by Mark Sheehan

Created on: August 26, 2008   Last Updated: August 27, 2008

When I was in primary school, our teachers regularly asked us to read poetry aloud before the class. You know what I mean. You feared being called up to stand in everyone's sightline because you knew your heart would race, your legs would shudder, your breathing would desert you and you'd feel dizzy from the pressure this unwanted exposure would bring.

Our teachers always tried to alleviate our suffering by introducing us (the reader) and the poem and the poet, then helping us on our way by calmly telling us to "read from the top of the page". So we would begin by naming the poem and the poet.

On one of the (luckily) rare occasions that I was asked to complete this task, I remember starting as I had been advised only to hear an exasperated, moanful cry from the back of the class: "Ah! We know that already. Jesus Miss!"

Repeating the title of an article in the first paragraph is surely the surest way to lose readers. The information is already stated and does the writer really think we are so bereft of focus that we would need reminding immediately? We don't like to be reminded of what we already know. It irritates us. It makes us feel that we're thought of as somehow intellectually inferior, like the shuddering school kid that is told to read aloud exactly what the teacher has just said aloud.

Some of those who have advocated the repeating of the title in the first paragraph have qualified their arguments by adding that a "closely worded" or "re-phrased" variation of the title should be "embedded" in the text. Well, that isn't repeating the title. It's simple writing the theme or point of the article in another way. Isn't that what we do anyway? No two paragraphs should be the same, but the point can be reiterated.

I favour anecdotes as openings because they provide a little mystery to the proceedings and the reader will continue because he or she wants to see how this story relates to the title. Be honest, when you read the first sentence of this article, didn't you wonder where I was going?

To me, that is the art of writing and the joy of reading, and the experience is lessened by diluting the effect to pander to those who might well have the attention span of a dizzy gnat. Good writing, the best writing, should strive to offer more than just a clanging attention grabber.

No. In my opinion, repeating the title is condescending at worst and unnecessary at best.

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