—CAPTION CH 2

 

Caption text is a short text that is used to complete an image. Caption text appears usually under pictures, photos, graphics, posters and even tables. The short text serves to describe what is in the image. Captions are usually also used to emphasize the content of an article, essay or report. Gramedia has a book entitled Kick Sakti Copywriting on Twitter, Facebook and Blogs written by Jubilee Enterprise, in this book you will be taught to write captions, tweets, statuses, headlines, and much more effectively and efficiently.

In writing captions, it is very important to choose words that can make the reader interested in seeing the content of the article, essay or report. Therefore, copywriting is very important, especially in social media. Captions can also come in two languages, one in the mother tongue and the second in a second language. For example Indonesian and English. If you view an image without captions, it may feel like watching something without hearing the sound. We cannot know what the picture is trying to convey, so we can only interpret the meaning of the picture ourselves. All caption text has at least two sentences. The first sentence is present tense and explains what is happening in the picture by answering 5W (what, when, where, why, who).

The second sentence is the past tense or past tense and describes the background or situation behind the picture. In addition, write down as much information as possible and do not write information that is not clear. The focus is on telling stories and providing readers with new and interesting information.

The third sentence should be a quote that completes the story in the picture. Many readers like it because it makes each image unique. Quotes can come from the person in the picture, a witness, or a person involved in activities with that person.

Types of Caption Text

1. Identification Caption text of this type is usually used to describe or identify everyone in the photo, but does not explain a story. The focus on this type of identification text caption is on clarity. 2. Group Caption Group Caption is usually used to describe many images. This caption should have at least two sentences per image and include a quote whenever possible. The group caption must be clear about which image each caption describes. 3. Story-Telling Caption Story-telling captions are the ideal type of caption and can be used whenever possible. This type of caption will tell a story behind the image. Using this type of caption will usually be more interesting to read.

4. Summary For the type of caption summary, it usually contains an explanation of the subject in the picture, the activities carried out in the picture, the time of the incident, the location of the incident and the reason why the activity was carried out. 5. Quote Quote caption means containing a quote from someone in the picture. 6. Cutline Caption The cutline type is the most commonly found in pictures and writings printed on newspapers and media, both offline and online. The caption cutline describes the subject in the image and what the subject is doing. 7. Expanded type of expanded caption is the type of caption that has the most complete information. In accordance with the name of the type, this expanded caption text is a development of the previous text, especially from the summary caption.

Linguistic Elements of Caption Text Caption text in English can actually be written using any sentence, but it is better for caption text to be written in simple present tense sentences. This is because simple present tense sentences are easier for readers to understand, so the message will be easily conveyed. Generic Structure Caption Text Caption text, although it is a very short type of text, also has a generic structure as in other texts. Here is the generic structure of caption text.

Title

Lead

Section heading

Language Features of Captions There are several linguistic features that are usually used in captions, including: 

prepositional phrasesinfinitive -phrasesparticipial phrasesadjective phrasesquestionsexclamationsHow to Write Caption?Observe the selected photo or video (Observe the selected photo or video)Find out the message from the picture (Search for the message you want to convey from the picture)Write concise phrase or sentence under the picture ( Write a phrase or sentence under the picture) A Note to Remember There are several things you need to remember when you want to make a caption, including the following: Avoid using articles: a, an, or the. Use present tense. Captions provide explanations that are not found in pictures. Captions are complementary to pictures, not substitutes for pictures. No need to start with name. No need to add something obvious, such as: pictured here, above. May state name if it is really necessary.Types of Captions There are several captions that are commonly used and some of them are as follows: