Aphorisms on Titles

Student Papers: Here are some titles from a round of freshman student papers that I recently collected:

  • The Insanity Defense
  • What Should the Minimum Legal Drinking Age Be?
  • Please, Somebody Just Kill Me [a paper on physician-assisted suicide]

Scholarly Papers: Here are some titles from some recent volumes of the journal Criminology:

  • Foot Patrol in Violent Crime Hot Spots: The Longitudinal Impact of Deterrence and Posttreatment Effects of Displacement
  • Policing Race: The Racial Stratification of Searches in Police Traffic Stops
  • Transferred Juveniles in the Era of Sentencing Guidelines: Examining Judicial Departures for Juvenile Offenders in Adult Criminal Court

Learning to Title: You can easily see the differences: student titles tend toward imprecision, uncertainty, and cuteness, whereas academic titles are specific, definite, and sincere. Sometimes students completely forget to title a paper, or they make the title of a paper the title of the assignment (e.g. “Ten-Page Research Paper”), which is a terrible title for a paper, unless of course your instructor has specifically asked for it. Part of your rhetorical training includes learning how to title your papers in professional ways.

First Impressions are Lasting: It is the first thing in your paper that your reader sees – and, in writing as in wooing, first impressions are important – so your title should really be the best piece of writing in your paper. Put your best foot forward. I would go so far as to say that I pretty regularly know whether a paper is an A-range, C-range, or F-range paper after I read the title (well, maybe the title and the first paragraph).

Write the Title Last: Because it should reflect your most fully developed understanding of the information presented in your paper, and your argument about that information, your title should be the last thing you write. It’s the first thing your reader sees, but it should be the last thing you write.

Best and Last: In sum, your title should be the best and last thing you write for your paper, the best because it should contain a large amount of information in the fewest words possible (which is the definition of good writing), and the last because is should contain your most fully developed understanding of your paper.

Avoid Questions in Titles: Avoid asking questions in titles. They make your reader suspect that you haven’t done enough reading, thinking, and/or researching to provide a thorough examination of the evidence and a clear argument about it. If you haven’t given any time to your paper, why should your reader?

Be Informative, not Cute: Don’t try to be clever, cute, or funny in a title for an academic paper. Doing so usually only makes you look like an amateur. Also, when you’re writing an academic paper, you’re not writing a personal essay or the great American novel. “Shopping with Shakespeare,” “Lost in L.A.,” or “Under the Gun” are not viable academic titles.

Advertise the Knowledge in the Paper: When you’re a famous writer and people will read your work simply because you wrote it, then you can title it whatever you like. Until then, your titles must give your readers a reason to read you papers, a reason to care about them. Given that anyone who reads an academic paper reads it for one reason and one reason only – namely, to learn something – your titles need to advertise in specific terms the knowledge contained in the paper.

Text, Topic, Argument: In order to advertise the knowledge contained in a paper, a title should include three elements: text(s), topic(s), and argument. A bad title will only identify one of these elements; it might only name the topic(s) or concept(s) under consideration without any specific details: e.g., “Too Much Delay.” A reader has no idea what’s going to happen in the paper that follows this title. It might be about how congressional procedures prohibit legislation, or it might be about the crisis in leadership under former Majority Leader Tom Delay. A better title would name the topic(s) as well as the text(s) involved, which is to say the specific documents or pieces of information in which the topic(s) appear(s) – e.g., “Delay in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.” Here, at least a reader knows what the paper’s going to be about. But the best title will identify the topic(s) and the text(s) under consideration and at least gesture toward the paper’s argument about the topic(s) and the text(s) – e.g., “Delay as Due Process in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.” With this title, a reader knows what the paper is about and even a little bit about what the argument is going to be.

Colons in Titles: Topic(s), text(s), and argument is a lot of information, so consider using a colon in your title to break it up – e.g., “Criminal Justice in Shakespeare’s Hamlet: Delay as Due Process.” Sometimes you will need a colon just to get through these three elements. Sometimes you can begin your title with a quote or a catchphrase, then use a colon, and then identify your topic(s), text(s), and argument after the colon – e.g. “ ‘He is justly served’: Delay as Due Process in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.” It is far more important to be descriptive about your topic(s), text(s), and argument than to include a quote or catchphrase.

Length of Titles: 8-12 words is usually a good range to aim for in titles: doing so gives you enough space to represent the specificity and complexity of your paper without being self-indulgent.

Section Heading in Humanities Papers: MLA Style neither encourages nor discourages the use of headings throughout a paper. Avoid headings if your paper is less than 8 pages.

Section Headings in (Social) Science Papers: APA Style uses more headings than other styles tend to use. In APA style, the entire paper can be divided up into sections using primary headings. A section with a primary heading can in turn be divided up into subsections using secondary headings. And a subsection with a secondary heading can be divided up by tertiary headings, which sometimes cover only one or two paragraphs. Each of these levels of headings is formatted differently, so be sure to review APA style when using headings.

Section Headings in Empirical Papers: In APA-style qualitative papers, your headings should be specific to the content that follows. That is, do not use headings such as Method, Results, and Discussion unless you’ve actually conceived and conducted a study in which you’ve personally collected data through a rigorously controlled experiment.