HOW TO FRAME A TITLE.  The application of the general principles governing titles may best be shown by means of an article for which a title is desired.  A writer, for example, has prepared a popular article on soil analysis as a means of determining what chemical elements different kinds of farm land need to be most productive.  A simple label title like “The Value of Soil Analysis,” obviously would not attract the average person, and probably would interest only the more enterprising of farmers.  The analysis of soil not unnaturally suggests the diagnosis of human disease; and the remedying of worn-out, run-down farm land by applying such chemicals as phosphorus and lime, is analogous to the physician’s prescription of tonics for a run-down, anaemic person.  These ideas may readily be worked out as the following titles show: 

                    (1)
        PRESCRIBING FOR RUN-DOWN LAND
What the Soil Doctor is Doing to Improve Our Farms

                    (2)
       THE SOIL DOCTOR AND HIS TONICS
   Prescribing Remedies for Worn-Out Farm Land

                    (3)
        DIAGNOSING ILLS OF THE SOIL
Science Offers Remedies for Depleted Farms

Other figurative titles like the following may be developed without much effort from the ideas that soil “gets tired,” “wears out,” and “needs to be fed”: 

(1)
WHEN FARM LAND GETS TIRED
Scientists Find Causes of Exhausted Fields

(2)
FIELDS WON’T WEAR OUT
If the Warnings of Soil Experts Are Heeded

(3)
BALANCED RATIONS FOR THE SOIL
Why the Feeding of Farm Land is Necessary for Good Crops

CHAPTER X

PREPARING AND SELLING THE MANUSCRIPT

IMPORTANCE OF GOOD MANUSCRIPT.  After an article has been carefully revised, it is ready to be copied in the form in which it will be submitted to editors.  Because hundreds of contributions are examined every day in editorial offices of large publications, manuscripts should be submitted in such form that their merits can be ascertained as easily and as quickly as possible.  A neatly and carefully prepared manuscript is likely to receive more favorable consideration than a badly typed one.  The impression produced by the external appearance of a manuscript as it comes to an editor’s table is comparable to that made by the personal appearance of an applicant for a position as he enters an office seeking employment.  In copying his article, therefore, a writer should keep in mind the impression that it will make in the editorial office.

FORM FOR MANUSCRIPTS.  Editors expect all manuscripts to be submitted in typewritten form.  Every person who aspires to write for publication should learn to use a typewriter.  Until he has learned to type his work accurately, he must have a good typist copy it for him.

A good typewriter with clean type and a fresh, black, non-copying ribbon produces the best results.  The following elementary directions apply to the preparation of all manuscripts:  (1) write on only one side of the paper; (2) allow a margin of about three quarters of an inch on all sides of the page; (3) double space the lines in order to leave room for changes, sub-heads, and other editing.