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Titles and Expectations
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I just watched a video called "Religions and Babies" on TED. Since I believe that religions have nothing to do with how much the birthrates are, I wanted to hear some opposing opinions. However, the TED speaker said, in the last 1/3 of the presentation, that religions and birthrates have no relation to each other. D:
I was ready to be blown away, you know. I thought the title was very misleading. (^_^; )
I started working part time for a Japanese website on overseas dramas (mostly American). I edit news stories and pictures. So, I'm learning how to title news stories so they get more views.
Sometimes you should choose a dramatic title to interest the readers. Sometimes the content will not be what everyone would think it is. It'll surprise the readers. But in this case on TED, I didn't like the content because it was just about what I've always thought. It didn't meet my expectation.
Expectation is a difficult thing to deal with. Although you want some good expectations at least a little bit, higher expectations don't always lead better results. The more people want from you, the more chances they'll think you're not good enough.
I realized while I was shopping on Kakaku.com, that the less a product costs, the more people give 5 stars even in the quality section. They give stars because the product was better than they thought.
Let's get back to the titling topic. I think we should make titles that are interesting enough for people to take a look, yet not too interesting for them to expect something better or totally different.
So here's my current list for titling things based on the expectation point of view.
1. Get creative and select words that capture people's eyes.
2. Don't make it seem like the opposite.
3. The content should be as interesting as the title.
If you have something to add on this list, leave it in your comment. :) I would love to learn some good ways to title things!
Thanks for reading as always. My entries tend to get longer than I plan to write. Oh, by the way, I took the TOEIC today. I answered the right questions this time! :p I hope to get over 900~☆
I was ready to be blown away, you know. I thought the title was very misleading. (^_^; )
I started working part time for a Japanese website on overseas dramas (mostly American). I edit news stories and pictures. So, I'm learning how to title news stories so they get more views.
Sometimes you should choose a dramatic title to interest the readers. Sometimes the content will not be what everyone would think it is. It'll surprise the readers. But in this case on TED, I didn't like the content because it was just about what I've always thought. It didn't meet my expectation.
Expectation is a difficult thing to deal with. Although you want some good expectations at least a little bit, higher expectations don't always lead better results. The more people want from you, the more chances they'll think you're not good enough.
I realized while I was shopping on Kakaku.com, that the less a product costs, the more people give 5 stars even in the quality section. They give stars because the product was better than they thought.
Let's get back to the titling topic. I think we should make titles that are interesting enough for people to take a look, yet not too interesting for them to expect something better or totally different.
So here's my current list for titling things based on the expectation point of view.
1. Get creative and select words that capture people's eyes.
2. Don't make it seem like the opposite.
3. The content should be as interesting as the title.
If you have something to add on this list, leave it in your comment. :) I would love to learn some good ways to title things!
Thanks for reading as always. My entries tend to get longer than I plan to write. Oh, by the way, I took the TOEIC today. I answered the right questions this time! :p I hope to get over 900~☆
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Since I believe that religions have nothing to do with how much the birthrates are, I wanted to hear some opposing opinions.
This sentence feels...off. But I can't put my finger on how to change it to make it feel right. Sorry! =(
Although you want some good expectations at least a little bit, higher expectations don't always lead to better results.
com that the less a product costs, the more people give 5 stars even in the quality section.
Since I hold the belief that religion has nothing to do with birthrates, I was hoping to hear an opposing opinion/ an argument that would surprise me.
Let's get back to the topic of titling.
for some reason we don't say titling topic. actually the reason is this. "topic of..." is a set phrase. we don't say karate topic we say topic of karate. we don't say cooking topic we say topic of cooking etc....
I watched the talk, and I thought he used his research to suite his particular argument. In NYC, where I live, if you go into a very religious community, you often see huge families. For instance, in orthodox jewish neighborhoods, i often see families with more than 5 kids. This is obviously a reflection of the religious belief held by that group. But i do believe that education of women is the best tool to fight poverty and population growth.
It's really rare to see a really religious, big family in Japan. (religious people are rare, big families are rare, there's no relation between them)
You made me realize that I didn't get what the speaker was really discussing.
Maybe that's why this entry got few corrections/comments? :(
Thanks for the comment though. I appreciate it :)
another point though- in buddhism it does not advocate big families or having kids- so if you are really religious in japan it would not mean that you want to have a lot of kids of course.
But to be more accurate, I would say the majority of Japanese people say they are "non-religious (無宗教)" which means they don't take part in a specific religion, yet somehow a lot of them believe in the existence of spiritual power and do rituals of multiple religions.
http://kotonoha.cc/no/218030
It's funny to see how people are so unsure about their own religions XD
I find it more interesting that religions like Judaism and Christianity have their own point of view toward things like having babies. Like you said, being religious in Japan doesn't mean you want to have a lot of kids.
Now I remember, the last time you corrected my entry we talked about religions in Japan.
I like how you are interested in other religions overseas :)
Interesting discussion! In South Africa also (like NYC) I would say there is a very very strong correlation between religion and the sizes of a families. So ok, we can argue that this (big families) is a cultural side-effect, but to me culture and religion is so closely intertwined. In first world countries like USA and Japan maybe having a big family might be fine, but in third world countries this is bad. Common sense must counter a desire to have too many children. The financial effects otherwise can be disastrous.
Japanese government is trying to raise the birthrates because we see that in the future it's going to be really hard for younger generation to financially take care of the elderly.
I learned that whether or not religions reflect the size of families really depends on the type of religion (and the specific branches of the religions.)
I love learning about other cultures and knowing how biased my perspective is XD
--> That was so interesting to me when I first read it somewhere. It's almost a little counter intuitive as first, but makes sense if you think about it. Japan is so interesting to me in a financial sense.
I love learning about other cultures and knowing how biased my perspective is XD
--> I feel exactly the same way. I often make assumptions where my research is lacking, which is wrong obviously.
There are some interesting ideas in this entry!
What did you think was the most interesting?
No one has commented on them, so I'm really glad. lol
Since I believe that (world) religions have nothing to do with how much the birthrates are the prevailing birthrates, I wanted to hear some opposing opinions.
I started working part time for a Japanese website (that focuses) on overseas dramas (mostly American).
Sometimes the content will not be what everyone would (probably go with "might") think it is.
But in this case on with TED, I didn't like the content because it was just about what I've always thought.
Although you want some good expectations, at least a little bit, higher expectations don't always lead to better results.
The more people want from you, the more chances likely they'll think you're not good enough.
com, that the less a product costs, the more people give 5 stars even in the quality section.
Let's get back to the titling topic.
Don't make it seem like the opposite (of what it really is).
:p I hope to get over 900~☆
You'd better!
When it comes to religion and the size of the family, I need not look further than my own family to see that there might be a strong correlation between the two. My parents are strict Catholics, so they don't believe in birth control, so they ended up with seven children. Actually, I think the real argument lies in types of religion and size of family, since some religions allow birth control while other religions are not so permissive.
As for choosing titles, yes the titles should avoid being misleading, and it's really an art form to think of a title that strikes the right balance between sensationalism and truthfulness. Saying that, if the program you watched is titled "Religion and Babies" and it did indeed talk about the relationship between religiosity and family sizes, then I don't honestly see how that title is misleading irrespective of whatever conclusions the program made. The program endeavored to give answers pertaining to that issue, didn't it? However, if the title said "Religious People Pop Out More Babies Than Atheists" or something of that nature, then I think you have a right to complain, lol
I agree with you that the argument lies in types of religion and size of family. I wasn't sure about how major religions here (Buddhism and Shintoism) say about birth control, so I googled it. The only thing I got was Buddhism teaches to not kill people, and Shintoism doesn't even have books XD
The reason I thought the title was misleading was because I didn't have the conception about the relation between religions and the size of families.
For example, if you see a presentation called "eating utensils and confidence," you might think it would be amazing if there's a correlation between them. If the conclusion was "there isn't any," then you would get disappointed because that's how you know. To me as a Japanese person, religions and family sizes seems that unrelated.
Yeah, now I know I assumed differently than others, but I hope you know why I did.
But you're right, if one sees that title, it would be VERY reasonable for someone to assume that they are reporting some kind of positive correlation between religion and babies, or at least some important information on that topic.
Oh, and about what it's like being the oldest brother of all those kids, there are many days where I wish I was the only child. But at least you are never alone, lol.
Haha you wished you were the only child? XD I have a younger sister and she was extremely annoying as a kid, but I never wished I were the only child.
Never being alone seems nice ^^
タイトルって超重要だよね。
Lang8でもさ、「English Practice 1-12」みたいなタイトルの日記って、
見事にスルーされまくってるもんねｗ
その点ようちんの日記はクリックしたくなるタイトルが多いよね！^o^
さすがだなーって思う！
Your English is very good! Hopefully, I will be able to beat the others next time and be able to correct T 0T/
I'll be very happy if you correct my entry, or just leave a comment^^
Tsukiちゃん♪
うんうん。タイトルって重要だね☆
私は時々、エントリーを書き終わってから最後にタイトルを決める事もあるよ。笑
わぁ〜TOEIC受けたんだね〜♪
結果が楽しみだね〜^^ 目指せ満点！でしょ？(・∀・)
私はまだ一度も受けた事がない…^^; けどいつか受けてみよう〜って思ってます。
私もそれよくやる〜。最初あんまり何書くかはっきりしてないこともあるから(^_^; )
TOEIC… 手応え的に満点はないな〜と思う☆
まぁマークシートだからミラクルが発生する可能性もある（笑）
TOEICはビジネスの単語とか言い回しが多いから、
受ける前に模試を買って解いてみると感覚つかみやすいよ^^
yea, it's like, if you make the title "oops, here are some leaked nude pics of me～", the Internet traffic to your journal will crash the whole lang-8 site! But if your journal reads "Now that I've got your attention, let's discuss the poverty in Africa...", your readers will feel cheated if the title isn't relevant to the content, and might not come back to your site, and they might cry and die in sorrow. Sorry about the example, I got cheated like that once, I mean my friend got cheated like that once xD
I'm sure they wouldn't cry and die in sorrow! XD
Too bad your friend got cheated like that once :p