Choosing those few words is important because the headlines often are the only part of a story you read. You can tell a lot about a paper by the tone of its headlines. They can be outrageous or boring, stick to the facts or stretch them. A British tabloid, for example, a couple of years ago ran a story about Queen Elizabeth dining in Belize, an English-speaking country in Central America. Apparently one of the dishes was a native animal of the order we call rodents.
Queen eats a rat.
Maybe not that, exactly, but you get the idea. These examples reflect the two philosophies about what headlines should do. In the former, headlines are intended to tease or draw the reader into the story, much like a barker who says you ve just got to see the dancing girls inside the tent. These headlines don t say as much, but they say it with style. In the latter, headlines are a way for readers flipping through the paper to find out in a hurry what s going on, much as pedestrians on downtown streets can look at the window displays to see what s for sale.