Home > Online journalism > Writing cutlines or captions
Writing cutlines or captions
Cutlines are explanatory and descriptive copy that accompanies pictures. They range widely in style and length, from the one-line identifier called the “skel line” to the full “story” line. Cutlines are necessary to practically all pictures because of the functions they serve: identification, description, explanation and elaboration.
A well-written cutline answers all of a reader’s questions about a picture. What is this picture about? What is its relationship to the story it accompanies? Who are the people in it? Where are the events taking place and when? What does the picture mean? The cutline should answer these and other questions in such a manner that material found in any accompanying story is not repeated verbatim but is reinforced, amplified or highlighted.
The following are some general guidelines for writing cutlines.
- Use the present tense to describe what is in the picture.
- Always double check identifications in a cutline. This rule cannot be stressed too much. Many news organizations have gotten themselves into deep trouble through misidentification of people in a cutline, so cutline writers should take great care.
- Be as specific as possible in cutlines. Add to the reader’s knowledge, and go beyond what the reader can see in the picture. A cutline is useless if it simply tells the reader what can be seen already.
- Try to avoid cutline clichés. “Looking on,” “is pictured” and other such expressions are trite and usually avoidable.
Two general principles should govern an editor’s use of cutlines. One is that every picture should have some kind of a cutline. The words used in the cutline may be few, but they can add enormously to the reader’s understanding of the picture and the story the editor is trying to tell. The second principle is that everyone in a picture should be identified. Unnamed people are not very interesting, and their presence indicates a lack of interest on the part of the editor in doing a thorough job.
Cutlines are important because of the information they contain and because of the way they enhance the appearance of the paper. Cutlines should be simply and clearly written and displayed, and they should be given the same attention by the editors that other parts of the paper receive.
Resources
This article is adapted from The Complete Editor by James Glen Stovall and Edward Mullins (Allyn and Bacon, 2005).
About JPROF.com | Who is JPROF? | Contact us
All of the words and images on this site are copyrighted and may not be used without the permission.
Copyright © Jim Stovall 2008-9
FreeFind.com provides search technology for this website.