How to Title an Essay
Do you ever imagine how it would be to build a beautiful school and equip it with all the necessary facilities, and then making a bill board with “A church” written on it? Now someone in search of a good school would never find out you’ve got one as you have named it wrongly. So is the same as giving your essay a poor title. The title of your essay is the first part that is seen and how good that is will determine if someone will even be interested in reading your work at all, not talk of giving it a good review. Many students and even professional writers are often faced with this problem: How do I title my essay correctly? Which title is the best for my work? I am going to give you basic tips on how to solve this common problem and find the best titles for your essays. What makes a title a good title? The first thing to consider is what are the qualities that make your title a good one?
Here are some of the most important ones:
• Interesting – A good title should be structured in such a way that it makes people want to read your essay. Your professor should find your title intriguing and have the impression that he’s about to read a good piece and not some boring stuff.
• Accurate – It should always give the readers a comprehensible and exact idea of what your essay is about and not mislead in any way. Don’t be the school owner with “A church” in front of his building.
• Brief – Your title should be straight to the point and not contain irrelevant ideas that may end up not being the main idea that your essay is conveying.
• Simple – Your title should not contain complex words or phrases just because you are trying to be smart. The more the complexity, the more even your professor loses interest. Now that you have an idea of what would make your title a good one. How do you implement this when structuring your title? Let’s start with the first point: interesting;
• How do you make your title interesting?
Use catchy phrases. Imagine two of your friends want to tell you about something and they meet you and one says “I want to narrate something to you”, and the other says “You wouldn’t believe what happened yesterday!”, it is only obvious that you would want to listen to the second friend first, if at all you’re going to listen to the first friend. That is because his first phrase caught your attention; in that same manner should your title catch attention. What you need to do is study the tone of your essay, if it is a straightforward, academic essay, then your title may not be too humorous but you will still a find a way to make it not boring, for instance you are writing about World War II and how Hitler was defeated, you may not title it “World War II and How Hitler Was Defeated” but may rather go for something like “World War II: The Rise and Fall of a Tyrant”, this adds a bit of more intrigue to it while you are conveying the idea of the essay. If on the other hand it is a free form, narrative essay, then it could take a less serious form. An essay on Muhammad Ali for instance could have a title “The Man Who Stung like a Bee”, from one of his popular quotes. Now that you have an idea on how your title could be interesting;
• How do you make it accurate?
Here I have to make it clear if you don’t already know that if you are writing an essay in which you have to come up with the title yourself, to have the best title for your work, you should write the essay first. Many people make the mistake of writing a fixed title for their work before even writing and eventually they end up with an essay whose title does not really express the main idea of their essay. For you to be sure that your title is accurate, now you know the basic step: First, complete your essay. After that, study your introduction and conclusion and pick keywords from them. Of course conventionally, the general ideas of your essay are contained in the introduction and your conclusion sums up your thought or final stand on the matter. So the keywords you used in expressing yourself in your introduction and conclusion will give you relatively the most accurate words to have in your title. For instance, in the introduction of your essay on the siege of Leningrad, you wrote something like “The most terrible period in the history of Leningrad is the period of the siege…” With keywords like “terrible”, “period” and “history” in your introduction, you can come up with a title like “The siege of Leningrad: An unforgettable Moment in History”. Now notice that the words ‘terrible’ and ‘period’ did not have to be necessarily used directly there but we came up with another way to express this. That is where your creativity and range of vocabulary as a student will have to come into play. Make your professor grab a bottle of cola and nod in admiration and agreement as he reads your essay. Now you can make your title as interesting and accurate as possible.
• How do you make it brief? I will tell you the major method to make your title as brief as it can be without containing irrelevant information. Summarize your work. Carefully summarize your work in few sentences. Then from these sentences come up with just three or four words to express the whole idea conveyed. After you’ve successfully done this, congratulations, you have your brief title! It is now left to connect these words together and your title is almost ready. An essay about the siege of Leningrad by the Germans for instance may have it focus on mass famine, death and war survival. Therefore instead of going by the title “The Siege of Leningrad and How People Starved, Died and Survived”, your more appropriate title would be something like “Famine, Death and Survival: The Siege of Leningrad”. Note that this may not be the best of the best title for this essay, but it is way up there. You know you have to be intellectual as a student to impress your professor. Also you could be thinking that one could have just titled this “The Siege of Leningrad”, that is more brief isn’t it? Nonetheless remember the first point, your title should be interesting, captivating. Now you should not in an attempt to be too brief make your title less interesting and less intriguing.
• Making your title simple: This is the easiest of all. It is all about using simple words to express yourself. Do not use confusing idiomatic expressions or quotes in your title in an attempt to show your professor that you are smart. If your title is not straightforward enough, trust me, you will lose some marks.
Certainly now you have the knowledge on how to write that perfect title you’ve always wanted to write. The center for writing at the university of Minnesota offers a 20 tip exercise on writing a good title, you can check it here. I guarantee it will help a lot. Also if you are someone who likes to read, who of course you should be if you want to be a good writer; check the Huffpost’s 10 Great Titles for the Poet's Wish List. You will get to read the works of renowned authors and see how they came up with their titles. Now go and write the best essay title you have ever written!
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