Should you begin Helium articles by repeating the article's title?

No

9 of 58

by Charles Bobbitt

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When I first stumbled upon the controversy of whether to repeat the title at the start of a Helium article, I thought the issue too trivial to comment on. I don't agree with repeating the titles, mind you. I think it's a waste of my time as a reader. Still, the titles are usually short, and so repeating one only wastes a small amount of my time. It's nothing I lose sleep over.

But as I thought more about the issue, I realized that it is a big deal. Repeating the title doesn't simply waste a few seconds of my time. It threatens to undermine your most precious commodity as a writer: the reader's trust.

First, the reader trusts you with his time. Most people are extremely busy these days and don't have time to sit around while you hem and haw and slowly get to the point. And even those who have the time would rather not waste it watching you spin your wheels. The reader is counting on you, the writer, to get him where he needs to go as quickly as possible. If you begin by repeating yourself, the reader loses trust in you as a guide and begins to despair of the journey.

More important than time, though, is the reader's confidence that you know what you're doing. If you repeat the title, the reader wonders, "Doesn't he realize that at Helium, the title is already given?" If the reader has doubts about whether you understand the workings of the website for which you are writing, he will also begin to have doubts as to whether you really understand what you are claiming to be an authority on in your article.

The reader also trusts that you will begin by telling him what your article is about and make it clear why he should invest his time. "Aha!" say the title-repeaters. "That is exactly what we are doing."

"Aha!" say the rest of us. "That is exactly what you are not doing."

Helium has a perverse sense of humor when it comes to the relationship between articles and article titles. They advise you to keep your articles between 500 and 1500 words, and then they provide titles such as, "Casualties in World War II." If anyone can tell everything there is to know about the casualties in World War II in 1500 words or less, my hat is off to you.

More often, you as the writer have to decide what aspect of "Casualties in World War II" you are going to write about. Once you have trimmed the topic to a manageable size, you should then clearly tell the reader at the start of the article where you are heading. Don't keep him hoping and guessing through a long lead-in, only to disappoint him in the end. He will hate you for it, and will mumble curses under his breath while simultaneously rating your competition's articles as more valuable "by far."

Finally, like all good rules, the rule of not repeating the title does have an exception. There have been a few instances when I would have given good money to have had the writer repeat the title at the start of his article. These are the articles that, after I read them, leave me scratching my head and wondering: "Did the writer actually mean to submit his article under this title?"

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