Use of punctuation marks in headlines

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 Use of punctuation marks in headlines

Use of punctuation marks in headlines

Punctuation marks have great importance in any language. You cannot write
a single sentence without using punctuation marks. The same is true of news
headlines.
The punctuation marks play two very important roles in headlines. They
bring clarity and save space in a newspaper.
This is how you can use punctuation marks to write catchy headlines:
Full stop (.)
Full stop is not used in headlines for two reasons:
1. Each full stop wastes headline space.
2. Full stops look awkward in headlines. Think of a newspaper page on
which every headline ends with a full stop.
Comma (,)
Comma has great importance as a punctuation mark in writing headlines.
There are two reasons for this:
1. Comma saves space: Comma can save a lot of space in a newspaper. You
can replace the conjunction “and” in most of the headlines with a comma. For
example, if you were to write: PM and president to visit Kashmir
You could instead write in short: PM, President to visit Kashmir
2. Comma can separate two news points in the headline. For example:
PPP favours early polls, PML-N against it
Colon (:)
A colon is used in place of an attributive verb because it can save space. For
example:
Centre eager to hold polls in March, says FM (or asserts FM, or states
FM)
You can instead write: Centre eager to hold polls in March: FM
(Here you can replace says, asserts, or states with a colon)

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 Use of punctuation marks in headlines

Semi-colon (;)
Semi-colon is very useful in separating two clauses in headlines. For
example:
Khalid inducted as foreign minister; Yousaf gets cabinet rank
Hyphen (-):
Hyphen can be used whenever an adjectival phrase is used in the headline.
For example:
5-year-old girl fights wild dog, saves brother

Exclamation mark (!)

The exclamation mark should be used very little in headlines. It should be
used only when something unexpected happens. For example:
Spiderman is scared of heights!
(Everybody knows Spiderman loves to stay at high places)
An exclamation mark can also be used for writing headlines of funny stories.
For example if two dogs got married in a wedding hall, the headline could read:
Bark! Bark! Doggies get married in wedding hall
Yes! K-2 conquered in winter for first time
Quotation marks (‘ or “)
Whenever you need to use quotation marks in headlines. You can either use
the single quotation marks or the double quotation marks. Although both are
correct yet single quotation marks should be used to save space. They are more
appealing to the eyes too. For example:
‘I am not guilty’ NOT “I am not guilty”
Apostrophe (‘)

An apostrophe is used very little in headlines. It is used when a word is used in the possessive case. For
example:

Minister’s car found burnt in jungle

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