2 Anyone who has played sport competitively knows that a 1% improvement in a tennis serve, or a golf score can make a huge difference. A race horse which is 1% slower than the winner doesn’t take home the trophy! So slowing down or putting off 1% of headline readers IS important. One percent of a million people is 10,000.

3 As a professional writer for over 40 years I can vouch for the effectiveness of knowing the rules before you break them or (worse) disregarding them without knowing they exist. For instance, the three dots are not three fullstops. That is ELLIPSIS and it has its own uses, conventions and functions.

4 Here’s my positive contribution for today
Never end a page (printed or electronic) on a fullstop. Always break the sentence and have the other portion of it on the next page. This tactic can be quite effective in heightening the reader’s interest in knowing the rest of the message. For instance, the best and most useful advice I ever got about writing was from a writer who earns $5000 every time he writes a sales letter. His advice was so simple. He told me in confidence “When writing a sales letter, always be sure to put your most profitable item (the one which can make you rich) where right-handed people can

I’ll have to go back and be sure I’ve not used a period anywhere, though. Thanks for the reminder, D!

fvehljs qphrronnic wfcluvcbtk lvqfgnbi …

What about multiple periods (such as my title above)? Is that not by design intended to lead a reader on?

All reminds me of the book about the panda – “Eats, shoots and leaves”

Dan
:0)

A few points:

I’d love for this discussion to stay constructive. There’s no need for telling each other that they’re stupid (or inferring it). There’s probably no need to call anyone or anything retarded either. Lets keep to the topic and get away from accusations or emotive language.

On the topic – like I say in the post – this isn’t the biggest thing to worry about on a blog but it is a fairly established principle of copywriting.

I do take Jenn’s point on that the web is a place of experimentation and expression. I personally wouldn’t stop reading a post that had a full stop in it’s title and I doubt most people would. However from what I’ve read it does impact the flow of an article and is a fairly well established practice to avoid full stops in titles.

In fact some would say that it’s such an obvious practice that it’s hardly worth a post on it – but it is something I’ve seen a number of bloggers doing in the last week or so and as a result I thought I’d post something on it to see if it generated some discussion.

Ultimately – it’s up to the blogger to decide how they run their blog and I’m not one to impose rules on anyone. If they want a full stop in a title then go for it.

My own approach is similar to Rays in that I’d like to write in a way that is accessible as possible and that brings along as many readers as possible. If something as simple as a full stop in a heading or title is going to be a hiccup in the flow of an article for some readers then I think that that is a good enough reason not to use them (plus in my opinion they just look odd).

Anyway – I hope we can continue this discussion in a constructive way and perhaps learn from each other as we go.

With regards to my own site – I don’t have one. I am a retired English Prof and do write for a number of online and offline periodicals but do not have a blog or site of my own. I follow blogs and comment on some from time to time when they are on topics that interest me.

“I read a study about how criticizing other people is a sign of insecurity.”

Interesting (some might say this is verges on an indirect ‘attack’ itself). I suspect there’s some truth about that and I’m willing to accept that I, like all of us, have my own insecurities. I would dispute that anything I’ve said has been ‘attacking’. I think we’re having a good discussion and that if I’ve ‘attacked’ then it is no more than what Sebastian has also.

I’m arguing strongly for a case and would want to defend Darren’s original post which Sebastian wrote off as ‘silly’. To this point I’ve not seen him write anything to back this up and when I point out that he actually does what he thinks is ‘silly’ he decides he doesn’t want to talk about it any more.

“I would say that you have to be stupid to find a period in the post title and infer that there’s no need to read the actual post.”

Forgive me if I’m wrong but you seemed to be inferring my own stupidity here even though you failed to grasp my arguement in this very sentence as it was something I never said. As you’d brought ‘stupidity’ into the arguement I thought it appropriate to ask if I and stupid readers might not be the only people that were stupid in this equation. Sorry that this hurt so much.

If you’re ‘hurt’ by a stranger taking issue with something you say an inferring stupidity then I suggest that the blogosphere is not a place for you.

I don’t understand why you can’t hang around for a little robust discussion on an issue like this. Of course if you’d rather go back to your blogging where you write titles with no full stops or your news articles with no full stops that you only write for smart people (but that no one reads anyway) then go for it.

I read a study about how criticizing other people is a sign of insecurity.

I think you’re forgetting that the web is, to a degree, art. There are no rules and formulas for “how to make everyone love my site.” If there were, there wouldn’t be so many $#!+ty blogs out there. Above all, do whatever you like. It’s your space.

Now to the part when you say that I seem to say one thing and do another. Yes, the keyword here is “seem”. I don’t do that. I don’t advocate the use of full sentences as titles. I just say that nothing should refrain you from using periods in post headings if they help you convey an intended meaning or impression.

You picture me as irrational, maybe as a troll. You just don’t understand. A period in the title is no obstacle for comprehension. And if it is, I won’t waste time trying to embed an interesting concept in the mind of *that* reader. I just don’t care. It “pauses” the reader’s eye. So? Maybe I *want* him/her to pause and consider the sentence for a moment. Maybe. I. Want. To. Convey. An. Impression.

I won’t go into a frantic attempt to keep a reader that doesn’t have the sense to swallow a title with a period in it. I, like you, want my readers to come along with me. But –*any* reader? Including a reader whose limited comprehension forces me to consider if I should put a full stop in a title? Including a reader for whom I have to bring my reasoning level down, at the expense of the other 99%? Come on. I suspect this is just the price you are paying to keep a 100% of your readers all the time with you.

Surely you have noticed that I am spending time in this, although I stated I would not. Take it as an additional opportunity to understand what I’m saying.

As for the “Now who’s stupid?”, I of course never said that *you* are, so I hope you understand if I feel somewhat hurt by that last line. Don’t expect me to answer to you again.

From an early age we are taught to pause/stop when we see a full stop. If you look at eye tracking studies you’ll find that it is the end of sentences (full stops) that people often stop reading midway through articles. To ‘pause’ the reader’s eye in the heading does have an impact.

I’m still interested as to why you don’t use full stops in your titles if it doesn’t matter? You never answered my question.

You write ‘Most people don’t read news articles anyway, period or no period.’ That’s the first time I’ve ever heard a newspaper journalist admit this – perhaps it is time to find a new occupation.

You’re right though – we are different. I write articles with the hope of bringing my readers along with me. I write in a way that does everything I can to communicate my message to as many people as possible whether they are ‘stupid’ or not. If you wish to write off your ‘stupid’ readers then go for it.

But of course you won’t, because you, like the rest of us don’t use full stops in your titles. You seem to say one thing but do another – so who is stupid?

For one thing, the fact that my blog wasn’t up for maybe half an hour is something I can’t control and something I can live with.

Secondly, I *never* said I used full stops in post titles, nor that the newspaper I work for used them in article titles. To say that it obviously matters is a fallacy. What foot you stepped on this morning when you woke up? Why? Obviously it’s important, you chose that one for a reason. See the fallacy?

It could be fun to extrapolate a study on ad comprehension to the newsroom or a blog, but you maybe can understand that reading an ad is not the same as reading news or reading a blog. Most people don’t read news articles anyway, period or no period. In the case of blogs, I would say that you have to be stupid to find a period in the post title and infer that there’s no need to read the actual post.

I see how you and I are different. In my opinion, if this matters to the stupidest 1% of my readers, I won’t waste two seconds thinking about it. Why would I want to preserve a reader who finds a period in the title and thinks the post itself is of no value? Go away, gentle reader, go away.

And here we are, arguing about silly little things. I will stop doing this right now. You can go on spending time in full stops instead on focusing on interesting things to post.

As a journalist I’d be interested to know how many of your articles have full stops in your titles? Does your newspaper use them in their titles (I can’t see any)? Do you use them in the titles of your blog (I can’t see any)? Why is that?

Obviously it does matter because for some reason you don’t use periods in titles. Perhaps it is something you’ve done subconsciously or perhaps it’s something you were taught as being good grammar.

It’s a basic grammatical rule Sebastian. It might be small but look at the study I linked to above and you’ll see the impact that something as small as a full stop has. 13% less people comprehended the ads with full stops in their headings – some even expressed that the reason for it was that ‘The full stop tends to pull up some readers with a jerk, and indicates to them there is no need to read on.’

It may not matter to you but how do you know it doesn’t matter to or impact your reader. In my mind if it matters to even 1% of the readers of my articles then it matters.

Have you done any research on this or are you just one of those people who makes sweeping statements about things you suspect might be true?

Maybe you should wait until it loads before suggesting me that I could benefit from Darren’s advice. I mean, if you can’t see it, how do you know I could benefit?

Regarding to the period in the title: I respect your background as an English professor. I am a journalist working in a national newspaper. Trust me, it doesn’t matter.

For more on full stops in headlines check out the research which shows people have better comprehension of what they are reading when there is no full stop in the heading. It is research into advertising but in my own research I’ve found that it is true in other types of writing.

It might be a small thing but the small things all add up.

Looking at your blog Sebastian, I think you could benefit from taking notice of some of the ‘small things’ that Darren advises (your blog doesn’t even load at the moment so perhaps start with that).