Only people who have never encountered academic writing can name it dull, obscure, and boring. A good student or scientist knows: the catchier their paper looks, the more value it has. Nowadays, creative titles for essays are no surprise – crafting witty and interesting narratives became an unspoken rule.
The title is a calling card of your essay. It is the first thing visible to the audience as well as it is the first assessment criteria. Here a person wonders: “To read or not to read?” Your title should be compelling enough to make the audience eventually read the whole paper.
3 Essentials of Academic Titles
Most readers of academic papers search for them to find out the information about particular subjects or ideas. If you pick up the name for your work randomly, it has lesser chances to be interesting for the readers.
At the same time, the titles should be catchy enough to be recognized. If you need everyone to remember your paper, the heading “Another Article by Someone Else about This Thing” will hardly help. What you can do instead is catch your readers’ attention and keep it on your work. Many students say, “If I have to write my paper today, I must focus quickly.” Start diving into your topic by crafting the right heading. Many experts will confirm that your title is the thing that tells everyone, “This is not going to be boring.” That is why it is better to adhere to the following structure:
| The hook | Main keywords | Additional keywords |
|---|---|---|
| The Battle of Food Titans: | McDonalds and KFC Market Analysis Comparison | fromthe 30s Until Now |
| The Mortal God: | Background and Consequences of The Assassination of Julius Caesar | in the Ancient Rome |
| Small is the New Big: | the Possibility of Building Quantum Computers | in the Near Future |
Additional keywords complement the main ones with essential information about time, period, place or other specific details that the readers usually need. Together, these 3 parts comprise an informative and unique title useful for a potential reader.The part with the main keywords is crucial and answers the most obvious answers. Here, you can see what this all is about. Usually, students are looking for the necessary data using keywords included in this section of a title.The hook is not important at all, but it grabs the attention of every potential reader of the narrative, whether it is argumentative or compare and contrast essays or a scientific research. You need this part if you want to represent your material in a creative way.
The Examples of Non-Creative Essay Titles
Now we will figure out how you shouldn’t do during titling. There are many ways to create a creative but not relevant title, so let’s revise the most common mistakes students do in a pursuit of creativity:
- Out of the Context or Unclear Title
You can write about Shakespeare’s biography and suddenly name your article “The Art of a Genius” or “The Great Personalities in Performance Art”. These examples don’t bear any benefit to a reader. The most important information connected with the topic is not given fully.
How to fix: Concentrate your efforts on clarifying the key details of your work in the title.
- Very Trivial
It is not a cool decision to come up with the title identical to the theme of your essay, something like “Shakespeare’s biography”. Such sentences are too obscure and totally uncreative. It is more likely that no one will pay attention to your article when looking at this title.
How to fix: Sit down and spend some time on brainstorming. This method will result in the clever hook to attract the wide audience.
- Seemingly Informative
For instance, an essay title such as “Armed Conflict in the Eastern Ukraine 2014-2017” provides an audience with the data what is going to be discussed and where and when the events have been held. However, there is no key message about how author reflects on this topic as well as what they think about it. Thus, there is no preview about the purpose of your study.
How to fix: Enhance your title with defining phrases. Describe in a couple of words what you are going to do in your paper.
- Obvious Questions
Some authors believe that the title with the question mark is highly intriguing no matter whether it is relevant to the topic. The questions such as “Is the American Education System Ineffective?” or “Is Marxism Good or Bad?” are no longer a trick for the majority of experienced readers. Nowadays, it is better to write the answers instead of asking the questions.
How to fix: Avoid question marks and try to hook the reader with a compelling quote, play on words or reword a cliché.
How to Create a Creative Title According to Paper’s Type
Coming up with the proper title depends heavily on the kind of the paper you try to create. There are common words that show the aspect disclosed during your study. You can evaluate, discuss, analyze or do other things while conducting a research. In this way, the students are comparing and contrasting two or more subjects when dealing with a compare and contrast essay.
If you stumble upon the type of essay or other paper which doesn’t require a research, there are other kinds of titles used in this case. Among them:
- A descriptive title. It is mostly used for the same-named essays and briefly describes the object of discussion;
- An imaginative title. Includes writer’s ideas which are not real and might come or not come true in the future;
- A personal title. The author involves their personal experience in the title crafting.
Don’t forget about subtitles, they are also important for overall impression in some of the social science research papers. They provide additional context, more data about the temporal or geographic scope of the study or focus a reader’s attention on a specific aspect.
Which Skills Should I Possess to Create Great Title for My Essay?
To be a good title generator, you should follow the basic structure of a good essay title and have a good imagination to think up a good hook immediately. Also, strong analytical skills are necessary for allocating relevant keywords and systemizing them in the final title of your essay. Write more and read more articles written in an academic style, and you will be able to make up drop-dead titles on the spot.
If you lack some creative writing skills, make use of the following tips to sharpen your creativity:
Hope, when you are assigned an essay and have to make up a strong title, you will make use of this article and present the title that will impress everyone to the fullest.
