Titles and Subtitles

Think of your titles and subtitles as the beams in your home, without them, it doesn't hold together. The same is true in writing, and even more so in the last 20 years or so in the U.S. marketplace. The American culture has shifted to a more and more informal communication style with less emphasis on proper language. This trend is reflected in our nonfiction writing as well.

While culture critics want to point to the elimination of rules and the post-modern trend in the arts as the cause for a looser communication style, our inclination to be less formal is primarily a result of technology. It is a point of efficiency to write in your text message on your cell phone: "R U up 4 the TRP?" as opposed to writing out the entire, "Are you going on the trip with us today?"

The place the current trend shows up in nonfiction writing is in the structure, and particularly in the titles and subtitles. In fact, subtitles are nearly replacing topic sentences and subtopics inside of a chapter or section. Again, this is a reflection of technology, but it cannot be ignored.

Your reader will likely be a typical reader with 5 extra minutes on their lunch break or 10 minutes in the doctor's waiting room. The general rule of thumb for nonfiction writing is if it takes more than 5 to 10 minutes to read, then the section is too long. To write in such a way that your reader can break every 10 minutes and pick up the article again at the end of his day and not feel lost, you must build an abundance of subtitles into any work that is substantially long.

Even in project work, such as this course material, where the reader is expecting to concentrate and is expecting to read longer passages, there is a fair amount of subtitling inserted. Try to make subtitles your friend because they help you to put beams into the house called your writing. Subtitles help to keep it together and help the reader to flow with your points. They also work to help you be a little more creative than the older, traditional structuring of nonfiction. It is easier to add a point when you structure using subtitles; and it is easier to correct your work if you forgot something important.