8 Essay Titles

So, What’s My Title?

Essay titles can take different forms.  Note the type of document (genre) is identified in the following titles:

1. Titles with subtitles

  • Coding errors: a comparative analysis of hospital and prospectively collected departmental data
  • The State and the Family: A Comparative Analysis of Family Policies in Industrialized Countries

2. Titles identifying purpose of study

  • Comparative analysis to guide quality improvements in proteomics
  • Defining risk levels in locally advanced head and neck cancers: a comparative analysis of concurrent postoperative radiation

3. Titles identifying context

  • Comparative analysis of the response of various land covers to an exceptional rainfall event in the central Spanish Pyrenees, October 2012
Even when the genre is not specified in the title, be sure to clarify your main topic.  If you need help brainstorming ideas, consider the following instructions:
.
—Step One: Write down your topic
  • —Hank Aaron, baseball legend
—Step Two: Think about the points you’re going to make in the essay about your topic—
  • This is a major research paper, so it’s long. I’m going to write about his baseball life, his early life, and his passions outside of baseball (civil rights)
—Step Three: Brainstorm a list of ideas, clichés, and associations dealing with your topic
—
Baseball, take me out to the ball game, grand slam, double-header, triple play, seventh-inning stretch, peanuts and Cracker Jack, “Juuuust a bit outside,” major league, home run, homers, crack of the bat, Negro League, Milwaukee Brewers, The Hammer (his nickname), swing and miss…
.
—Step Four: Put the ideas together (your themes) in interesting ways to create title options.  You can use poetic devices such as alliteration, metaphor, and rhyme:
  • Hank Aaron Hammers It Home
  • —Triple Play: The Life, Love, and Career of Hank Aaron
  • —From Mobile to the Majors: Hank Aaron’s Success Story
—Pose a rhetorical question
  • —To Attend or Not to Attend?
Specify the mode of writing (command, salutation, exclamation, etc.)
  • —Go to Class!
Make a two-part title
  • —Attendance: The Key to Acing College
Lift a great phrase from your essay
  • —Be There: Attending Class to Ace College
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