The title of an essay serves an important purpose – it prepares the reader for what to expect in the pages that follow. An effective title captures the essence of your essay in just a few words. Crafting a strong title takes deliberate thought and consideration. Here are some tips for typing a title into your essay:
Choose a title that indicates your main point or thesis. Your essay should have a clearly defined central argument or idea, so your title needs to hint at what that main idea is. Avoid vague titles that don’t give the reader a sense of what your essay is actually about. For example, if you are writing a persuasive essay arguing that schools should ban cell phones, a good title would be “A Case for Banning Cell Phones in Schools” rather than just “Cell Phones.”
Keep it brief. The ideal length for a title is usually one line or less. Long, multi-line titles can be distracting. You want your title to neatly summarize your main point concisely rather than reading like a paragraph itself.
Use key terms and concepts. Scan your essay for the most important words, phrases or ideas related to your thesis. Work these significant terms into your title in a concise way. This helps signal to readers the focus and scope of your essay before they even start reading.
Be descriptive but not too wordy. As mentioned above, you don’t want an excessively long title, but you also don’t want to be too vague or sparse either. Use enough words to give the reader a clear picture of your subject matter, but keep the language tight and focused on your central topic.
Capitalize important words. When typing your title, capitalize the first letter of the first word as well as any other important words like nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. This helps your title stand out visually from the body text of your essay.
Check punctuation. Use proper title case formatting rules for capitalization. Also make sure to include appropriate ending punctuation if your title contains a question or exclamation point instead of just a period.
Edit carefully. Once you have a draft title, review it with a critical eye. Read it aloud and have others read it to ensure it clearly communicates your essay’s main point succinctly in a way that will grab a reader’s attention. Be prepared to refine or revise your title as needed during the editing process.
Now that you have a strong title draft, it’s time to correctly type it at the top of your essay document. Here are the proper formatting steps:
Center the title. Use your word processor’s alignment tools to center the title horizontally on the page. This places emphasis on the title and separates it neatly from the body text that will follow.
Make it stand out. Consider formatting your title with a larger font size than the body text, bolding it or changing its color. This makes it easy to pick out at a glance and helps signal its importance to readers. Stick with one enhanced emphasis approach rather than using multiple formatting styles together which could look unprofessional or busy.
Leave a space above and below. After centering your title, leave an extra line or two of white space between it and the essay’s first paragraph. Also include a skip between the last line of your title and the first line of your opening paragraph text. This spacing isolates the title and helps it visually “breathe” on the page.
Include subtitle (if applicable). If your essay warrants it, use the same formatting approach for a subtitle to introduce a new dimension or level of specificity under your main title. Just leave a single line space between the title and subtitle rather than double spacing them.
Check final title formatting. Take one last look at your title’s appearance on the page before starting your essay content below it. Make sure it remains centered and stands out properly from the text that follows through formatting choices like font, bolding, color or spacing. Tweak any minor issues before moving on.
Now with your polished, formatted title attracting attention at the top, you’re ready to begin writing your compelling essay content below it. Be sure to consistently prove and justify your title’s claim throughout your paper. A strong title will set high expectations that you must fulfill for your reader, but it helps focus your writing and grabs people’s notice like nothing else can from the very start.