Cutline Tips

Cutlines

• Clarity and accuracy are key

• Need to gather enough information from the scene

• If at first you don’t succeed, try try again (rewrites are your friend)

(Noun) (verb) (direct object) during (proper event name) at (proper noun location) in (city) on (day of the week), (month) (date), (year). Why or How.

Who is in the photo

What are they doing

When and where

How (was the photo staged in any way?  was a long exposure used to make a motion blur? is there a special effect involved in the photo?)

Why did the event occur?

Avoid unnecessary adjectives, adverbs and commentary (“Jill Smith makes an excellent play at home plate as she quickly tags out Katie Johnson, who ran too slowly.” -- instead: “Jill Smith tags out Katie Johnson in a close play at home plate.”)

"The city council votes to ban smoking in bars Wednesday."

"The city council votes Wednesday to ban smoking in bars."

• Always identify main people in photo

• Use present tense for describing the scene.  Use past tense for additional information that happened in the past.

• Avoid telling reader what they can see for themselves in the caption

• Don’t try to read people’s (or animal’s) minds

• Write your own captions

• Usually no more than two sentences (but this rule can be broken if more information is needed).

• Avoid "is shown," "is pictured," and "looks on"

• Use identifiers: "in the red jacket," "holding the shovel," etc. or simply "left," "right," "center"

• Use commas when identifying:  "Fran Francis, middle, cheers as..."

• Interesting quotes can spice up your captions

• Don't use cliches

• For newspapers, AP (Associated Press) style is followed

• Watch your spelling!