Hello, and welcome to this tutorial on analysing essay titles.
By analysing essay titles more fully, you stand a better chance of producing higher quality writing. The importance of analysing essay titles might sound like rather an obvious point to make but one of the most common pieces of feedback for students’ work is that their essay has not adequately addressed the essay title.
Before starting work on an essay then, it’s really important that you spend time clarifying what exactly it is that you are being asked to do. This will help you focus your reading and note-making on the most relevant material. Here is an example of an essay title that could feature in the field of medicine, or in health sciences, or perhaps sociology, psychology, or social work.
"Discuss the possible effects on a person of receiving a diagnosis of bipolar disorder." Bipolar disorder is a mental health condition in which a person can swing between moods of extra high energy and activity, and moods of low depression.
This essay title is asking the student to consider the experience of receiving a formal diagnosis of bipolar disorder. One individual may feel that they are just having normal changes of mood and may resent being given a medical diagnosis. Another individual may have been desperate to get a diagnosis to help explain what’s been happening to them. So, it asks an interesting question but the student notices only the main topic: bipolar disorder.
This may seem reasonable enough. After all, in your essay you will need to demonstrate your knowledge of the topic and there is a huge amount to learn about that subject age of onset, range of experiences, drugs available to treat severe cases, drugs available to maintain health, all the symptoms. This collection of information would be very useful if you were preparing for a quiz.

Give me another name for bipolar disorder? [Bell ring]
LEICESTER, SMITH!
Manic depression
Name the drug most commonly used to prevent relapses?
Lithium
Give me three symptoms of mania?
Reckless behaviour, racing thoughts, little need to sleep.
But essays are not quizzes.
If you just focus only on the main topic rather than the actual essay question, you are in danger of missing the point of the essay entirely.

So what IS this essay title asking you to do?
This student has picked up the words ‘bipolar disorder’, and will probably tell us many things about what this condition is. But the students will probably fail to identify and discuss the possible effects on an individual of receiving that diagnosis for example:
worrying about whether or not to tell family and friends;
thoughts about becoming labelled as someone who is mentally ill;
possible relief of receiving a diagnosis after a long period of wondering what was going on;
concern about it possibly affecting future employment if it has to be disclosed;
gaining easier access to medication;
fear of being medicalised and not seen as a person, and so on.

Let’s examine another essay title.
To what extent does the melting of its glacier present a threat or an opportunity for the inhabitants of the Swiss alpine village of Saas Fee?
This student has identified two important aspects of the title, and may write an essay on melting glaciers, the student has missed the requirement:
a) to focus on the inhabitants rather than the glacial process itself

b) to consider the threats that the melting might bring for these inhabitants, such as: loss of a major aspect of their scenery;
lowering of the water levels in their local reservoir;
reduction of trade from skiing holidays.

c) to consider what possible opportunities it might bring, such as: extending the farmland and woodland;
increasing the network of high-altitude walking tracks;
reduced fuel bills.

d) to discuss these and come to a considered judgement as to the extent to which glacial retreat represents mainly a threat or an opportunity for these inhabitants.

As you work on your essay your opinion may shift from your first reaction, and settle somewhere different, after considering the evidence.
In this case a student may assume initially 0:04:48.080,0:04:48.040 that the melting of the glacier would be wholly negative. But, through the research and writing process, some opportunities may be identified. The student may therefore settle with a judgement that is negative, 0:04:59.170,0:04:59.150 but not as extreme as the initial reaction.
So, when you look at your next essay title, and get your first impression of what it’s asking you to do: Tell yourself ‘There must be more!!’ and squeeze as much guidance as possible out of the title.
Ask yourself. ’What’s the instruction?' and ‘What are the different elements of the title?’
And ask yourself. ’What judgements am I being asked to make?'
Remember, the tutor assumes that you are capable of collecting information about the topic. That’s not the problem!! 0:05:33.080,0:05:33.000 What is important is what you are being asked to do with that information.

Sue: So you're working with this essay title about The Spy Who Came in From the Cold.
Adam: Yeah.
Sue: Tell me about the very early work you did, right at the beginning of the process where you looked at that title and tried to work out what it required of you
Adam: Yeah. I mean initially looking at the title it seemed quite a long title, um but once we started working through the first stage of the OAWG we started looking specifically at what different words might mean within that title – so ‘to what extent’ um ‘how it reflects Cold War paranoia’ um… so looking at the specific words and how they're used within that title was really beneficial for then breaking it down and knowing where to then look for kind of answers or resources
Sue: And were you then able to set off with a stronger sense of where you were going and what would be required of you throughout?
Adam: um… Absolutely – yeah once I had sort of my head around the title and what was being asked of me it then became very much easier to go and find exactly what I needed.

Sue: So Chloé you also worked with the John le Carré essay title. Um… how did you find it generally, working with that title? How easy or how difficult was it to produce a final discursive essay working with that?
Chloé: um at first when I saw the essay title I really stressed, and I thought it would be really, really hard as I came from a French system and I've never seen these kind of questions. However, all the stages really helped me to go through it and give a final draft and, final essay that was pretty good, I think.
Sue: So the staging – that sort of breaking it down into small parts – you found that helpful. Can you say how or why?
Chloé: um especially the first stage, because I didn't know anything about the Cold War, as I’d just heard of it but I never studied it in France, and so having to do the breakdown of the question, each part: to what extent; Cold War paranoia; 1960s – helped me to go in each part of the question and work on it.
Sue: So that was the sort of the context really, the background, the historical context. And then deciding what you wanted to argue. How easy or… What did you decide you wanted to argue in your essay?
Chloé: um I decided to argue about the characterization of the main characters, and also the population that is a bit represented in the book – so Leamas as the person that is manipulated by the society and by the Bureau and everything, and he doesn't have any more personality, he is just a character of what he needs to reflect, which is a spy. And Liz on the other side, she is the representation of the population and the paranoia, with Leamas because she always has doubts about him, and um yeah that was just to represent both parts.
Sue: So you worked on the background, the historical context, and then you worked on the idea of characterization to build your argument. So going back to that sort of early stage, when you were trying to work out what you were doing, did you put together a mind map?
Chloé: Yes I did.
Sue: OK, can you talk to me about that?
Chloé: It was really useful because um starting to work on finding out what was the Cold War, what happened during the Cold War, helped me to create the first part of the mind map. And I read the book really early because I had an interview to get into the Foundation year so I started to read the book, and being able to do the mind map and having read the book before helped me to create another branch of the mind map to talk about the book and all the main ideas that I could think of.
Sue: Can we have a look at the mind map and you can talk me through how it works and what you did?
Chloé: So in the middle, the core bit, was Cold War paranoia in Britain in the 1960s, because I thought that's what I'm focusing on. So then there is ‘what is paranoia?’ And then I developed what it was. So I took just a definition of paranoia and developed it to have different synonyms, and then I developed it to inside the book. Then I developed some Cold War – I put the dates and all the main events that happened that we can find in the book as well. And then the last one was Britain in the 1960s, which I knew nothing about, so I thought it would be important to do a branch on. And every time I would do a branch on Cold War Britain in 1960s, or paranoia, I would at the end link it to the book.
Sue: Nice! Nice so you've got your whole sort of context there, and you've got links to specific parts of the book. And then from there you went on to develop the idea about characterization of the main characters in the novel.
Chloé: It also helped me to find the sources for the annotated bibliography, which is in Stage two.
Sue: Tell me about that link. How did the mind map help you find sources?
Chloé: Well it helped me to – developing the mind map helped me to develop some questions and think about them, and then I just went on the Library Search and kind of built up my question in a way that I could have an answer with some books that would help me.
Sue: So it actually helped you come up with some of the key terms for your library search?