Wikinews:Title selection advice

The title of a news article is extremely important, and one of the key pieces of information that allows a reader to decide to read an article — two key reasons for this would be that the title indicates it is relevant to an issue they are interested in, or gives a less-clear indication of the content while piquing curiosity as to content.

The key rules for an article title are detailed in the style guide; below are the most common mistakes.

• Failure to use downstyle: "The Quick Brown Dog" is wrong; "The quick brown dog" is per WN:SG.
• Disregard for international audience; eg, story from obscure town/city without the country mentioned.

An article's title is not just a dull, dry set of relevant facts. Depending on the seriousness of the content, some creativity should be applied. References to details that might not be within the actual article can be one approach; a story may parallel details of a culturally significant item such as a book or film. Alliteration can be a good approach for creating a memorable title.