jump words or jump heads?

[Colleen T.]

I've proposed a switch at our paper from using headlines on jumps to only a key word. Each practice has pluses and minuses. Jump words save space and time and a chance for error, while jump heads can offer a second entry point into a story.

I'm curious about what your paper does, and why. Please chime in, particularly if you can back me up!

[Jim Thomsen]

My paper does jump heds, but I believe a jump word is sufficient. If you've gotten that far, you've committed to reading the jump for reasons other than the allure of the jump hed.

[dangermike]

We use jump heads, but like you, I believe a jump word is fine. By the way, I'm still not sure why we have so many jumps. For me to read a jumped story entirely through, it's going to have to be some amazing piece of work. "Can't this hold to the front?" -- Let's all start saying this more.

[Jim Thomsen]

I'm trying! We now run more three- and four-story A1s now, whereas a year before, five-story A1s were more the norm. I'll take progress wherever I can get it.

[David Sullivan]

As part of the shrinking web, we dropped full jump heads on about 80 percent of stories -- we keep them on columns and when the jump is the dominant element on a page, but everything else gets a jumpword. Not a word of complaint inside or out, and an amazing savings of work on the copy desk.

[Jim Thomsen]

With our shrinking to the 46-inch-web size next spring, I wouldn't be surprised if shrinking from jump heds to jump keywords will happen at the same time.

[Paul Ybarrondo]

Jump words can be amusing collectively. I once worked at a tiny daily where we used jump words, with a twist: We had a rule that the jump word had to be identical to the first word of the front page headline. So with the jump words preordained, they were simply plunked down on the page without any thought involved. One day, we had a jump page with four jumps stacked one on top of the other like a layer cake. And down the leftmost column, four jump words that boldly proclaimed:

MANAGERS

GET

GOOD

HEAD

[editer]

My last shop had jump heds with a one- or two-word bold lead-in. That made each individual jump easy to spot and also offers that second entry point. Seemed to me like the best way to go.

[Peter Fisk]

We use jump heads, but like you, I believe a jump word is fine. By the way, I'm still not sure why we have so many jumps. For me to read a jumped story entirely through, it's going to have to be some amazing piece of work. "Can't this hold to the front?" -- Let's all start saying this more.

-- A lot more stories could hold to the front if copy eds were authorized to lop those insipid "anecdotal ledes" off the top. ... Just do a search for "not alone" and highlight that whole sentence, then delete everything from there back to and including whatever comes right after the dateline. (More than likely, the first two words of this whole portion that you're deleting will be "Call it.")

-- As to the question of jump hed vs. jump word, there's no doubt that a simple jump word or two is generally a lot more sensible than writing a jump hed. It's a waste of time and space to write another headline -- the reader is already into the story; there's no reason to "sell" the jump type. If the Page One type didn't "sell" the jump, forget about it. At my last paper, in addition to a common-sense jump word, the copy desk had to write a "jump sentence" that went at the end of the front-page type to supposedly pique the reader's interest and give a preview of what happens in the jump type. This was, of course, hogwash. All it did was interrupt the readers' concentration at the very moment when they needed to hold a suspended thought as they went to the jump.

[editer]

-- As to the question of jump hed vs. jump word, there's no doubt that a simple jump word or two is generally a lot more sensible than writing a jump hed. It's a waste of time and space to write another headline -- the reader is already into the story; there's no reason to "sell" the jump type. If the Page One type didn't "sell" the jump, forget about it.

You're ignoring how many people (myself included) actually read the paper. I frequently follow a jump inside and then notice a jump hed that gets me interested in a story I had overlooked or dismissed on the cover.

It's easy to say the 1A portion should draw every reader in, but unless your copy desk is superhumanly perfect (I've never worked on such a one; maybe you've had better luck) it won't always work in practice. A jump hed gives you two bites at the apple.

[Peter Fisk]

For me, very few jump heds can get me into a story that I passed over on the cover. If a jump hed does succeed at that, there's probably something wrong with the display type on the cover. On the other hand, an engaging, informative photo or graphic on the jump might draw me to "enter" there if that visual approach is able to convey ideas better, or at least differently, than the cover headline could.

There's also an inherent dilemma in writing a full jump hed: Should it restate the hed that's on the cover, or focus on some other element(s) yet to come in story? As a reader, I find either option somewhat annoying. When I turn to find the jump type and have to read a whole new long headline, my reaction is either "Yeah, no shit, I'm already reading the story, remember? You don't have to tell me all over again what it's about!" or "Hey, this headline doesn't sound like the story I was reading -- where's the jump I was looking for? -- did I turn to the right page? Is this just a sidebar to the story I was reading?"

Then again -- shhh, don't tell anyone -- I rarely read print newspapers anymore anyway. Nowadays I go to the jump by clicking "next."

[dfisher]

I was judging a contest a couple of years ago, it was from Alabama or Arkansas I think, and ran across a paper that jumped its stories:

"Story 1"
"Story 2"
"Story 3"

etc.

A little too sterile for my tastes, and it brought a good laugh around the room.

But I have a section in my "editing to be reader friendly" seminar where I deal with jump words. Too often, I see jump words that make the readers have to stop just a second to make the connection. If the headline is "3 die in fire" (assume for a second that it's an apartment fire), then make the jump word(s) "Fire" or "3 die." Avoid things like "Apartments."

"Apartments" is likely to have been mentioned in the story, but my theory is that the reader keeps that headline "flag" at the front of consciousness and is more likely to look for that on the jump.

I've run a little experiment a couple of times with similar pages, one with "good" jump words and one with poor ones, and invariably it takes longer for people to find the stories with the poor ones. Sure, it's just a tad longer, but these days everything helps. Someday I may have time and figure out how to formalize that experiment so it's publishable. For now, it's just anecdotal.

Chrs,
Fish

[Wayne Countryman]

There's also an inherent dilemma in writing a full jump hed: Should it restate the hed that's on the cover, or focus on some other element(s) yet to come in story? As a reader, I find either option somewhat annoying. When I turn to find the jump type and have to read a whole new long headline, my reaction is either "Yeah, no shit, I'm already reading the story, remember? You don't have to tell me all over again what it's about!" or "Hey, this headline doesn't sound like the story I was reading -- where's the jump I was looking for? -- did I turn to the right page? Is this just a sidebar to the story I was reading?"

Agreed.

Wandering off topic:
Long ago, I used the jump word "Jump" for a story about jumping (I have no recollection about the story's content other than that it wasn't about skydiving.) It was the obvious and best word to use. I'm sure our readers had no problem with this.

The composing room panicked, though. The computer system was programmed to insert "Jump" as our placeholder for all jump words, so the printers decided I'd forgotten to insert a substitute. Arguing on the phone didn't convince them. The harried makeup editor was baffled. I had to run to the shop to settle the mess.

Still, I prefer using jump words to trying to fashion full jump heds.

[JennB]

We use jump heads. It's probably one of the worst things about jumping a story. We're required to take a tidbit out of the jump copy to use for the head. More often than not, the headline turns into a contorted mess in an effort to fit it into the space. I look at it at as another opportunity to have typos or innaccurate information. Why risk having a hastily written jump head, just to have something there?

The only defense I have comes from a session at the Miami conference, "Inside Readers' Heads." One of the panelists said if a jump head looks interesting, he'll start reading the jump. If that part's interesting, he'll go back to Page 1 and read the rest of the story. I'm not sure if he's in the majority, but I suppose full headlines can't hurt -- other than taking up valuable space.

[Gerri Berendzen]

Interesting conversation. We've always just used one word, but we're launching a redesign Monday that has full heads with a bold intro jump word.

It may be more work, but I do think it serves the reader better.

[Jim Thomsen]

It will if your copy editors are up to the challenge of making them compelling enough. What guidelines can/should they be given?

[Gerri Berendzen]

That's a good question. I'm not sure it's fleshed out enough.
Our design style book says: "Key word should be followed by a colon and a secondary headline that relates to information on the jump page."
I want to expand on that for stylebook V1.2, but at this point, just getting the design stylebook done in time has been a concern. So we're planning a quick update.
However, the desk has been told that copy editors can't repeat the idea of the main headline (although they can repeat a key word in addition to the "jump" word), and that the only limit on size, in terms of columns and decks, is to keep it consistent with the size of the jump. (We try not to have jumps shorter than 6 inches. Why not cut to fit, then.)
So a 12-inch, 1 column jump could have a 3 deck headline.
I have to say that compared to how our old jumps pages were, the look with a jump head is much better. We did a focus group and several people said they liked the additional information.

[Gerri Berendzen]

I was re-reading all the posts and noticed the first one said jump words limit the chance for error.

I'm not sure I agree. I can't tell you the number of times we've had to remake because a headline lost a word in a rewrite, the jump word was changed on 1A, but then didn't get changed on the jump page.

Plus, I'll offer another negative for having only jump words — if you have a couple of long jumps on one page, the only thing holding that page together, headline-wise, is 2 words. Even under our old style of jump words only, I've starting writing secondary heads for jumps of any length.

[Jim Thomsen]

What should be the length cutoff point here? Is a jump hed for, say, a 6-inch jump just too unwieldy? At what point should it be just a keyword?