Basic Principles For Essay Titles:

1. Content: Be sure to include a specific indication as to the
  2. topic and the attitude of your essay in your title. (Draw this topic and attitude from your thesis.) Form: You will want your title to be as
      brief as possible. (Never include a complete sentence in your title.) You will also want your title to be creative so that you can interest your reader in perusing your entire essay. Often using literary devices associated with poetry can help you make your title more interesting. For example, alliteration/assonance (starting multiple words in close proximity to one another with the same consonant/vowel), rhyme, allusion (using a creative variation on a well-known quote), or puns (which take advantage of the fact that two words which have sound the same or similar have very different meanings or which take advantage of the fact that a single word has two different meanings) can be effective devices to use in order to make your titles more interesting. In order to include all the needed content and also make your form creative, you may frequently have to include both a title and a subtitle.

Process for Drafting a Title:

  1. Identify Topic + Attitude: Start the process by identifying for yourself what you think the main topic and attitude of your thesis are. Do this by italicizing your topic and underlining key attitude words as has been done in the example below.
  2. Choose Creative Device: Tentatively select one of the creative devices discussed above that you think you might want to use in your title. For example, if you choose alliteration, check to see if any two of the topic/attitude words you have just underlined/italicized start with the same letter (such as music and maddening in the example below). If not, pick one of the words you"ve underlined/italicized, and see if you can think of synonyms for some of the other underlined words that start with the same letter. (In other words, choose one word that you"ve underlined, make it your...