by Marc Phillippe Babineau

Created on: December 10, 2007   Last Updated: June 05, 2011

Should you begin Helium articles by repeating the article's title?  Should one assume that the reader knows the title of the article?  If a publisher buys the article in question, either through Helium's Stock Content sales program or other means then the title could possibly be changed.  With a different title, the article may not reflect the information that was being given in a proper light, like if a publisher bought an article entitled "Fishing Techniques" and changed the title to "How to Catch Freshwater Sport Fish".  Totally different meanings taken from the two titles, with the content remaining the same, the reader could get confused

Should a writer begin their article with the title of the article, or simply assume that the reader is given the title, and simply continue to write on? As long as the title is copied correctly it is alright, as an amusingly large number of related articles written here at helium.com do attest that the titles are frequently not copied correctly. The act of writing the article's title at the top of the article is done with the assumption that the reader may not know the title, or to point out that the title can be interpreted differently, but that is not the question here.  The question is whether or not to include the title of the article within the opening paragraph.

However, when writing for Helium.com, the titles are always displayed above the articles when a reader reads or rates the articles. There is no need to write the title of the article above the article itself, however there is often a great advantage to including the title in the opening paragraph. The titles on Helium's articles are well researched for SEO placement, and are worded in such a way that they draw more traffic from the reading public, and thus more advertising revenue to share with the writers.  With a second title within the opening paragraph there is more SEO and therefore possibly more people reading the article as it may be placed higher in search engine results.

When writing for a renowned publisher or web site, it can pretty much be assured that two things will happen before the article is published or sold; the writer must confirm that their article conforms to the article's title and prerequisites, and also make sure that there is no flagrant plagiarism. Plagiarism is the act of copying some other writer's written words into the text of your own article without giving them credit vis-a-vis a footnote, and

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