September 27th, 2006 at 2:30 pm
Should you or shouldn’t you put periods (or full stops) in titles? That’s a good question asked by Darren Rowse of Problogger.
I have never really put much thought to it until now. As my titles are in essense incomplete sentences, I have always thought that it just shouldn’t be there. Plus the fact that it somehow just doesn’t look right.
Darren has a very interesting viewpoint on it. He says that it is
… more about the signal that it sends to your reader. Full stops (or periods), like their name suggests, are something that halts the eye of your reader. This isn’t something you want at this point in your post. Titles are all about leading your reader into your post and so anyway that you can help this flow is a bonus. It is a pretty established copy writing principle that is universally practised (next time you pick up a newspaper see how many periods in titles you can find).
8 Responses to “Periods or Full Stops in Titles”
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Marcia said: @ 2:38 pm
September 27th, 2006
I put periods in my titles - but only rarely. Today, my title had nothing to do with my post - just a note to my readers, and I think it had two periods in it.
But I have an unusual writing style, and I know that.
Janice said: @ 4:18 pm
September 27th, 2006
good to know there is a reason why I don’t do it.
INAMINI said: @ 4:29 pm
September 27th, 2006
OMG- something I actually do correctly!
deb said: @ 6:18 pm
September 27th, 2006
I don’t think I’ve ever used a period in one of my titles. My biggest problem is not punctuation in the title bar but content ;~)
Angela K said: @ 7:54 pm
September 27th, 2006
I think my only period title was “Must. Stop. Blogging.” (which I still like) I love the whole blogging style where you can write, “Oh. My. God.” and the reader is able to understand exactly what the writer meant as opposed to “Oh my God,” which has a different emPHAsis. Okay, tired. Time to go home now. :)
kristarella said: @ 9:20 pm
September 27th, 2006
I generally don’t make sentences of titles. Other related questions I have include should you capitalise all the words in the title? Or if there should be capitalisation, should it be on all except the joining words? When making a list should you add a full stop when the item gets sentence-like as opposed to a few words?
kristarella said: @ 9:28 pm
September 27th, 2006
Haha, I just clicked on your Google ad. that’s the first time I’ve done that, it looked interesting “Create a better blog” It’s for Squarespace, software for blogging and creating other kinds of website software. Alas, it incurs a monthly subscription fee. I like free things (Wordpress, Pixelpost, Kubuntu).
Also check you out! You were discouraged at the start but now you have heaps of regular readers, and a bunch of blogging friends, like stik drawing you pics, and other stuff. Nice one!
MC said: @ 11:32 pm
September 28th, 2006
I rarely periodize my titles… but I do use other punctuation forms.