Academic Titles How to make your essay shout

Academic Titles How to make your essay shout “A” from line 1

The Formula o Part 1 - Creative Hook/Quote o: o Part 2 - Distilled Thesis Argument o Together, they establish reader expectations by giving a controlled snapshot of the argument to come

Part 1: Creative Hook/Quote o The first part of the title is the hook, the attention-grabber, the you-wantto-read-this-fascinating-essay part.

Part 2: Argument Distilled o Part two is your thesis, in a nutshell: the argument, in brief. A paraphrase. n Be sure to include either the author’s name or the name of the poem.

Bad, better, best: o Death Happens

Bad, better, best: o Death Happens in Donne

Bad, better, best: o Death Happens in Donne o Death Happens: Donne’s “Fears”

Bad, better, best: o Death Happens in Donne o Death Happens: Donne’s “Fears” o Death Happens: Form Against Fear in Donne’s Holy Sonnet 10

Real, Live Academic Titles from Erin’s Undergrad Papers o (Be)coming Home: Destructive Adaptation in The House of Mirth o Silence that Speaks and Speech that Silences: Language and Control in Paradise Lost o Conjunction Junction, What’s Your Function? : “And” as a Force for Continuation and Termination in Blake’s “The Human Abstract” o “not only beyond the town but beneath it”: The Town, the Abject, and Sutpen’s Design in Absalom, Absalom!

Your Turn o Write an academic title. n Step 1: Come up with the “hook” or catch-phrase n Step 2: Put your essay’s argument (or question) in capsule form n Put them together (Step 1: Step 2) and don’t forget the colon, initial upper-case, and proper punctuation and quotation marks