Evergreen Times

It’s all over the internet, and it’s usually wrong. You’ve seen the titles, headers, and subheaders starting with “How to” and ending with a question mark, and if they don’t make you squirm, they ought to. Examples of this grammatical aberration could include:

How to train a dog?

How to improve your sales figures?

How to annoy antsy readers like me?

All of these are wrong. There is a single, rare circumstance when one might begin a question with “how to,” but these don’t fit the bill.

Of course, language changes based on the ways in which people use it. So, it’s just possible that these “questions” might eventually be seen as grammatically correct. For the time being, however, they definitely are not. Here’s why.

What “How to” Does

If you begin a phrase with “how to,” you’re usually about to explain something. In other words, you aren’t using an interrogative form of speech. 

Looking back to the examples I listed above, “how to train a dog” indicates that you’re about to explain how it’s done. 

If you really want your subhead to be a question, you’d have to rephrase it. 

How does one train a dog?

How should you train a dog?

Need tips on how to train a dog?

You might use “how to” in indirect speech, but again, there’s no question mark. For example:

He asked me how to train a dog. 

If you, and your dog, are getting confused by now, remember what “how to” headers are for. They’re directives. You’re about to tell your reader how to do something.

Use “How to” Phrases as Headers or Subheads and Never as Sentences

You can eliminate the whole “question mark after how to” debate by realising that the typical how-tos aren’t full sentences, are used as headers, and don’t need to end with punctuation.

“How should you train a dog?” Is a full sentence and deserves the punctuation mark. “How to train a dog” is a title phrase. It isn’t a question and it isn’t a full sentence. 

You aren’t asking your reader how to train a dog. You’re going to tell them. Just leave it as it is without the question mark, or any other form of punctuation at the end. 

That Rare and Beautiful Moment When You can Use “How to” and a Question Mark

It’s a moment of self-reflection. Rover has been a wicked boy despite all my efforts at teaching him to behave better and I find myself thinking: “How to train a dog? That’s the question.”

It’s a bit awkward, and I think it’s a form of questioning that you’d rarely use. I won’t give an example of how I’d ask myself how to train Rover, but if I’m sufficiently frustrated, it wouldn’t be something I should write down.  

Returning to the question of question marks, it might seem that this is all terribly academic even though I haven’t talked about verbs, nouns and whatnot. But I do think it is rather important. 

Place yourself in your readers’ shoes. They’re consuming your work in search of answers. Shoving question marks into headers so that they look like self-reflective questions for which you, yourself are seeking answers doesn’t inspire confidence. 

What Should You Do With This Information?

Just know that using a question mark for a “how to” explainer header is wrong. That’s all I ask. I’ve told clients and copy editors it’s incorrect. Nine out of ten times, they still keep the contentious question mark. That’s fine. The customer is always right even when they are wrong. 

All the same, it’s best practice to leave your “how to” subhead or header unpunctuated. Folks who just want a “how to” won’t miss the question mark.

And remember: there are people who will know that giving a directive phrase as a heading and following it with a question mark is wrong. If they’re like me, they’ll find it annoying and a bit silly. That’s not what you want for your brand. Incorrect language use affects your credibility; it really does.