Sep 12, 2009
The problem with call outs: They’re pointless to read but impossible not to.
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If call outs in magazines or books summarized content, they’d be helpful.
But they don’t. They just make me read stuff twice.
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© 2012 Abuyo. All rights reserved.
That is sooo true!
I do find them annoying. As someone who has been involved with publishing, I can tell you their real purpose though. They exist mostly to use up space on the page so an article can fit nicely into its allotted space.
I disagree! As a magazine journalism student, I’ve been taught that the purposes of break out text or “call outs” are three-fold:
1. To draw in the reader’s attention by catching his eye with intriguing phrases that will make him want to read the entire article.
2. To visually break up the text where art is not necessary the best fit/available. Otherwise you’d have a page of text columns that are intimidating to readers.
3. Lastly, like you said, Mark, to help the article fit in its alloted space.
I’d agree, Abraham, that to someone who is already reading, call-outs are kind of a stupid waste of time. On the other hand, they are so helpful in the aesthetics and the appeal to potential readers of the page!!!
Leah summarized it perfectly.
The callouts are to intended to turn a skimmer into a reader. They help stop someone paging through, grab their attention and get them to read the article.
Abraham, do you never page through magazines? Do you simply start at page 1 and read from cover to cover, or go to the table of contents, choose your article and read it, never paging through and stumbling upon an article you never intended to read?
The point isn’t that interesting summaries are unhelpful. The points is that call outs are not summaries; they don’t add anything to the article or book. And that redundancy is annoying, even more than the advertising.
I can’t speak for Abraham, but I exclusively use the table of contents. As a matter of fact, I really don’t enjoy magazines that much because they seem to be designed for paging through. It’s such an inefficient way to read.
You rascal. You did it to us!
Sometimes when I read the ones they choose for my stories it makes me think that the story is really dumb. Did I actually say that?
A good callout has a purpose that I respond to, however. If I’m flipping through a magazine looking for something to read and see an intriguing callout, I will read that article.
It’s kind of like a trailer for the full-text.
same for me.
ROFL! I was reading *Getting Things Done* by David Allen recently and for a book that trumpets the idea that your efficiency is directly related to your ability to eliminate distractions, it sure has a lot of call outs.
Brilliant post, Abraham.
Oh that’s so true! I always get excited to read the call out, but then I just realize that I’m gonna read it again in the main body. So disappointing.
I like them — they’re like movie previews. I get cranky when the good scene for the preview is cut from the movie!
The times I find it most annoying in books is NOT when the call-out is positioned immediately before or after the same words in the text, say at the beginning of end of a paragraph, but when the call-out is separated by literally a page or two. Seems like sloppy production/editing on the part of the publisher since I have serious doubts that the author ever writes call-outs in his/her original manuscript.
I like ‘em in magazines, not in books. In magazines, it helps me determine whether or not I want to read the full article. In books, it’s annoying: ie. I already bought your book, you don’t need to convince me to keep reading.
Agreed.
i’ve never seen one in a book. i’m thinking i don’t read enough books. #feelingstupid
(hey…why not twitterize my comments?)
I like ‘em! So there. :) I think they help to emphasize the author’s main point. And they are good as previews, too.
I hate them! I think they are distracting and redundant. Not sure what it says about me, though, that this is the post that finally compelled me to comment.
I’ve been re-reading Pilgrim’s Progress, and there must be 10 call-outs per page. Entirely distracting and greatly slows my reading.
What edition are you reading? The one I’ve read doesn’t seem to have them….
(I want to know so I can blacklist that edition ;-).)
I’m with you, Abraham.
I would like them if they were used to say a main point of the page in a different way. I need a lot of “in other words…”
Those things drive me nuts!
I’m with Megan.
So true… although from the writer/designer’s perspective it can encourage you to read the rest of the text.
I’ve mostly noticed them in magazines, where they’re at least bearable. In books, there is in my (exceedingly humble) opinion absolutely no place for them.
On the whole, though, I find them irritating, because I’m a thorough (and fast) reader and so they help me not in the slightest.
I can’t tell you how much it means to me to hear someone else say that!
My problem is that I know the “call-out” is just an excerpt from the story, and I know I really dislike re-reading what I’ve read two minutes ago in the strategically placed little box, but I somehow can’t keep myself from reading them.
Exactly, Stephanie G. They’re frustratingly redundant, yet I’m compelled to read them… I can’t seem to help myself, despite knowing full well that I just read the same sentence in the main text of the article.
Are “callouts” a sales tool? The casual newstand browser might buy a magazine after a callout got his attention.
I’m seeing them more and more often in books, appearing a paragraph or two after the text they quote verbatim. If you need to fill space, a summary or section heading would be more useful to me.
Am I the only one who looks at the cover of a magazine, finds an interesting article, and can’t find the same article in the table of contents, or sometimes in the whole magazine because the cover gave it a different, usually more sensational, title? Even when I find the article inside, the cover description or title was usually stretching the truth a bit.
My wife tears out all the ads that don’t have articles on the other side of the page before she gives me the magazine. I love that girl!
I don’t know… I kind of like them. With the right author, that is. In some books, literally all the substance is contained in the callouts. In those books, callouts save me the trouble of trying to read the whole thing.
Thanks for letting me know I’m not alone in thinking that call outs serve no purpose.
CALL OUTS = DOOOOOOOM. I HATE TEM!
Those things get on my nerves slightly too. They’re used… very generously in Reader’s Digest.
I try SO HARD not to read them, but I always do.