THE MALADY THAT BEFALLS ME

I was recently invited to be a judge for a local UIL event in Headlines.


Cool...except that I really have no expertise in the field, except wait....I have been an editor now for nearly 5 years...ok 1825 days x 10 stories(app.)=

18,825 headlines. (app.)

Hmmm...maybe I do have a clue.


But just in case, I googled it and what I found was very interesting and completely logical.


Keep it simple...so simple in fact that you gear your headline AND your story to the 7th grade reader.


Why?

Because that's the level most people read on.

Who knew?


Does this mean that I no longer need to use my thesaurus? (had to spell ck).  Does this mean that instead of writing  "a malady that befalls us", I can just write "a bad thing happened"?


I love colorful language and I have lots of favorite words that I like to say and see in print.  Writing is fun and writing cleverly is funner.


So...maybe I can just hold myself back on the headlines.