Twenty Ways to Write a Title

  1. Copy out of your draft a sentence that could serve as a title.
  2. Write a sentence that's not in the draft to use as a title.
  3. Write a title that is a question beginning with What, Who, When, or Where.
  4. Write a title that is a question beginning with How or Why.
  5. Use alliteration to make an otherwise boring title more attention grabbing
  6. Pick out of the essay some concrete image—something the reader can hear, see, taste, smell, or feel—to use as a title.
  7. Pick another concrete image out of the essay. Look for an image that is a bit unusual or surprising.
  8. Write a title beginning with an -ing verb (like “Creating a Good Title”).
  9. Write a title beginning with On (like “On the Titles of Essays”).
  10. Write a title that is a lie about the essay. (You probably won't use this one, but it might stimulate your thinking.)
  11. Write a one-word title—the most obvious one possible.
  12. Write a less obvious one-word title.
  13. Write a two-word title.
  14. Write a three-word title.
  15. Write a four-word title.
  16. Find a quotation from one of your sources that could serve as a title
  17. Think of a familiar saying, or the title of a book, song, or movie, that might fit your essay.
  18. Take the title you just wrote and twist it by changing a word or creating a pun on it.
  19. Do the same with another saying or title of a book, song, or movie.
  20. Find two titles you've written so far that you might use together in a double title. Join them together with a colon [ : ].


(Exercise adapted from Richard Leahy's “Twenty Titles for the Writer.” College Composition and Communication 43.4 (1992): 516–519.)