News-savvy English nerds, editors and people who have read a newspaper can relate to one another when faced with one problem-filled component of newsprint - the headline.

Traditionally, a short description of an event has been used to indicate the contents of a particular news article. But now with the increased popularity of news, the creation of things such as CNN Headline News, and even Internet-based news services, headlines have become incredibly stupid.

I believe all news print services should band together and eliminate headlines from their publications. This would benefit both the reader and the publisher. First, the reader would no longer be bothered with the convenience of being able to quickly scan the publication for news and information which is relevant to them, but would instead have the luxury of reading every article to determine its importance.

But until the Detroit Free Press and The New York Times make this great leap forward, I urge individual journalists of, say, The State News, to cease the inclusion of these unnecessary titles which do little other than make bad puns using the letter ‘U’. You must agree, this is insane.

Yet this is effectively what Kevin Hardy suggested in his column (“Please read: Don’t include subjects with e-mails,” SN 12/1). His article suggests subject lines in e-mail are useless, and bases his argument around subjects such as “Hello” and “You’re going to love this.” Perhaps this would be true if the only purpose of Hardy’s e-mail account is personal correspondence. For example, using it to talk about who is dating whom, and what’s going on this weekend. However, there are many people who use electronic mail to communicate essential information about daily business and school work, including myself. Take for example, the following subject line: “jfw@msu.edu, ISS 330BFEEDBACK ON TEST 08FILE.”

Without this subject line, I would have no indication who jfw@msu.edu is, as I never have written to this address, and I would not take the time to look up the address. However, with the subject line included, I am instantly made aware it is from my Integrative Studies in Social Sciences professor, and in fact contains reasonably important information regarding my latest ISS exam or quiz.

Seeing this, Hardy might make the argument that only your normal day-to-day e-mail with people simply saying hello should follow his suggestion. But then how am I to know what is in a message as it sits among the 10 or so electronic messages I receive daily? Lacking the subject line, I am forced to open the message in order to determine if my trip out of town with a friend has been canceled, or if the same friend decided to forward me a chain letter promising to bring me true love.

And more, how am I to find the message again? I routinely search through my past e-mail to find things such as test scores, e-mail addresses, phone numbers, and even the occasional forwarded message.

Finally, I would like to make a short counterpoint to the bold print in the center of Hardy’s column, you might say it was the second headline. It states, “As e-mail becomes a common part of everyday life, subject lines have become redundant and rarely funny.”

In my view, the increased use of electronic mail does not throw the subject line into a state of uselessness. Instead, it becomes all the more important as a tool to filter through the increasing flow of information presented to people living in the computer age.

Scott Yellig
computer engineering sophomore