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Dr. Sandi Van Lieu
Creating a Title
Your essay’s title should:
- Be original
- Be a reasonable length
- Reflect your topic
- Be lively and attention-getting
Your title should NOT:
- Be generic/repeat the assignment
- Be in ALL CAPS
- Be in boldface, “quotation marks,” underlined, or italicized
- Be followed by a period
Capitalization Rules for Titles:
- Always capitalize the first letter of the first word and the last word.
- Capitalize the first letter of each “important” word in between the first and last words.
- Do not capitalize articles (a, an, the), unless they are after a colon
- Do not capitalize coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or, etc.)
- Do not capitalize prepositions (on, at, in, off, etc.)
Example
Following are some of examples of real student titles:
1. “Hills Like White Elephants:” A Dance Between Two Lovers
2. Behind the Mask of Seduction in “The Cask of Amontillado”
3. Changes: An Existential Journey
4. Kinder is the War with “The Things They Carried”
5. What We Do Affects Us: An Argument for Masks during Covid-19
6. Healthcare Workers: Overworked and Underappreciated
Exercise 1
1. Using the above criteria, create three different possible titles for your essay.
2. Swap titles with a classmate and give advice about which one is the strongest.
Attribution
- “Creating a Title,” created by Dr. Sandi Van Lieu and licensed under CC BY NC SA 3.0.
