Includes bibliographic references and index.

Acknowledgments -- 1. Headlines: The Prime Seller of Newspapers and the Copy Editors Who Write Them -- 2. Headlines: The Door to Copy-Editing Mastery -- 3. "Counting" the Headline -- 4. Specialty Headlines -- 5. The Master Lists of Forbidden Words in Headlines -- 6. Setting Up a Work Regimen and Determining the First Word (the Subject) - and the Second (the Verb) -- 7. Headline Punctuation, Abbreviations, and the Use of Numbers and Symbols -- 8. Line Breaks, Decks, Jumps - and Second-Day Headlines -- 9. The Art of Writing Feature Headlines -- 10. Different Papers, Different Head Styles -- 11. An Overall Look at Copy Editing Today -- 12. The Editing Routine -- 13. Editing for Organization -- 14. Editing the Lead -- 15. Editing the Close and Quotes -- 16. Adds and Trims -- 17. Editing Stories Involving Numbers -- 18. Attributions, Identifications, and Second References --

19. Catching Errors in Grammar and Usage (That/Which, Who/Whom, Parallelism, Subjunctive Mood, and Other Pitfalls) -- 20. Transition Words and Forbidden Words in Text -- 21. Writing and Editing Captions -- 22. Two Safeguards for Headlines and Copy: Pursuing Accuracy and Avoiding Lawsuits -- 23. Job Hazards: Dealing with Too Many Earthquakes, Monicas, and Shootings.