By Tara Haelle

A headline has a big job to do: It must catch a reader’s attention, offer the gist of a story but hold back just enough so the reader wants to read the entire story — all while remaining accurate and avoiding hype.

That’s a challenge with any story, but especially tough with articles about medical research, where oversimplifying is potentially more harmful than with other types of articles.

Given how many studies covered in the news are observational — and therefore cannot show causality — precision and accuracy are particularly important for headlines about study results that may only have found an association between two things.

That’s the first suggestion in an excellent tip sheet from HealthNewsReview about writing headlines for medical research stories. Even if the headlines you file with your story are nearly always changed, it’s important to make sure they are accurate from the start to (hopefully) influence an editor’s decision. The tip sheet covers some of the most common pitfalls of sensationalistic headlines and offers alternative wording to use instead.