1. The Function of HeadlinesA: Five main functions.
First, a headline summarizes a news story with the most important and attractive words. A reader usually doesn’t have time for every piece of news that’s printed. With the guidance of ter headlines, readers can quickly find the parts they want to read.
Second, it sparkles the whole page. One can imagine how suffocative a newspaper could be if there were not a single headline and dozens of news stories just piled up.
Third, it beautifies the form of edition. Headlines are good decoration to the page as they appear in various sizes and typefaces.
Fourth, a headline sometimes is ud to attract the readers’ attention.
Fifth, a headline can be ud to make some comment.
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2. Grammatical features of headlines
First, there are omission of article, conjunction, pronoun, link verb and auxiliary verb. It is ud to summarize and highlight the content. For example, “China es housing as (an) engine to drive (the) economy.”
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Second, prent ten is ud to show things that happened in the past.
Three reasons:
First, it saves space. In most cas past ten is longer in space than the prent ten, with an “ed” in extra. So prent ten can save some space for a headline.
Secondly, prent ten is active. It puts the reader into action and gives him a feeling of participation, so that it attracts readers’ attention.
Thirdly, a prent-ten emphasizes the timeliness of the news. It gives the reader a n of freshness and immediacy, although he might well understand that a head in the prent ten in today’s newspaper is prenting yesterday’s news.
More:
First, u “be to do” instead of “will do” to prent the future ten, and “be” is often omitted in order to save space.
Second, u “be doing” to prent things that are happening, and “be” is often omitted in order to save space.
Thirdly, sometimes prent ten can also prent things that are happening or will hap
pen, for example,”Labour plans BBC shake-up. ”
Third, active voice is more often ud. It is more colorful and appealing, more forward and powerful in transferring meaning than passive voice. The word ”be” or “by” are often omitted only u past participle to express passivity.
Fourth, punctuations are ud sometimes in headlines. English headlines are known for its ter structure, and punctuations are ud in much rarer cas than in the text. Punctuations only appear in the head for two reasons. First, they are ud to save space. For example, comma is ud to substitute “and” only to save space. Secondly, they are ud to show the relation between two groups of words. For example, a dash is ud to connect a quotation and its attribution.
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4. 3. Why sometimes in headlines, “and” ,“the” or “to be” are not omitted?
5. 软件本地化A: They are not to be omitted in two occasions. One, when they are in t phras, such as in the headline, “TB on the ri again”. Two, when they can fill up the space hole
in a headline. For example,“Four killed and five hurt in a hou fire.”
4. The language feature of headlines
A: A headline is aiming at summarizing a whole article with a few words. So journalists make great effort in choosing the right words which are clear in meaning and economy in space.
There are some preference for journalists and editors
First, they u abundant of simple words. Some are teeny tiny little words that lively express some meaning. “Hit” or “ruin” are often ud instead of “damage”
Second, initials are often ud to save space, like “WTO” or “ABM”
Thirdly, Abbreviations are ud, which can be easily recognized by readers. Such as “ad” and ”biz” which can be easily found in the English newspaper.
Fourthly, there is flexible u of journalistic coinages. To save time and space, journalists often combine two or more words into one word in practice and coinage then comes into being. They are very impressive and catchy, some even have the characteristic of originality, like “newscast.”
5. Different styles of the typefaces
America/Canada: capitalize the first alphabet of every notional word.
English: capitalize the first alphabet of the first word in a headline.
Exceptional: New York Times: capitalize every alphabet to beautify the edition
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6.Common styles for headlines[/b]
A: flush-left head, dropline head/indented head, crossline/keyline, centered head, inverted pyramid head, banner head/streamer and jump head.
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7.Difference between Chine headline and English head？A：fastenerThey are different in four ways.
First, Chine headlines usually provide more information than English heads. Chine heads are often multi-deck, and English heads are often one-deck, thus Chine headlines tend to focus on the totality of the news. And if it cannot include all the facts that is needed in the head, the subhead can do the job. Another reason it usually carries
more info is that each Chine character takes up equal space, while English words are not. As a result, Chine heads tend to be like mini-story in capsule form, while English heads accentuate on one important factor of the news.
The cond difference is the difference in the u of words. Like in English heads, it’s a no-no to begin a head with a verb. But in Chine headlines, it’s ok. There are abundant u of simple words which rve to save space in English heads, but you can need not to follow that rule for every Chine character takes up equal space. For another example, people ldom u adjectives or adverbs in English heads following the principle of “ABC”(accuracy, brevity and clarity), but you can easily grasp a piece of Chine news with adjectives or adverbs in the headline.
Thirdly, they are different in ten. English heads often u prent ten which had been called “historical prent ten” to prent yesterday’s news, and avoid time-indicating words like “yesterday’ or “last night”. But Chine heads u them to indicate the happening time.
The last difference should be in the word layout. You can never lay the English headlines ifm
in vertical form, but you can certainly do that in Chine heads. People u single quotation mark in English headlines but double quotation mark in Chine headline.
8. News value determiners
A: timeliness or freshness;
Importance/conquence/impact/significance;
Prominence;
Proximity/locality/nearness
Unusualness/bizarreness/oddity/novelty
safety是什么意思Human interest;
Conflict
9. Hard news and soft news
birchHard news (spot news/straight news): Events that are timely and are covered almost auto
新东方周思成matically by print and electronic media. They are often very rious and important news.
Soft news: Events that are usually not considered immediately important or timely to a wide audience.
10. Genre of news reporting
News
Feature
Commentaries and columns
Interpretive reporting
Investigative reporting
New journalism
Skit/essay
Picture news/photojournalism
11. News structure
Inverted pyramid style: it is the most frequently ud structure in news writing.
In this structure, events are written in descending order of importance. First of all, a ter lead is formed. The lead offers the most esntial elements telling who, what, when, where, why and how of the story.
Advantages: First, it is convenient for editors to decide the news value and cut the news from the bottom; Second, it is convenient for journalists to meet the deadline without missing any key facts; Third, it can help readers to find the main facts of the news quickly.
Disadvantages: First, the main facts all frequently appear in the headline, lead and body, which would be suffocative to most readers; Second, the writing is not tightly organized and fully deployed, what’s more, the style is top heavy and lack of suspen interest.
Pyramid style/the chronological style
It is compod by three parts, they are beginning, body and ending. To write a piece of news in pyramid style, a beginning is given first and events are written in time quence. Writers can take advantage of narrative and descriptive writing, so it flows better and involves readers. At the meantime, it adds suspen interest to the story.
Mixed form of invented pyramid and pyramid style (Circle style)
After a lead, events are written in time quence. It has the advantages of pyramid style and important facts can be prented high in the story. The most important information is repeated in the narrative, so that readers can have a chance to absorb it. It is more effective storytelling and can keep readers interested until the end then leads up to a real conclusion. Comparing with the other styles, this form is more balanced. But it discourages editors slash the story from the bottom.
List technique
Wall Street journal formula: It tends to focus on individual.
12. Forms of reporting
Single event coverage/brief
Roundups: it tends to focus on the totality and integrity. There are two types of this kind: horizontal roundups and vertical roundups.
Follow-ups/ follow-up stories (cond cycle stories/ development stories)
Advantages: First, it attracts readers’ attention by accentuating on one important fact of the news; Second, it tends to fully deploy the news from different aspects, which can well
make up for the contradiction in terms of freshness and integrity; Third, it helps to form the public opinion.
Content: Facts that are not mentioned in previous stories or some background of events.
The developments of the events;
Different opinions from people of all walks of life;
The prediction of the events;
Important facts that previously reported.
In-depth reports: Including investigative reporting and interpretive reporting emphasize on WHY.
