A headline states the story's main point in a few plain words, usually with an active verb in the present tense, and it never claims more than the story beneath it can show. Everything else, from length to capitals, is set by the publication's house style or, for a class, by the brief.
EdCitation publishes this guide, built on 27 September 2026 from the Guardian and Observer style guide, the BBC News style guide, Reuters' handbook, the UK Editors' Code and its Codebook, a university journalism textbook, Google's own guidance and four studies of headlines. The AP Stylebook's headlines entry sits behind a subscription, so we claim only what AP's free pages quote from it. Reuters' handbook, the Ohio State textbook and the APA title page were read in archived copies, the first from 2020 and the others from 2026.
EdCitation never writes a headline, or any other part of anyone's work, and we are glad to say so: the words stay yours. What it does is the checking around them. Check your paper reads a journalism brief into a checklist, Verify references confirms a study your story names is real, and Cite a source builds its reference from the publisher's record. All three are free, with no account.
What makes a good headline?
A good headline tells a reader, at a glance, what happened or what the piece is about, and the newsroom guides we read largely agree on how.
Headline writing tips the guides share: one idea, an active verb
Reuters asked for headlines that are "short and informative", with short words, an active verb and no unfamiliar abbreviations, and said one idea put crisply beats two crammed together (Reuters, n.d.). The Guardian prefers active verbs, "particularly in news headlines", and gives its own pair: "Editor updates style guidelines" beats "Style guidelines updated" (The Guardian, 2026b). Roberts-Crews (2016), in Ohio State's open journalism textbook, adds a working order: finish the story first, then write the headline, so you know what its main idea really is.
Tense: present for the past, "to" for the future
Headlines use the present tense for events that have already happened, and the infinitive for what is still to come (Roberts-Crews, 2016). Her example of the second is "Local store to open new location". Ours, for a student paper: Library opens through the night in exam term for a change already made, and Library to open through the night from May for one announced.
Punctuation that newsrooms avoid
The Guardian rules out exclamation marks in headlines, avoids question marks and quotation marks unless they are essential, and will not replace "and" with a comma (The Guardian, 2026b). The BBC also rejects the comma for "and", drops quotation marks when the attribution is already clear ("I've had enough, says Smith"), and sets any it keeps as single marks (BBC News, n.d.-a). After a colon in a Guardian headline, the next word is usually lower case, as in "Osborne: there is no plan B" (The Guardian, 2026a).
Clear before clever
Puns are allowed: the Guardian praises "Bad lights stop play" for a theatre power cut, but warns that allusions to obscure songs and films pass readers by. The BBC's reason for plain words is that a headline may appear alone, where a cryptic one "may be meaningless" (BBC News, n.d.-a).
How long should a headline be?
The newsroom limits we read fall between 50 and 64 characters, and print headlines tend to run to six or seven words, but there is no single rule. The limit that binds you is your publication's, or your teacher's.
| Source | Limit or form it gives |
|---|---|
| BBC News style guide | Index headlines 50 characters or fewer, features up to 58, story headlines up to 55 with key words inside the 55 |
| Reuters handbook | The editing screen turned red after 64 characters, as a warning |
| Roberts-Crews (2016) | Print headlines tend to use fewer than six or seven words; online ones run longer |
| Google Search Central | No limit on a page title, but long ones are cut to fit the screen |
| A class brief | Whatever it says: our practice brief below set 10 words |
Google puts no ceiling on a web page's <title>, but advises against long or verbose ones and truncates the title link "as needed, typically to fit the device width" (Google Search Central, 2025). The often-repeated 60-character rule is not in that guidance.
What the click studies found about length
The data do not simply reward short headlines. When editors at Blendle, a Dutch news kiosk, rewrote 1,828 newspaper headlines for its newsletter, the new versions averaged 74.8 characters against 35.6 for the originals, yet headlines over 50 characters did no better or worse than shorter ones (Kuiken et al., 2017). In the Upworthy experiments of 2013 to 2015, longer headlines drew slightly more clicks, and the average ran to about 15 words (Robertson et al., 2023). Both measured clicks online, where a headline must work alone, not on a printed page. For print, and for a teacher's word limit, the short rule still holds.
What does each kind of headline have to do?
Each kind of headline has its own job, and the table sets out what our sources ask of it.
| Headline type | What it must do | Length or form the source gives | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| News | State what happened, active verb, supported by the story | Story headlines up to 55 characters | BBC News (n.d.-a); Editors' Code |
| Feature | Draw the reader in; a pun or twist is allowed if readers will get it | Up to 58 characters on the BBC's pages | BBC News (n.d.-a); The Guardian (2026b) |
| Web and search | Describe the page plainly, with the words people search for | No set limit; truncated to the screen | Google Search Central (2025); The Guardian (2026d) |
| Standfirst | Give the story's main facts and ideas below the headline | No length found in the guides we read | Cambridge Dictionary (n.d.); The Guardian (2026c) |
| Student newspaper or assignment | Meet the brief's own limits, then the newsroom rules | As the brief says, often a word count | Check your paper lists it |
| Academic title | Describe the paper's subject, with its key terms | No maximum; title case, bold, on the title page | American Psychological Association (2022) |
Web and search headlines
On the web a headline often travels alone, as a link in search results or a feed. The Guardian's style guide counts the terms people search for, put into headlines, as a way to be found (The Guardian, 2026d), and the BBC wants key terms in story headlines. Google warns against stuffing a title with repeated keywords (Google Search Central, 2025).
Standfirsts
A standfirst is the short text below a headline that gives the article's main facts and ideas (Cambridge University Press, n.d.). It lets the headline stay short: the headline names the news, the standfirst adds who, where and why. The Guardian allows quotation marks in standfirsts only "where absolutely necessary", and single ones (The Guardian, 2026c). Ours, under the library headline above: The university says the change follows a student vote and will be reviewed after the summer exams.
Does a headline have to be supported by the story?
Yes, in the UK press it is a rule, not only good manners. Clause 1 of the Editors' Code, which IPSO enforces, tells the press to take care not to publish misleading information, "including headlines not supported by the text" (Editors' Code of Practice Committee, 2025).
The Codebook shows how that works. Buckingham Palace complained about a Sun front page that read "Queen Backs Brexit"; the story rested on two unnamed sources describing remarks made years before the referendum. IPSO accepted that playful, hyperbolic headlines are part of tabloid journalism, but found this one a factual claim that the text did not support, and upheld the complaint (Editors' Code of Practice Committee, 2026). An eye-catching headline need not summarise everything, the Codebook says, but every claim in it must be backed by the article.
The research gives a reason beyond the rules. In two experiments, Ecker et al. (2014) found that headlines stressing a secondary detail shaped what readers remembered and how they reasoned about the story, even when the article itself was accurate. The authors argue that readers struggle to update their memory once a headline has framed the story.
Do clickbait headlines work?
Some of the tricks win a few more clicks, questions tend to lose them, and the effects are small. At Blendle, short words, pronouns, sentiment words and negative words all went with more clicks, while headlines containing a question did 17 percentage points worse (Kuiken et al., 2017). The authors could not predict a headline's success from these features alone.
In an experiment with 2,057 US adults, Scacco and Muddiman (2016) found question headlines drew slightly more negative reactions and less intention to engage than traditional ones; "forward-reference" headlines, which hold back the key fact, made no difference.
Negative words pull harder. Across 22,743 Upworthy experiments, each extra negative word in a headline of average length raised the click-through rate by 2.3%, while positive words lowered it (Robertson et al., 2023). That measures clicks, not trust or accuracy. In our view the lesson for a writer is the Guardian's: write headlines for readers, not to show how clever you are.
How should you capitalise a headline?
Headline capitalisation follows house style. The British style guides we read give their headline examples in sentence case, with only the first word and proper nouns capitalised: the BBC's "Boy, 8, hurt in rollercoaster crash" (BBC News, n.d.-b), the Guardian's "Bad lights stop play". The American headlines Scacco and Muddiman (2016) quoted are in title case, as in "'Brexit' Vote Reflects How Diversity Adds to E.U. Pain".
The AP Stylebook's headlines entry needs a subscription, so we cannot confirm AP's rule on capitals. AP's free Ask the Editor page quotes that entry on two points: numerals in headlines, with ordinals under 10 spelled out, and no full stops in abbreviations unless clarity needs them (Associated Press, n.d.). The BBC allows numerals below 10 but never opens a headline with a digit (BBC News, n.d.-b). For academic work, see title case or sentence case.
How is a headline different from the title of an essay?
A headline sells one story to a passing reader; an essay title tells a marker exactly what the paper covers. APA sets "no maximum length for titles" of student papers, asking only that a title be focused, with its key terms, in bold and title case on the title page (American Psychological Association, 2022). Its own example, "Impact of Gender on the Evaluation of Humor in Romantic Relationships", has no verb at all, which a news headline almost always would.
| News headline | Essay or paper title | |
|---|---|---|
| Job | Say what happened | Say what the paper studies |
| Verb | Active, present tense | Often none |
| Capitals | House style: sentence case at the BBC and the Guardian | The citation style's rule |
| Length | Tight: 50 to 64 characters in the guides read | No maximum in APA 7 |
How do you write headlines for a student newspaper or journalism assignment?
Start from the brief, then apply the newsroom rules. This order works for a class story or a piece for the student paper.
- Read the brief into a checklist. Paste it into EdCitation's free Check your paper, and note every limit on the headline and standfirst.
- Write the story first. Then find its one main point (Roberts-Crews, 2016).
- Draft the headline with an active verb, present tense for what has happened, "to" for what will.
- Count the words or characters against the brief or house style.
- Test it against the story. Could every claim in it be pointed to in the text? If not, change the headline.
- Write the standfirst to carry what the headline had to leave out.
- Check any study the story names. Verify references confirms it exists and has not been retracted; our guide to how journalists cite scientific studies shows how to name it in the text.
How to write a news report covers the lead and attribution below the headline, and how to write a press release the headline a press officer sends to journalists.
What Check your paper returned for our brief
We wrote a short brief of our own for an imaginary JOUR 101 class: a 400 to 500 word story for the student paper, "a headline of no more than 10 words and a standfirst of no more than 30 words", AP style, two interviewees, one published study, 12-point Times New Roman, double spacing, 1-inch margins.
On 27 September 2026, EdCitation's Check your paper returned six rules, each with its sentence: Times New Roman, 12 pt, line spacing 2, margins 1 in, 400 to 500 words, and sources "at least 2". It listed four sentences apart, as asks no rule can test: the headline and standfirst limits, the headline's tense and support, "Attribute every claim to a named source." and "Use AP style throughout." Read the sources rule with care: the two it counted are the interviewees.
Where does EdCitation fit when you write headlines?
Around the headline, never in it: the headline, standfirst and story stay yours. For the parts of a news assignment with a right answer, EdCitation is in our view the best tool there is, because it looks each source up in the publisher's record rather than composing one, which no chatbot can promise. We pasted the Ecker, Scacco and Muddiman, and Kuiken entries into Verify references, and all three came back verified, the last with "The DOI resolves to this record and the title matches." A reference it cannot check is marked "could not check", never "not found".
Cite a source, given the Robertson et al. (2023) DOI, returned its APA 7 entry with the title in sentence case and no retraction. Find sources searches about 300 million published works. All three, and Check your paper, are free. Judging a finished story against its brief is Theoretics QA, in Max at $24 a month, which quotes the piece and never rewrites it; Pro, at $8 a month, adds Mechanics QA (pricing).
Quick questions
How many words should a headline be?
Few: print headlines tend to run to six or seven words, and the newsroom limits we read fall between 50 and 64 characters. A teacher's brief or your publication's house style overrides any general figure.
Should a headline be in the present tense?
Yes, for news that has happened. Use the infinitive for a future event, as in our example Council to close pool.
Can a headline be a question?
It can, but newsrooms avoid it. The Guardian discourages question marks, and in two studies question headlines drew worse reactions or fewer clicks than plain ones.
What is a standfirst?
The short passage under a headline that gives the story's main facts and ideas, so the headline can stay brief.
Can EdCitation check my headline's word limit?
EdCitation's Check your paper lists a brief's headline limit among the things it asks, with the sentence it came from; the count against your own headline is yours to make.
References
- American Psychological Association. (2022). Title page setup. APA Style. Archived September 21, 2026, at https://web.archive.org/web/20260921075143/https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/paper-format/title-page
- Associated Press. (n.d.). Ask the Editor: Highlights. AP Stylebook. https://www.apstylebook.com/ask_the_editors/style_guidance
- BBC News. (n.d.-a). News style guide: H. https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsstyleguide/h
- BBC News. (n.d.-b). News style guide: N. https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsstyleguide/n
- Cambridge University Press. (n.d.). Standfirst. In Cambridge Dictionary. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/standfirst
- Ecker, U. K. H., Lewandowsky, S., Chang, E. P., & Pillai, R. (2014). The effects of subtle misinformation in news headlines. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 20(4), 323–335. https://doi.org/10.1037/xap0000028
- Editors' Code of Practice Committee. (2025). The Editors' Code of Practice. https://editorscode.org.uk/the-code/
- Editors' Code of Practice Committee. (2026). The Editors' Codebook [PDF]. https://editorscode.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/codebook-2026.pdf
- Google Search Central. (2025). Influencing title links in Google Search. Google for Developers. https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/title-link
- The Guardian. (2026a). Guardian style guide: C. https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-observer-style-guide-c
- The Guardian. (2026b). Guardian style guide: H. https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-observer-style-guide-h
- The Guardian. (2026c). Guardian style guide: Q. https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-observer-style-guide-q
- The Guardian. (2026d). Guardian style guide: S. https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-observer-style-guide-s
- Kuiken, J., Schuth, A., Spitters, M., & Marx, M. (2017). Effective headlines of newspaper articles in a digital environment. Digital Journalism, 5(10), 1300–1314. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2017.1279978
- Reuters. (n.d.). Reporting and writing basics. Handbook of Journalism. Archived November 27, 2020, at http://web.archive.org/web/20201127012551/http://handbook.reuters.com/?title=Reporting_and_Writing_Basics
- Roberts-Crews, J. (2016). Headlines. In Writing for strategic communication industries. The Ohio State University. Archived June 12, 2026, at https://web.archive.org/web/20260612104150/https://ohiostate.pressbooks.pub/stratcommwriting/chapter/headlines/
- Robertson, C. E., Pröllochs, N., Schwarzenegger, K., Pärnamets, P., Van Bavel, J. J., & Feuerriegel, S. (2023). Negativity drives online news consumption. Nature Human Behaviour, 7(5), 812–822. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-023-01538-4
- Scacco, J. M., & Muddiman, A. (2016, August 9). Investigating the influence of "clickbait" news headlines. Center for Media Engagement. https://mediaengagement.org/research/clickbait-headlines/