I disagree with the suggestion that we avoid numerals. As you say such headings
are aimed at a certain group. But in so many situations we are all in this
group of time short short attention spans.
To me as a reader a number indicates how much content there is to read. This is
useful. It also says to me that the author has spelt out each point clearly and
that I can see where each piece of information starts. That is, the info is not
all hidden in a paragraph. A numeral suggests text is clearly typeset.
Using numbers encourages authors to break up their content.
Instead of saying "100 reasons to vote for xxx political party" it is more
usefully written as "6 reasons to vote for xxxx's education policy" and then
another heading " 2... roads policy", "5...communications policy" and so on.
It is less confronting and I can read just what I want and know in advance how
much content to expect.
Yes yes I dare say this is a bad example since political material is warped
in so many ways with pollie reluctant perhaps to admit to only 3 policies about
anything and tending to carry on and on about nothing. It's just topical for
today, 2 July.
So please don't overlook using a numeral.
I'd much rather read this heading than having to delve into a paragraph of
unknown content when I have mentally separate each piece of advice. And a
numeral sticks out really clearly. It's used successfully in marketing and we
need to follow their lead in this aspect of their work.
Irene Wong
From: Bob T
Sent: Friday, July 01, 2016 2:52 PM
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: atw: Re: Capitalising titles
It can get tricky as context matters.
Before and after would depend on context.
Please avoid the trend of starting a title with a numeral.
These are from Inc.com
3 Serious Facebook Security Holes You Didn't Know About
7 Really Cool Products to Try This Summer
10 Simple Habits of Insanely Productive People
Maybe this is targetted at busy people who limited time. "Oh, only 7 things ,
that will be quick to read" Maybe for the short attention span crowd.
Apologies.
Bob T
On 1 July 2016 at 14:31, Dora Evans <dora@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
“is” should definitely be in your list, but I’m not certain whether “after”
or “before” should be in the list. Sometimes I think it depends on the size of
the word too and how it looks. I know that’s not very consistent.
Dora
From: austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Bob T
Sent: Friday, 1 July 2016 2:28 PM
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: atw: Re: Capitalising titles
Great idea Howard.
Anything To Avoid The US Style Of Capitalising Every Word In A Title.
Bob T
On 1 July 2016 at 14:24, Howard Silcock <howard.silcock@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
What are the rules you've been told about which words should be capitalised
in titles? Many usage books now favour minimal capitalisation - where you only
capitalise the first word and any proper nouns or other words normally
capitalised - and I've been following this recently. However, some people still
want to use the older scheme where you capitalise only "major" words - though
there seems to be different ideas about which words are "major".
I decided to write a macro that I could run to apply this type of
capitalisation and tried to make a list of all the words that wouldn't be
capitalised. This is my initial list:
"the", "a", "an", "of", "and", "or", "but", "to", "is", "for", "from",
"with", "after", "before", "if", "in", "on", "over", "under", "by", "that",
"which", "who", "until", "till", "your", "my", "his", "her", "hers", "their",
"as", "so".
I think some people want to capitalise all verbs, so I'd have to remove
"is", but that looks silly to me. Anyone got any other ideas?
Howard
--
Bob Trussler
--
Bob Trussler
