Characteristics of a good title

titles are short
titles are immediately understandable
titles are neutral

Titles are short

This is true for writing in general, but much less so for academic writing. This does not mean one should not pursue brevity. One way in which brevity can be achieved is to avoid including in the title any description of what kind of text is to follow. Thus titles such as the following should be edited back to their essence:

*Study of the influence of the political essays by Mark Helprin on contemporary politics.
Helprin's influence on contemporary politics

Similarly for: An Investigation of, Some Aspects of, …

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Titles are immediately understandable

The requirement that the title should be immediately understandable follows from the fact that it plays such a major part in helping the potential reader decide whether he will or will not read the text. If a title fails to provide a context, explicitly or implicitly, and does not orient the reader towards a particular subject matter within that context, there is a certain chance that the reader may nevertheless be intrigued and will read on; but in the case of argued prose, there is a much greater chance that the reader will dismiss the text as fanciful and unbusinesslike.

Focus structures: jumping the queue

Indeed, in these days of international and immediate electronic access to texts through Internet and other forms of computer-based bibliographic searching, writers are under increasing pressure to produce unambiguous titles, so that potential readers can with confidence select texts relevant to their needs.

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Titles are neutral

The third observation about effective titles is that they should be neutral. It is counterproductive to confront the reader with your opinion in the title –after all, why should he believe you? it is much better to offer, as outlined above. an indication of the field of inquiry (the Theme) placed in a recognizable context (the Frame). This is why titles do not generally appear as full sentences, since a sentence expresses a proposition, i.e. a judgment. Titles are not designed to express the result of the thought process underlying the text: rather. they offer a starting point for the reader's task of reconstructing that thought process on the basis of the information presented within the text. Thus titles such as the following are inappropriate headings:

*Analysis of the Works of an amazing author: Mark Helprin

*Britain is Going to the Dogs

Much better would be:

Aesthetics in Mark Helprin's oeuvre.

Recent Developments in the British Economy

Although sentences that express a judgment (declarative sentences) are not suitable titles for argued texts. sentences that ask a question (interrogative sentences) are occasionally effective as titles. Since every question suggests an answer, titles in the form of a question tend to be less neutral, hinting at a possible conclusion without of course stating it. To give an example: where the context is the desirability of extending the European Union. the focus is on Poland, and your intention is to claim that the time is not yet ripe for Poland's entry, a title like the following would be quite suggestive:

Ian McEwan's "Atonement": balancing on the edge of Ethics?

Hemingway's "In our Time": Novel or Short story cycle?

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