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 – Condensed Thesis Argument/Keyterms Together, they establish reader expectations by giving a controlled snapshot of the argument to come

Part 1: Creative Hook or 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 Condensed o Part two is your thesis in a nutshell; the argument in brief. n : Deromanticizing Twain’s Glamorized West o Or, it can be a few keyterms as a list or with a descriptive verb n : Language and Authority in Huckleberry Finn o Be sure to include either the author’s name or the name of the text!

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

Real, Live Academic Titles from Erin’s Undergrad Papers o Survival of the Unfittest: Destructive Adaptation in The House of Mirth o Silence that Speaks and Speech that Silences: Language and Control in Paradise Lost o “not only beyond the town but beneath it”: Faulkner’s Geographic and Social Peripheries

Your Turn! o To write an academic title. n Step 1: Come up with the “hook” or relevant quote n Step 2: Put your essay’s argument (or keyterms) in capsule form + author/title n Put them together (Step 1: Step 2) and don’t forget the colon, initial upper-case, and proper punctuation and quotation marks/italicization