How to Title an Essay: Examples, Style Guide Rules, & Top Tips
Learning how to title an essay properly will make a huge difference to the quality of your work.
An excellent title will reveal what the reader can expect without giving too much away. It will also ensure that your essay is found in searches, as it should include relevant keywords.
From a practical standpoint, discovering how to title an essay correctly includes understanding guidelines stipulated by APA, Chicago, and MLA. These are slightly different from one another, which we detail below.
In this article, we explain how to title an essay by starting with the end in mind. We include good and bad examples of essay titles for you to learn from.
We also reveal tips that will help you create perfect titles time and time again. Finally, we explain how Arvin’s AI tools can be your best friend when writing academically.
How to title an essay – begin with the end goal in mind
Above all else, the title of your essay should be relevant. The best essay titles clearly explain what the essay is about, while indicating how the assignment will conclude.
You should also try to capture the reader’s imagination and encourage them to read your work. This is particualrly important if you’re posting your essay on a blog or submitting it for a contest, as the reader isn’t obliged to read it as they are in an academic setting.
One of the best ways to craft a good essay title is to begin with your end goal in mind. In other words, make sure your title doesn’t contradict your essay’s conclusion. You may also give clues to your conclusion in the title itself, which is a great way to hook the reader.
We reveal some good and bad essay titles later in this article, which you can use to inspire you when writing your own title.
How to title an essay – MLA, APA, & Chicago rules explained
Before we get into our tips that will help you with how to title an essay, we need to cover the rules. When writing an academic paper, you will reference your work in the MLA, APA, or Chicago format.
MLA title rules
When writing an essay title in the MLA format, ensure that it’s in title case. In other words, all main words should be capitalized, other than conjunctions, prepositions, and articles.
Example: The Founding of the ANC: The Turning Point Against Apartheid Rule in South Africa
APA title rules
The rules for APA titles are slightly different. You should only capitalize the first word of the title and the first word following any punctuation. That said, you should also capitalize proper nouns.
If you follow the APA style guide, you should write more succinctly, with a preference for shorter titles under 12 words. The guide specifies the removal of unnecessary words and doesn’t accept abbreviations.
Example: How the African National Congress defeated apartheid
Chicago title rules
Of all the style guides, the Chicago style is the least prescriptive. You’re required to use title case, but other than that, you can format the title of your essay as you wish.
Example: South Africa’s Turning Point Against Apartheid: The Founding of the ANC
Essay title tips
Now that we’ve covered the practical steps related to how to title an essay, we want to introduce some tips. You can use these insights when writing any academic assignment:
Write the title at the end
Though the title of your essay is at the start of the assignment, we recommend leaving it until you have finished your work.
Often, it’s much easier to write the title at the end of your piece when you have formulated all of your ideas and arguments.
When staring at a blank page of writing, it’s much more difficult to create a title from scratch. So, get into the habit of diving straight into your writing without forming a title in advance.
Begin with keywords in mind
Whether you’re writing an academic essay or an essay for a blog, you should always consider your keywords. These are words that best represent your essay and should be in the title.
For instance, using our title, How the African National Congress Defeated Apartheid, the keywords for our essay about the end of apartheid in South Africa would be:
- South Africa
- Apartheid
- African National Congress (ANC)
- Nelson Mandela
Note that we didn’t include all of our keywords in our title. We also left out sub keywords like politics, Robert Sobukwe, and violence.
The key is to ensure your chosen keywords best represent the topic and make it clear to the reader what you’re going to present.
You can then try different variations of the same title until you’re happy with the outcome.
Avoid generic statements
The least impactful essay titles are too general. They don’t give the reader a clear indication of what the essay is about or what argument is being presented.
While you don’t need to give too much away, you shouldn’t sit on the fence when titling your essay. Again, using our example of South Africa and the ANC, below are a few titles that we dismissed as too generic to be impactful:
- South Africa, the ANC and Apartheid
- Nelson Mandela’s ANC vs White Apartheid Rule
- Apartheid and the ANC in South Africa
Though these titles include our keywords, they don’t indicate what argument we’re making about the ANC. Specifically, our essay is about the creation of the ANC and how this led to the downfall of apartheid. Therefore, we must convey this in our title, as we did in the three examples presented earlier in this article.
Use punctuation effectively
You don’t need to include a full stop at the end of your essay title. Equally, we don’t recommend using an exclamation mark.
However, asking a question and using a question mark at the end of your essay can be impactful. Equally, using a colon can be a great way to split your essay title in two. Let’s check out a few examples:
- The Founding of the ANC: South Africa’s Turning Point Against Apartheid
- Did the Creation of the ANC Bring an End to Apartheid in South Africa?
We recommend using our AI Grammar Checker to ensure your punctuation is accurate. You can use it for your title and all other parts of your academic assignment.
Ask Arvin for essay title ideas
Using an AI tool like Arvin is a brilliant way to generate title ideas for your essay. Continuing with our example of the ANC, Apartheid, and South Africa, you can see below the 15 suggestions from Arvin after our prompt:
We really like “The Struggle for Justice: The ANC’s Influence on the End of Apartheid.” This is a good title because it suggests that other factors contributed to the end of apartheid, including government sanctions and demonstrations from outside of South Africa.
In our second prompt to Arvin, we asked if the titles were suitable for APA referencing, as we hadn’t initially provided this information. As you can see, the recommendations change slightly to suit the APA rules listed earlier in this article:
So, our preferred title would now be listed as The struggle for justice: The ANC’s influence on the end of apartheid.
As you can see, AI tools like Arvin can generate excellent ideas for essay titles. With further prompting, you can ensure that the titles are relevant to your style guide to avoid any issues.
Examples of good and bad essay titles to learn from
Now, we want to provide you with some good and bad essay titles that you can learn from. We also explain the reason why the bad titles aren’t great and how they have been improved:
Example 1: Too generic
| Bad Title | Good Title |
| Nelson Mandela’s ANC Party and the End of Apartheid | The Birth of the ANC: The Beginning of the End of Apartheid in South Africa |
In the bad example, the title doesn’t offer any context about the argument our essay presents. However, in the better title, we reveal that the birth of the ANC led to the end of apartheid in South Africa. This added context will help the reader decide if the essay is relevant to their research interests.
Example 2: Incorrect punctuation
| Bad Title | Good Title |
| The End of Apartheid in South Africa! How Mandela’s ANC Inspired Racial Equality. | The End of Apartheid in South Africa: How Mandela’s ANC Inspired Racial Equality |
Here, we illustrate how to correctly use punctuation in an essay title. You should avoid exclamation marks and full stops wherever possible. Our improved title uses a colon to break up the title and removes the full stop from the end, as per each of the style guides.
Example 3: Not relevant
| Bad Title | Good Title |
| A Hero in the Making: Nelson Mandela’s Influence Over the ANC | How Mandela and the ANC Brought an End to Apartheid in South Africa |
Our example essay is about how the formation of the ANC, a political party in South Africa, helped to bring an end to the government policy of apartheid. Therefore, the first title isn’t relevant to our argument, even though it would make an interesting essay in itself. Our improved title is much more relevant to the goal of our essay and is a better choice for this topic.
Recap: How to title an essay for maximum impact
When it comes to how to title an essay for maximum impact, always start with the end goal in mind. What argument are you trying to make? Does your title make this clear? Have you included the relevant keywords?
We always recommend leaving the title until the end of the essay, as it’s much easier to come up with ideas after writing your assignment. You can also prompt Arvin’s AI chat tool to create title ideas for you.
Feel free to play around with your prompts and get specific to ensure the ideas are relevant to your work. Arvin’s AI chat tool is completely free to use and will help you with crafting better essay titles.
Also, find out how our tools can help you to improve your academic submissions in other ways – learn how to write an abstract and how to conclude an essay with the help of AI.
How to title an essay FAQ
How do you write the title of an essay?
How to title an essay depends on the style guide that you use. For instance, the MLA and Chicago guides require full capitalization (excluding conjunctions). In contrast, APA only requires the capitalization of proper nouns and the start of sentences.
What are examples of essay titles?
Examples of excellent essay titles can be found in this guide, which reveals how to title an essay. A great example of a title about the negative impact of social media on teenage health could be: Not So Social: How Excessive Social Media Use is Leading to a Mental Health Crisis Among Teenagers.
How to make a good title?
You need to create an essay title with the end of the assignment in mind. Also, it pays to leave the essay title until the end, as it will be easier to come up with ideas. If you’re struggling with how to title an essay, use our AI tools to help you generate suggestions.
How do you write a catchy title in an essay?
Writing a catchy essay title is about understanding your chosen topic and being clear about the argument you’re making. You can use alliteration to your advantage or you can play on specific words. The best way to create a catchy title for your essay is to use Arvin, as explained in this guide.
