Writing Good Titles

Writing Good Titles

Every paragraph and essay needs a good title. In this lesson, we will learn what is necessary to make a good title.

Which of the following would be the best title for your paragraph about your favorite city?

• Homework Assignment

• Favorite City

• New York City

• Chicago Is My Favorite City to Live in

• Pike Place Market in Seattle

Titles are

• usually short

• not a complete sentence

• predicts the content of writing

• catchy and attention grabbing

• unique!

In other words, titles should be short phrases that give readers a clue as to what your paragraph or essay will be about. It should not be so broad or general that readers cannot guess what your writing will be about.

If possible, you should try to write a title that is unique and interesting. In a writing class, you will have many people writing about the same topic, but everyone should have different titles.

Let's look at some examples.

Look at some title choices and choose the title you think would be the best.

Multiple Choice

Which title would be the best choice for a paragraph about buying a used car?

• How to Buy a Used Car

• Buying a Used Car Can Be a Problem

• Cars

Multiple Choice

Which title would be the best choice for a paragraph that explains why popcorn can be good for your health?

• I Love Popcorn

• The Health Benefits of Popcorn

• Popcorn Is Delicious and Healthy

Multiple Choice

Which title would be the best choice for a paragraph that introduces some websites you can use to research travel choices?

• Best Website

• My Favorite Websites

• Three Websites for Cheap Travel

Let's look again: Which would be the best title for your paragraph?

• Homework Assignment

• Favorite City

• New York City

• Chicago Is My Favorite City to Live in

• Pike Place Market in Seattle

Unfortunately, none of these choices would be a great choice for a title. Each one can be improved upon.

Homework Assignment, Favorite City, and even New York City is too broad for readers to be able to predict what the paragraph will be about.

Chicago Is My Favorite City to Live In is a complete sentence and too long. Pike Place Market in Seattle could be an okay title, but it would have to be only about Pike Place Market, and maybe would not be about why Seattle is your favorite city.

Here are some possible choices for the same paragraph assignment:

• My Kind of Town, Chicago Is

• Three Reasons to Visit Seattle

• Winter Wonderland in New York City

Although most titles tend to be short, you might notice (especially in higher academic settings) that titles can be very long. However, this is more unique to a higher academic environment.

In this example, the title is "Peer Play as a Context for Identifying Profiles of Children and Examining Rates of Growth in Academic Readiness for Children Enrolled in Head Start." 24 words in total!

Capitalization rules are special for titles

• The first letter of many words in a title are capitalized

• The first and last word of a title

• All content words, like nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and subordinating conjunctions

• Do not capitalize function words, like articles, coordination conjunctions, and prepositions

Take another look at some of our examples:

• How to Buy a Used Car

• The Health Benefits of Popcorn

• Three Websites for Cheap Travel

Here are some real world examples:

• Raya and the Last Dragon (movie)

• The Great Gatsby (book)

• Chicago Tribune (newspaper)

• Bohemian Rhapsody (song)

Help!

These rules can be confusing, I know! Luckily, there are resources out there to help. One helpful website is capitalizemytitle.com. This website allows you to type in your title, and it will show you the correctly capitalized title.

Keep these rules in mind when you write your next title.

A good title is as important as a good paragraph! Remember these guidelines and rules to make sure you have an effective title for your paragraph.