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Public Arts: Writing for a National Audience
When writing your local stories for Public Arts, consider writing for an audience that isn't familiar with your local community. This is especially important for the leads and headlines.
Referencing a local museum by its acronym won't give someone from outside your community a clear understanding of what the story is about, and readers within your community might not understand the reference.
An example:
- LOCAL ONLY: "Drama and Desire: Japanese Paintings From the Floating World, 1690-1850," a gorgeous exhibition at MFA includes 83 works were all drawn from the museum's collection of some 700.
(This assumes the reader knows MFA stands for Museum of Fine Arts. Even if the reader makes that reference, this tease requires that the readers will assume that the article is referring to the MFA in a certain city, in this case Boston.)
- LOCAL AND NATIONAL: "Drama and Desire: Japanese Paintings From the Floating World, 1690-1850," a gorgeous exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, includes 83 works were all drawn from the MFA's collection of some 700.
(Even if most people in your community know what MFA represents, the complete reference doesn't detract from the lead and provides context to readers outside your community.)
Headlines:
As for headlines, it's also important to write them to a broad audience:
- LOCAL ONLY:
Superb Performance by Irish Pianist with TSO
(Could be an interesting story for a national audience, but no context.)
- LOCAL AND NATIONAL: Irish Pianist Barry Douglas Opens 79th Season with Tucson Symphony Orchestra
(More context is almost always better than less. Readers now know 'who' and 'what' the article is about, just by the headline.)
Tease:
The text you place into the 'Tease' field of the 'Add New Article' form might not necessarily be the lead to your story. The tease is seen along with the headline when your local arts page is accessed, so choose the summary paragraph as your tease, or write a new paragraph that summarizes your story. A delayed-lead in the 'Tease' field could be taken out of context, and the theme of your story can be misunderstood.
Capitalization:
Headline style for capitalization is title case -- capitalize all words in your headlines except prepositions, conjunctions and articles. Always capitalize the first letter of the first and last word of your headline. Here's an incomplete list of prepositions, conjunctions and articles: a, an, the, and, if, then, else, when, up, at, from, by, on, off, at, for, from, in, of, out, over, and to.
- Example: Singer-Songwriter Ben Folds to Open Wide-Ranging Boston Pops Season
NOTES:
1. The "lead" is also known as the direct lead, it is the main theme of the article in a sentence or two. It answers immediately, in 25 words or less, the main questions of who, what, when and where.
2. The "delayed lead" is also called the feature lead. It captures the theme without explaining the main points immediately. It can be longer, up to four paragraphs. The delayed lead still must fulfill the two roles of the lead: It must capture the essence of the story and do it in a way that encourages the reader to continue.
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