There are several criteria for good caption writing. A good caption clearly identifies the subject of the picture, without detailing the obvious.
Complete caption information in sentence form, including; who, what, when, where, why.
Captions should be:
- -succinct and brief.
- -establish the picture's relevance to the article, or assignment.
- -provides context for the picture.
- -draws the reader into the article.
Some people start at the top and read each word until the end. Others read the first paragraph and scan through for other interesting information, looking especially at pictures and captions.
People read articles different ways.
For those readers, even if the information is adjacent in the text, they will not find it unless it is in the caption — but do not tell the whole story in the caption — use the caption to make the reader curious about the subject.
Another way of approaching the job: imagine you're giving a lecture based on the encyclopaedia article, and you are using the image to illustrate the lecture. What would you say while attention is on the image? What do you want your audience to notice in the image, and why? Corollary: if you have got nothing to say, then the image probably does not belong in the article.
HOW TO COMPLETE A CAPTION IN THIS CLASS:
A caption must accompany EVERY photo submitted in this course. If a caption is omitted, automatically points will be deducted from your grade.
Caption photo in Adobe Photoshop: (file> file info> description> write in caption field
Always follow this outline:
CITY,STATE PHOTO WAS TAKEN DATE TAKEN ASSIGNMENT #01/TOPIC OF PHOTO ASSIGNMENT: Complete caption information in sentence form, including; who, what, when, where, why. -photo by First Name Last Name
EXAMPLE:
MAHWAH,NJ 02/12/05 ASSIGNMENT #01 RAMAPO COLLEGE NAMES NEW PRESIDENT: Ramapo College announced today that Buford T. Randal will become the next college president. Bill Jones, the acting president, made the announcement at a luncheon held in the college library today. Randal will be sworn-in on March 1, 2005.
-photo by Joseph F. Smith / Associated Press
