to work.

12. Exemplify patience and diligence.

Remember the Gospel or Work from David O. Mckay

“The privilege to WORK is a GIFT; the power to WORK is a BLESSING; and the LOVE of WORK is SUCCESS.”

No related posts.