Headlines, Subheads and Body Copy

We fol­low the Chicago Manual of Style for head­lines. The key takeaways:

• Headlines with up to five words should be title case with no end punctuation.
  • Seriously, nev­er include a peri­od at the end of a title case headline.
• Headlines with six words or more should be sen­tence case, and punc­tu­at­ed appropriately.
  • The Hudl Blog is an excep­tion, we always used title case for blog head­lines regard­less of length.
• Always cap­i­tal­ize the first and last word of a headline.
• Don’t cap­i­tal­ize prepo­si­tions (e.g., in, on, about, below).
• Capitalize pret­ty much every­thing else, including:
  • All verbs, even short ones like is and am
  • Pronouns (e.g., it, my, our)
  • Subordinating con­junc­tions (e.g., if, that, when, so that)

A sub­head is any head­line that fol­lows under the main one. Use sen­tence case. Again, com­plete sen­tences get a peri­od, while frag­ments don’t.

Body copy is always sen­tence case with appro­pri­ate punc­tu­a­tion. Easy as that.

Check out how to write effec­tive head­lines for blog posts, modals and more.