Talk:Patient under evaluation with Ebola-like symptoms in Washington D.C.

Latest comment: 10 years ago by Sam.gov in topic Headline

Headline

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A newspaper editor I used to know remarked that headlines are the hardest part of the job.

  • The original headline ("Case of Ebola virus in DC area"), besides not being a sentence, was apparently technically wrong since the case has not, as best I can tell, been confirmed as Ebola.
  • My first rename ("Possible Ebola case under evaluation in D.C. area") was technically correct but still seemed alarmist.
  • One way to be less alarmist in an article like this would be to change the focus. One of the source articles does this by making the focus the case that was determined not to be Ebola, and mentioning later the one that's still under evaluation. Alternatively one could make the focus both cases, and say that one has been determined not to be Ebola while the other is still under evaluation. These would be major changes to the article, though, and are therefore not open to me as a reviewer.

I'm now trying to devise a headline using the phrase "Ebola-like symptoms" without getting too similar to the Washington Post headline. --Pi zero (talk) 13:27, 4 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

What I came up with, "Patient under evaluation with Ebola-like symptoms in D.C. area", is mildly long/complicated, but I'm thinking it's tolerable. --Pi zero (talk) 13:37, 4 October 2014 (UTC)Reply
And, yet another tweak: The focus here is a case in DC itself, not just in the DC area — and international readers might not know what "D.C." is, so best to spell out "Washington D.C.". --Pi zero (talk) 14:37, 4 October 2014 (UTC)Reply
Thanks. Sam.gov (talk) 02:10, 6 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

Review of revision 2932848 [Passed]

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