How to Title an Essay: Guide with Creative Examples [2024]

It’s not a secret that the reader notices an essay title first. No catchy hook or colorful examples attract more attention from a quick glance. Composing a creative title for your essay is essential if you strive to succeed, as it:

• causes the first impression;
• reflects the tone, topic, and the purpose of the writing;
• indicates the author’s credibility.

Thus, how you name your paper is of the same importance as the paper itself.

Good titles for essays should be concise and eye-catching. Nobody likes long and cumbersome headings that do not reflect the point of the paper. While tilting your work, pay enough attention to the word choice. How do you come up with a good title? Use your common sense and imagination. For more details, our experts prepared the sections below.

💭 What Are Good Titles for Essays?

A title is a critical part of any academic paper, so you must understand what to include and how to choose it. Here are some features that your heading has to show.

Strong Title	Poor Title
Captivating. A title may become an attention-grabbing element if you compose it right. Don’t miss your chance to impress your audience from the first words.	Too revealing. The title has to intrigue the readers. If a heading you chose is too revealing, the audience will lose interest even before reading. So, be careful!
5-12 words long. A concise title is key to success. Believe us, 5-12 words are entirely enough to reflect the paper’s idea. Choose the right words, though.	Too long. A title that contains more than 12 words is a fail. The readers will get lost in your essay’s theme. Will they decide to continue reading your work? Not likely.
Comprehensive. A good title for an essay is the one that covers the entire topic. Keep that in mind while naming your paper.	With numbers or figures. Numbers and figures are helpful for an academic essay, but not for the title. Leave this data for the body paragraphs.
Easy to understand. If you want to grab the readers’ attention, impress them with a catchy but easy title. The secret lies behind the heading’s simplicity.	Unclear. Too complicated titles with difficult words DO NOT seem impressive. Instead, they confuse readers. Better come up with a simple but insightful one.
Factual. The title has to reflect the idea of the paper—don’t go too broad. Come up with the most specific heading that represents the core idea of your essay.	With quotes. There is nothing wrong with the quotes. But in the body of the essay, not in the title. Use your imagination to name your work. Don’t steal someone else’s thoughts.

👩‍🏫 How to Title an Essay?

Are you struggling with formulating a heading? Yes, this task is quite challenging. But let’s figure out the basic rules.

The title of any paper should reveal:

• What the paper is about. Cover the general idea of your work in the title.
• Why the reader might be interested in it. Prove the relevance of your paper to the audience.
• The context of the issue. A good title previews the full picture of the topic regarding its “when” and “where.”

To nail your essay heading, follow the guide below. Check our title examples if you are not sure about your abilities. You can also try and use a creative title page generator for a faster result.

✔️ Finish Your Essay

Before writing a title to your essay, you should finish your paper. This way, you’ll be able to reread and get the whole idea to incorporate it into your title.

Moreover, you’ll see how long a title should be for an essay after finishing the entire piece. But remember: not too lengthy and not too wordy.

The essay title depends on the type of essay:

• Narrative essay. For this kind of essay, the title should not provide any detailed info or reflect your position. It should only present the general idea of your piece of writing.
  For example, the narrative essay topic may look like this:
  My Thorny Pass to Success.
• Argumentative essay. The title for an argumentative essay should clearly state the point you are going to support. For instance, you can choose the following heading:
  Social Media Has a Negative Effect on Teenagers.
• Cause and effect essay. For this kind of essay writing, the title should be clear and provide a background of the issue. The reader should immediately understand what the problem is, what its cause is, what an effect is.
  Usually, writers use the words “due to” or “because” to highlight the cause-effect correlation. Look at the example:
  Because Coronavirus Attacks, People Start to Explore New Ways of Remote Working.
• Persuasive essay. A persuasive essay should have a dynamic title that immediately calls to action. Moreover, the topic has to be relevant to the audience. For example, for students, the following title would be compelling:
  Sleep 7-8 Hours a Day: the Lack of Sleep Affects Academic Performance.

🤲 Sum It up

The most straightforward way of creating an essay title is summarizing. Sum up the whole paper in one sentence, focus on the central idea, cut the details, and use it as the title.

For this purpose, you can take your thesis statement and restate it, adding creativity. Or use the best summary generator you can find to simplify the task. But don’t forget to make sure that it sounds catchy and explains why the potential reader should check your essay.

For example:

Let’s imagine, you are writing about Artificial Intelligence, and your thesis statement sounds like this:

Then, the title may be the following:

🏷️ Define the Keywords

Every essay includes the key concepts that you explored and the terms that you used for this. You should find essential words and phrases and incorporate them into the essay titles. The keywords will focus the reader’s attention on the central topic of your paper.

For example:

You are writing about the negative impact of deforestation on the environment. These are your keywords, as they are the most vital ones. Thus, the title would sound like this:

🖊️ Follow the Format

Every educational institution requires to format the academic papers for a particular writing style. Among a wide diversity of citation styles, the most popular ones are APA and MLA formats.

There are a lot of specific requirements regarding the essay title formats. So, let’s investigate these styles.

The APA style requires a title page at the beginning of your research paper. Here, where the readers first meet the heading. The title page should include the following:

1. The paper’s title. Centered, bold, capitalized, 3-4 lines below the top margin.
2. The author’s name (first name, middle initial, last name). Centered, not bold, two lines below the title.
3. The author’s affiliations. Centered, not bold, immediately after the name.
4. Number and name of the course.
5. The instructor’s name and title.
6. The date.
7. Page number in the top right corner.

See the example of an APA title page below:

The MLA style does not require a separate title page. Still, some formatting rules are to be strictly followed.

• The MLA paper should start one inch from the top of the document, flush left.
• Write the author’s name, then the instructor’s name, the course number, and the date. Each item should be on a separate double-spaced line.
• Add the title of your paper. It should be centered and capitalized.
• Do not put quotation marks, underline, italicize, or boldface your MLA title. Just make it centered and capitalized.

Here is an example of an MLA title formatting.

⚖️ Change Words

Before choosing a title, figure out is the tone of your essay. Is it more formal or friendly? Do you write it for a college or a personal blog?

Change the wording to make your title sound more catchy and positive. Or serious and official. You can try something new and come up with a creative title for your essay.

For example:

You need to write an article about the benefits of healthy eating for university and your online blog. For an academic essay, your title would probably look like this:

In contrast, for a blog article, it would be better to write something like this:

Do you see the magic? One topic, different wording, and completely diverse tones as a result. So, try until you reach the most appropriate version of the title for your piece of writing.

✨ 23 Creative Title Examples

Are you still struggling with the selection of a heading for your paper? Take a look at our creative essay title examples! Inspire, then turn on your imagination, and create a personal title.

Argumentative Essay Titles.

1. Intercultural Community at University: Prosperity or Constant Encounters.
2. Leadership Nature: a Congenital or an Acquired Feature?
3. Do Energetic Drinks Help or Harm the Organisms?
4. Why Should Sex Education Be Taught at Schools?
5. Should the Law Punish Bullying?
6. Guns Legalization is an Unsafe Way of Self-Protection.

Narrative Essay Titles.

7. Lady Macbeth – One of the Most Frightening Female Characters of Shakespeare.
8. The Art of Overcoming Failures: How to Deal with the Downfalls Easily.
9. Steve Jobs: from a Poor Student to a Multi-billionaire.
10. The Most Influential Person in my Life.
11. Three Biggest Events of my Life that Shaped me as a Person.
12. What Does it Mean to be a Loving Kid for your Parents?
13. What Does “Family” Mean to You?

Persuasive Essay Titles.

14. Never Judge the Person by their Appearance.
15. Music Should be Implemented as a Medical Treatment.
16. In the Battle Between E-Books and Paper Books, the Last Ones Should Win.
17. Remote Learning Cannot Replace Face-to-Face Classes.
18. Technology Addiction is a Threat to the Future Generation.
19. Murderers Should be Sentenced to Death Penalty.

Cause and Effect Essay Titles.

20. Because of Traveling Around the World, People Expand their Horizons.
21. Due to Massive Immigration, Countries Lose their Cultural Identity.
22. Home Abuse as a Cause of Depression and Suicide as its Effect.
23. Drug Addiction: a Cause for Psychological Disorder or an Effect?

Thank you for reading our article. Now you get how to come up with a good title for an essay. Don’t forget to share our page with your friends.

References

1. Writing an Effective Title: Quick Tips, Student Support Writing Center, University of Minnesota
2. Choosing a Title, Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Paper: Research Guides at University of Southern California
3. How Do I Write a Great Title: U-M LSA Sweetland Center for Writing, College of Literature, Science, and Arts, University of Michigan
4. General Format: Purdue Online Writing Lab, College of Liberal Arts, Purdue University
5. Formatting a Research Paper, Heading and Title: The MLA Style Center
6. Title Page Setup: APA Style, American Psychological Association
7. APA Title Page (Cover Page) Format, Example, Template: Saul McLeod, Simply Psychology