How to Title an Essay: Tips, Guide & Examples for Students

Imagine scrolling down your social media news feed or online search results and seeing a blog.

So, what is the first thing that makes you click it? Yes, the title!
It catches readers’ attention and motivates them to read the entire essay. If you want your write-up to perform similarly, you need to know how to title an essay. Read on to learn more.

What is the Purpose of Essay Title & How Important it is?

Here are some qualities an ideal essay title should have:

Attractive

The title of your essay is the first piece of content people read. If it’s not interesting, they’ll have no motivation to read your essay until the end. You need to hook your readers as soon as they come across your blog. Be a little creative. For example, your title can be a thought-provoking question or a word summarising your essay’s subject.

Believable

To make your essay title eye-catching, you shouldn’t write something which is not believable. For instance, if the title is “Are Mermaids Real?” no one will read your essay because everyone knows that mermaids don’t exist. So, make sure the topic and title of your essay make sense.

Active voice

If your essay title is written in passive voice, it won’t be clear what you’re trying to present to your readers. With an active voice, your essay title will sound clearer and more direct. Also, it will present the topic of your essay in a much better way.

Accurate

Your title should depict the topic of your essay. If your title is about oranges and your content is about apples, you will be misleading your readers. The content of your essay should be relevant to its title. Otherwise, readers will get confused while reading your essay and won’t rate it highly.

How to Create a Good Title: Rule of Thumb

🔎 1. Find Keywords

Before you write the essay title, come up with a set of words to describe the topic in the best way possible.

✔️ 2. Make Your Title as Specific as Possible

Your essay title has to present your topic concisely. It should be just one sentence or 5-8 words long.

📕 3. Format Your Titles

While writing your essay title, ensure you follow the formatting guidelines your professor provided.

🧠 4. Brainstorming

The best way to come up with an essay title is through brainstorming. Grab a piece of paper and write everything that comes into your mind regarding your essay topic.

✍️ 5. Write Down Multiple Titles

After brainstorming your topic, you might have come up with multiple topics. Write them down and choose the one which is the most precise, accurate, creative, and attractive.

How to come up with a Title for an Essay: Student’s Guide

Before coming up with the title of your essay, you need to understand the topic and theme properly. If you don’t know exactly what you are writing and what message you want to deliver, you will never be able to write an attractive and accurate essay title. Once you know what it has to depict, write multiple catchy and contextually accurate essay titles. Then, select the one which is the most precise, attractive, and delivers the message to your readers perfectly.

There are different ways to write an essay title:

1: Keeping titles to only one word if it perfectly explains the topic of the essay

2: Using a certain sentence or catchphrase, which will be used repeatedly in the essay and use it as the title

3: Using a question as the title to make readers curious

4: Target the reader with the title. For example,
“Are You Finding Time Management Difficult During College? Here Are Some Useful Tips!”

Tips from Expert Writers That Will Help you in Crafting Great Essay Title

Tip #1:

Using a question as your title can attract the attention of many readers. However, by forming your question, make sure you use topic keywords like “What,” “Who,” “When,” “How,” “Why,” and “Where”. If you use topic keywords with the title of your essay, not only will it describe the subject better, but it will also effectively grab the readers’ attention. You can also use a rhetoric question as to the title of your essay.

Tip #2:

Sometimes, the topic is too dry. For instance, if you write the following essay topic:

“Are Deep Fakes Dangerous?”

Then the title won’t attract much attention, even though it’s perfectly fine. You need to realise most of your audience might not know anything about Deep Fakes, and they won’t read an essay they know nothing about. However, if you write the following title:

“Replicating Someone’s Video and Manipulating its Audio – The Frightening Possibilities of Deep Fakes”

Before introducing the term, this title tells the audience what deep fakes can do.

Tip #3:

Now, even though the title of your essay should be believable, exaggerating it a bit might improve its attractiveness. If you write a dry title directly connected to your essay’s topic, it might not entice your reader enough to make them click it. So, if the topic of your essay is highly informative and dry, using an exaggerated statement can make it catchier.

Tip #4:

If you want to learn how to title an essay, you should check out our samples. You will find many examples of good essay titles and bad essay titles in this post. UK Writing Experts has many samples that’ll help you learn how to write high-scoring essays. You can trust us with your grades, as we are the UK’s best and most affordable essay writing service.

You might have an amazing topic, and your essay’s content might also be engaging. But, if the title of your essay is not attractive and precise, it won’t motivate the reader to finish your paper till the last word. Here are a few tips to help you write impactful and creative essay titles:

Keep the Title simple

You don’t have to use complex words in your titles. It is not helping your cause. Titles with complex words make it difficult for readers to understand the topic and context of your academic essay. Simplicity is the key here. To write an essay title that appeals to the masses, you should use words that are easily understandable to your audience. People don’t have the time to look up the meaning of the complex words you’ve used in the essay’s title. If they don’t understand it, they might not read your essay because they don’t know what to expect from it.

Use appropriate words in Title

You should only use words that fit the context and theme of your essay. You will damage your essay’s readability by using wrong or inappropriate words. You won’t be able to deliver the correct message to your audience, which ruins the whole purpose of your essay. So, use relevant and contextually correct words in the title to effectively depict your essay’s topic.

Avoid abbreviations and jargon

Abbreviations are a shortened form of a frame. However, using it in the title of your essay can make it difficult for the reader to understand its context or topic. Instead of using any abbreviations or jargon in the title of your essay, you should write the full phrase or word. For instance, instead of writing “Careers for Tech Enthusiasts”, write “Careers for Technology Enthusiasts”.

How to Format Essay Titles

MLA is the most commonly used formatting style for academic essay titles. In this format, the title should be on the centre of the page and 2 spaces below the heading. Titles should not be written in bold or italic. You also shouldn’t underline the title or place quotation marks. However, in APA-style academic essays, you’re not required to add a separate title page in your document. However, if your professor asks you to include one, you can follow the MLA format for the title page.

Use of Colon in an Academic Title

If you divide your topic into two parts or have two similar topics in your mind, you can join them. However, don’t forget to separate them with the help of a colon. Otherwise, your essay title won’t be understandable to your readers and might drive them away.

Bad vs Good Essay Titles

Even after going through all these tips, you might wonder what a good essay title looks like. An ideal essay has certain features that make it understandable and attention-grabbing. Here, we’ll mention some amazing essay titles and why they are so good and eye-catching. We will also talk about badly written titles and why the readers won’t like them:

Good Titles:

1: “The Anatomy of the Titanoboa Snake” – Clear and precise title
2: “The Byzantine Empire’s Rise and Fall” – Concise and easily understandable title
3: “How is Social Media Affecting Your Personal and Professional Life” – Clear and informative title
4: “The Industrial Revolution and Its Impact on European Countries” – Precise and informative title
5: “Why Public Display of Affection (PDA) is banned in Third-World Countries?” – Appropriate and contextually correct language

Bad Titles:

1: “The Titanoboa Snake” – Unclear title, not enough information
2: “The Rise of the Byzantine Empire and Which Ruler Was Responsible For the Downfall of the Empire?” – A very lengthy title
3: “Social Media Has Affected Our Lives” – Vague, not enough information
4: “The History of Industrial Revolution and What Socio-Economic Impact Did It Have On European Countries?” – Very lengthy and complicated title
5: “Why Hooking Up in Public is Illegal in Third-World Countries?” – Inappropriate Language

100 Catchy Essay Title Examples

Examples of Argumentative Essay Titles

1. Are self-driving cars safe and dependable?
2. Should male and female athletes be paid equally?
3. Is racism still a major issue in Britain?
4. Are soft drink advertisements deceiving?
5. Is economic disparity a major issue?
6. Does physical education affect grades?
7. Are unpaid internships ethical and legal?
8. Should video games be considered a sport?
9. Are electrical cars better than gasoline cars?
10. Should drug possession be legalised?

Examples of Persuasive Essay Titles

1. Is a vegan diet healthy?
2. Are sugary drinks harmful to children?
3. Are researchers paid unfairly?
4. Should capital punishment be legal?
5. Are drunk driving laws effective?
6. Should there be limits to freedom of speech?
7. Are athletes paid too much?
8. Is it okay to use animals for experimentation purposes?
9. Should psychiatry sessions be free for students?
10. Is obesity a major health issue in Britain?

Examples of Creative Essay Titles

1. Are there mermaids deep down in the ocean?
2. If the Avengers were real, would they be able to make the world a better place?
3. Does eating while studying affect focus?
4. What would happen to the world if we cared about the environment?
5. What would it be like if Thanos eliminated half of all humanity in real life?
6. What would it be like if fuel was free but highly limited?
7. Should men also work as babysitters?
8. Who came up with stereotypical colours for every gender?
9. Should kindergarten students be taught how to code?
10. Is there a different world in the depths of the ocean?

Examples of Catchy Essay Titles

1. Spending too much time on Facebook? 10 ways to manage your time better
2.Finding it difficult to focus on studies? 10 ways to eliminate distractions
3. A friend in need is certainly a friend indeed
4. 10 laptops that can last longer than food in Joey’s refrigerator
5. Investing in cryptocurrency? Here’s why you should stop immediately!
6. Just finished a pack of cigarettes? 10 facts that’ll make you quit smoking
7. Planning to go shopping? Here are 10 helpful bargaining tips!
8. Are there extra-terrestrial organisms in the greatest depths of the ocean?
9. Can’t afford college? Here are websites that teach university courses for free
10. Taking a break from studies? Here are some informative movies you should watch

Examples of Research Paper Titles

1. Overview of B5G and related technologies
2. The biological importance of white blood cells
3. Data science and its impact on data-driven decisions
4. Factor analysis and its application in marketing research
5. Merits and demerits of episiotomy
6. Challenges of nuclear power generation
7. Applications of IoT and IoE
8. A numerical analysis of the 2008 global recession
9. A systematic analysis of cryptocurrencies
10. Blockchain and its applications

Examples of College Essay Titles

1. How does global warming affect the oceans?
2. Can Blockchain revolutionise online transactions?
3. Importance of correlational research
4. Importance of pilot studies
5. Impact of cryptocurrency on the global economy
6. How does the global chip shortage affect businesses?
7. Gravity in Black Hole
8. The reasons behind the increase in C-section deliveries in Britain
9. Digital marketing and upcoming trends
10. Internet addiction: How does it affect your mental health?

Examples of English Essay Titles

1. Advantages and disadvantages of gun control
2. How does calorie deficit work?
3. How does reading affect your IQ level?
4. Are electric cars hazardous?
5. Can a person complete higher education without going to college?
6. How is academic stress affecting the mental health of students?
7. How did Stephen Hawking revolutionise astrophysics?
8. What happens to a person who enters the Black Hole?
9. Does exceeding the speed of light lead to time travel?
10. How does music affect your mental health?

Examples of Expository Essay Titles

1. Consequences of alcohol addiction
2. Was Nicolas Tesla ahead of his time?
3. When will humans land on Mars instead of rovers?
4. Does marijuana benefit people in any way?
5. What is the role of religion in a man’s life?
6. How did the French Revolution impact Turkey?
7. Adolf Hitler: A war hero or a cruel dictator
8. How fast food is ruining your health?
9. Does patriotism conflict with humanity?
10. Should abortion be banned?

Examples of Narrative Essay Titles

1. Why do I avoid using social media?
2. My first professional football match
3. How did I manage pregnancy as an undergraduate student?
4. What changes would I make in the country if I became Prime Minister?
5. How did adopting a dog change my life?
6. My first live FIFA World Cup match
7. 10 things I wish I knew during high school
8. How long did it take me to recover from depression
9. How do I deal with performance anxiety?
10. What was my first live concert experience like?

Examples of Compare and Contrast Essay Titles

1. EBooks or textbooks: What’s better for the environment?
2. Physical v/s online classes: Which system is better for learning?
3. IOS v/s Android: Which operating system is better for students?
4. Mutual funds or bonds: Which one offers better returns?
5. Cigarettes v/s Alcohol: Which one is more harmful to your health?
6. Native v/s Hybrid: Which mobile application is better for ecommerce companies?
7. How do the British and American judicial systems compare?
8. Hospitals or clinics: Better for maternal care?
9. Is Liposuction more effective than tummy tucking?
10. Machine learning v/s IoT: Which one is the most ground-breaking technology?

Conclusion

After reading this blog, we hope you might understand how to title an essay and grab the attention of the reader. These tips will help you title an essay so that your work will eventually impress your professor. If you want an expert to title and write your essay, you should opt for the academic writing services of UK Writing Experts. We offer the best essay writing services in Britain. We’ve helped thousands of students improve their grades and learn concepts they miss out on during class.

Is our service expensive like other academic writing websites? No! We offer the most affordable essay writing services in the UK, and at such a low price, you are getting flawless essays. Even if you don’t have much time due to the short deadline, we will help you submit the final draft of your essay on time. At UK Writing Experts, we hire the best and most qualified experts who know how to deliver brilliant results efficiently. So, if you are interested in our services, place your order today!