Introduction

Essay titles should be fun and creative while simultaneously giving the reader a heads up regarding the content of your paper.  Opaque, highly academic titles often sound stuffy and way too serious.  Even some scholars have realized that by coming across as too “hard” in their approach to readers their readers get turned off.  So turn your readers on with a great essay title that excites, scintillates, provokes, and engages your reader.  Give these titles a once over and see if any of them make you want to read more!

This guide will help you come up with the perfect essay titles, regardless of the topic you choose.

Animal Rights Essay Titles

1. Animals are People, Too, and Vice Versa:  From Darwinism to the Animal Rights Movement and Back Again
2. Can Animals Have Rights If They Cannot Defend Them?
3. The Mistreatment of Animals in the Modern World:  Why Animal Cruelty Needs to Stop
4. McDonald’s and the Story of How Animal Rights are Denied in Order to Get You Your Happy Meal
5. PETA and the Death of the Mink Fur
6. If You Don’t Want to be Kept in a Cage, Why Should Animals?
7. Zoos are Prisons for Animals:  The True Story of Harambe
8. Nature Finds a Way because Nature Looks out for Her Own
9. Animal Rights Activism and the New Path Towards Dystopia
10. Cruelty to Animals is a Sign of Mental Illness:  Why Despising Nature and the Animal Kingdom Signals a Serious Problem in One’s Soul

Fashion Essay Titles

1. How to Spruce up Your Life by Starting with Your Closet
2. Hit the Runway in Style:  Fashion as Communication in the Modern World
3. When Fashion Goes out of Fashion:  The Post-Fashion Apocalypse
4. Did Style Abandon Fashion?  The Problem of Youth and Dress Today
5. Skinny Jeans Only Make Skinny People Look Skinny—Everyone Else Wearing Them Looks Hideous
6. The Link between Fashion, Culture and Identity:  What Your Outfit Says about You and Where You Come From
7. How Fashion Came to Be:  A History of Fashion throughout the Ages
8. What Came First, the Fashion or the Trend Setter?
9. When Fashion Speaks, Does Anyone Listen?  Queries into the Meaning of Fashions in the Post-Modern World
10. Fashion is as Fashion Does:  Fashion Fascism and the Rise of Fashion as Enslavement

Vaccination Essay Titles

1. To Vax or Not to Vax:  That is the Question
2. What the Vaccine Industry Does Not Want You To Know
3. If Vaccines are Fine for Your Kids, Why Did the Federal Government Set Aside Billions in Payout Money and Establish a Separate Court Just for Vaccine Lawsuits?
4. The Link between Vaccines and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome
5. If You Ask These Parents, Vaccinations Do Cause Autism
6. Debunking the Studies that Debunk the Anti-Vax Crusade
7. Why No Gold Standard Study on Vaccinations Has Ever Been Done
8. The Rise of the Vaccination Industry:  An Object Lesson in Corruption
9. Mommy, Where Do Vaccinations Come From?
10. Vaccinations Didn’t Stop the Spread of Polio—They Started It

Racism Essay Titles

1. Is It Possible to be Racist Against White People? Exploring the Differences Between Bigotry and Racism
2. Economic Slavery: How Existing Economic Paradigms Continue to Disproportionately Impact People of Color
3. When Did Nazis Become Acceptable?  An In-Depth Look at White Supremacy in America
4. Does Being Anti-Israel Make Someone Anti-Semitic?
5. Why Do So Many White People Say that White Privilege Does Not Exist?

American Dream Essay Titles

1. The American Dream is Still for Sale—But You May Not Want to Pay the Price
2. American Dream or American Nightmare?  The Unknown Reality of Life for Many in the USA
3. The Myth of Upward Mobilization in America:  America Dreaming
4. Seeking the American Dream:  Why Some Still Believe in the 21^st Century
5. I was Promised Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness and All I Got was This Lousy T-Shirt
6. What Happens When the American Dream Comes Crashing Down?
7. How the American Dream Lured an Entire Generation of Immigrants into a Nightmare World of American Oppression
8. The Sleep of Reason:  How American Dreaming Produces Monsters
9. No More Light upon a Hill:  The Darkening of the American Dream
10. How One Man Achieved the American Dream and Lived to Tell about It

Happiness Essay Titles

1. What Really Makes a Person Happy Might Not be What You Think
2. Bad Habits are Killing You:  The Number Reason You Will Never be Happy Living the Way You Do
3. Why Happiness is Contagious and How to Catch It and Spread It
4. The Pursuit of Happiness May Lead You Down Surprising Roads
5. Happiness in Acceptance and Other Small Mind-Steps That Work
6. The Contentment of the Heart:  A Study on Happiness
7. Happiness and Horror in the Films of Terrence Malick
8. Happiness is a Life That is Pleasing to God:  The Dialogues of Plato
9. Call No Day Happy Till It is Done, Call No Man Happy Till He is Dead:  Meditations on Reality
10. Happiness is Obedience to a Structured Way of Life:  Lessons from Rock

Hamlet Essay Titles

1. There are More Things in Heaven and Earth Than are Dreamt of in Your Philosophy, Horatio:  Lessons from Hamlet on Accepting the Mystery
2. To Thine Own Self be True?:  The Villainy of Polonius
3. On Whether the Ghost of Hamlet is from Purgatory or Hell
4. Why Every Line of Hamlet Should be Memorized by Today’s Youths
5. Who is Responsible for Ophelia’s Death—Hamlet or Polonius?
6. Get Thee to a Nunnery:  Lessons from Hamlet on Choosing a Vocation
7. The Self-Destruction of Hamlet:  How His Education at Wittenberg Set Him up for Failure
8. The Link between Martin Luther and Hamlet
9. How Hamlet Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Sword
10. The Funeral Baked Meats:  Why Hamlet Takes His Time in Exacting His Revenge

Animal Testing Essay Titles

1. Why Animal Testing is Immoral and Cruel
2. Why Animal Testing is Important and Necessary in Scientific Research
3. Ethical Issues in Science:  Should Animal Testing be Permitted?
4. Will Stem Cell Research Finally Put an End to Animal Testing?
5. Do Beauty Products Really Need to be Tested on Animals?
6. Five Discoveries That Would Not be Known Had Scientists Not Engaged in Animal Testing
7. Examining the Laws on Animal Testing in America?
8. If Americans Like Their Products, They Need to Stop Complaining about Animal Testing
9. Alternative Options to Animal Testing That Work Just as Well
10. Animal Testing is Better Than Human Testing, Right?:  Meet Five People Who Disagree

Football Essay Titles

1. 10 Reasons Tom Brady is and Ever Will Be the GOAT
2. 10 Reasons Football is Now Unwatchable
3. To Kneel or Not to Kneel:  The Politics of the National Anthem and Pro Football
4. What Happens in the Massage Parlor Should Stay in the Massage Parlor:  The Unfair Persecution of Bob Kraft
5. Has Football Gotten Too Soft?  Five Ways in Which Football is Not What It Used to Be
6. The Top Five Reasons Football Really is Harmful for One’s Health
7. Run for Daylight:  Life Lessons from Football
8. The Role Vegas Plays in Pro Sports:  Examples from Pro Football
9. When Football Becomes Politically Correct
10. The Decline of NFL Viewership:  What Happened and Why

Death Penalty Essay Titles

1. 9 Reasons Why the Death Penalty Should be Abolished
2. Cruel and Unusual:  Why Every Form of Death Penalty Should be Considered an Atrocity
3. 12 Different Death Sentences Used Throughout History
4. How Capital Punishment Has Been Enforced from Culture to Culture Through Time
5. Necessary Evil:  How the Death Penalty Acts as a Deterrent
6. Lost Innocence:  A Case Study of an Innocent Man Condemned to Death
7. Execution by Gas:  A Survey of the Gas Chambers in America
8. From the Guillotine to the Gas Chamber:  Instruments of Extermination in the Modern West
9. Why Protests Against the Death Penalty Fall on Deaf Ears
10. Capital Punishment is a Crime Against Humanity:  Lessons from Death Row

Leadership Essay Titles

1. The Leadership of Kobe Bryant:  What Made Mamba Mentality So Meaningful
2. The Leadership of Alexander the Great:  The Influence of Aristotle on the Macedonian King
3. It Takes Grit To Become a Leader:  How Grit and Toughness Defined a Generation of Leaders from WWII
4. Leadership in the Jungles of Vietnam:  A Case Study on the Values and Leadership Styles That Worked and Those That Did Not
5. Thou Shalt Not Offend:  New Challenges in Leadership in the 21^st Century
6. The Biggest Complaint of Millennial Followers about Leaders Today
7. The Leadership of Bernie Sanders vs. Donald Trump:  A Side-by-Side Comparison
8. Looking at Leadership Styles in The Lord of the Rings
9. Examples of Leadership from Around the World
10. The Great Man Theory:  Revisiting an Old Concept and the Perception of Leaders Today
11. Following to Lead: A Practical Application for Servant Leadership
12. Leaders or Dictators: The Perils of Top-Down Leadership Paradigms
13. Does Gender Impact Leadership Style?
14. Learning by Example: How Good Leaders Create Great Leaders
15. Elon Musk: Inspiring Leader or Terrifying Tyrant?
16. Why Trait-Based Models of Leadership Fail
17. The Effectiveness of the Servant-Leadership Model
18. Strategic Leadership and Corporate Governance: An Analysis of Salesforce
19. Sustainable Leadership in the 21st Century
20. Resistance is Futile: Managing Organizational Change

Nursing Essay Titles

1. Reflection Paper: Personal Theory of Nurse Leadership
2. The Changing Role of Nurse Leaders
3. Strategies for Reducing the Nursing Shortage
4. Nurse Attitudes Towards Evidence-Based Practice: A Critical Review of Literature
5. On Caring: The Fundamental Principles of Nursing

Literature Essay Titles

1. The Evolution of the Tragic Hero in Ancient Greek Literature
2. A Feminist Reading of Macbeth
3. The Contribution of Southern Authors to the Canon of American Literature
4. Hawthorne and American Identity
5. Motifs of Race, Class, and Gender in the Literature of the Harlem Renaissance

Cross-Cultural Communication Essay Titles

1. The Importance of Non-Verbal Communication Cues
2. How Multinational Firms Fail at Cross-Cultural Communication
3. Do Leadership Styles Span Diverse Cultures?
4. Communications Studies: A Multicultural Approach to Leadership

Developmental Psychology Essay Titles

1.  Are Piaget’s Stages of Development Still Relevant?
2. They Grow Up So Fast: Comparing Different Models of Childhood Development
3. Vygotsky vs. Piaget: A Developmental Psychology Showdown

Cyber-bullying Essay Titles

1. How Cyber-Bullying Leads to Teen Suicide:  Too Much Negative Feedback, Not Enough Detachment from Social Media
2. Why Teens Should be Limited in the Amount of Time They Have Access to the Internet:  The Rise and Risk of Cyber-Bullying
3. Using the Internet is a Privilege, Not a Right:  Teaching and Enforcing Cyber-Etiquette to Teens
4. How to Prevent Cyber-Bullying:  Tips Parents Need to Know
5. Teen Suicide Prevention Starts with Monitoring Social Media Use and Looking Out for Cyber-Bullying
6. Disturbing Trends:  The Rise of Cyber-Bullying and Social Media Addiction among Adolescents
7. From the Classroom to Facebook:  How Bullies are Now Following Their Victims Home from School via the Internet
8. The Need for Creating Laws Prohibiting Cyber-Bulling
9. The Effects of Cyber-Bullying on Victims:  An Examination of Mental, Social and Physical Health
10. A Case Study on Cyber-Bullying:  Two Teens Who Took Their Lives and Two Who Fought Back

Marijuana Legalization Essay Titles

1. This Bud’s for You:  New Marijuana Laws Make Weed Legal for Millions
2. States Say It’s Good for You, Federal Law Still Says It’s a Schedule 1 Narcotic:  The Mixed Messages Sent by State and Federal Government over Marijuana
3. The Push for Marijuana Legalization:  How Nearly a Century of Criminalization was Overturned at the State Level
4. The War on Drugs and the Legalization of Marijuana:  Where Do We Go from Here?
5. Medical Marijuana and the Dangers of Teenage Usage:  The Consequences of Legalizing Cannabis
6. The Health Benefits of Legalizing Cannabis vs. The Risks of Addiction
7. The Pros and Cons of Marijuana Legalization
8. How Marijuana Legalization is Hurting the Nation’s Youth
9. The War against Marijuana May be Coming to an End—but That Doesn’t Mean Everybody Should be Getting High
10. How High is America Getting?  The Skyrocketing Usage of Marijuana and the Dangers of Too Much Weed

Same Sex Marriage Essay Titles

1. The Primary Purpose of Marriage from the Standpoint of Traditional Catholic Teaching
2. Sex without Procreation:  How the Use of Birth Control opened the Door for the Legitimization of Same Sex Marriage
3. How the Divine Command to “Go Forth and Multiply” was Replaced by the PC Doctrine of Same Sex Rights
4. The Cultural Shift That Led to the Advocacy of Same Sex Marriage
5. The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit and the Legal Adoption of Same Sex Marriage as a Constitutional Right
6. Is Same Sex Marriage Really the Same as Heterosexual Marriage?  A Tale of Two Perspectives
7. Same Sex Marriage and PBS Kids:  What the Show Arthur is Teaching Children about the Normalization of Homosexuality
8. What Percentage of Same Sex Marriages End in Divorce?
9. The Demolition of the Nuclear Family:  How Same Sex Marriage Put the Nail in the Coffin of Traditional Western Values
10. Same Sex Marriage and the Celebration of Homosexual Rights:  How the Condescension of the Western World Opened a Pandora’ Box

Police Brutality Essay Titles

1. The Use of Body Cameras to Help Reduce and Stop Police Brutality
2. Unconscious Bias and the Problem of Police Brutality
3. Police Brutality and the Rise of Black Lives Matter
4. The History of Police Brutality in America
5. The Psychology behind Police Brutality and the Rise of the Police State
6. Police Brutality, Prejudice and the Inherently Racist Criminal Justice System in America
7. No Defense:  How Police Brutality Has Created a Culture of Fear
8. Community Policing to Help Curb Police Brutality
9. Pathways to Ending Police Brutality:  A Meditation on Restraint
10. Creating a More Caring Culture in Policing:  The End of Police Brutality

Technology Essay Titles

1. 10 Ways Technology Controls Us All in the 21^st Century
2. The 5 Greatest Technological Breakthroughs of the Past 50 Years
3. Slaves to Big Tech:  How 5 Companies Rule the World
4. Chinese Sweatshops, American Prisons and Apple’s iPhones:  How Big Tech Uses New Slavery to Manufacture Products for You
5. The Pros and Cons of Modern Technology
6. Instant Communication:  How Technology Has Eliminated Time, Space and Distance in the Modern World
7. Addicted to Technology?  A Case Study of Technological Dependency
8. How the Internet Changed Virtually Everything
9. Too Late to Go Back Now:  The Advance of a Technological Revolution and the Dangers it Poses to Humanity
10. AI and the Dumbing Down of Modern Man

Nature vs Nurture Essay Titles

1. Skinner vs. Darwin:  The Debate between Nature and Nature
2. Nature vs. Nurture in the Theories of Piaget and Vygotsky
3. The Frankenstein Dilemma:  Nature vs. Nurture and the Responsibility of Parents in the Molding of Children
4. Whose Fault is It?  The Accountability of Parents in the Nature vs. Nurture Question
5. Born This Way:  The Justification of Deviance
6. Mama Didn’t Love Me:  How 2 Convicts Settled the Nature vs. Nurture Debate Once and for All
7. A Case Study on Nature vs. Nurture:  How One Doctor Helped a Boy Raised as a Dog Find His Humanity
8. The Reconciliation of Nature vs. Nurture in Social Psychology
9. Too Many Loose Holes and Dead Ends:  The Labyrinthine Ways of the Nature vs. Nurture Dilemma
10. Milton’s Satan:  The Nature/Nurture Issue in Literature

Basketball Essay Titles

1. Get in the Paint!  Basketball Rules for Life
2. To Flop or Not to Flop?  Serious Contemplations on Life in the NBA
3. The Death of Kobe and the Meaning of Life:  A Basketball Introspective
4. Playing with Mamba Mentality and Winning with Grace
5. King James on the Game:  Court is Now in Session
6. Dribble, Hoop, Drive and Thrive:  What the Best Basketball Players Have to Say about Persevering
7. Mental Health Awareness in the NBA:  How Kevin Love’s Essay Sparked a Movement
8. Balancing Basketball and Life Commitments:  Lessons from Kyrie Irving
9. The Biggest Busts in Basketball of All Time
10. Does Sitting Stars When They are Healthy Upset Basketball Fans?

Animal Farm Essay Titles

1. Parallels between the Life of Snowball in Animal Farm and the Life of Trotsky
2. A Who’s Who of Soviet Revolutionaries:  Identifying Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky and Molotov in Orwell’s Animal Farm
3. Four Legs Good, Two Legs Bad:  How the Pigs Use Propaganda to Create a Commune
4. “Some Animals are More Equal Than Others”:  The Lie at the Heart of Communism
5. How Orwell’s Animal Farm Destroys the Concept of a Communist Paradise
6. Boxer to the Knacker, and Booze for Napoleon:  The Reality of Life in a Totalitarian Communist State
7. How Solzhenitsyn’s Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich Compares to Orwell’s Animal Farm
8. The Role of Moses the Raven in Animal Farm
9. Animal Farm as Political Satire or Prediction for the Future?
10. How Orwell’s Experiences with Totalitarianism in the Spanish Civil War Served as the Inspiration for Animal Farm

Qualitative Research Essay Titles

1. The Phenomenology of Songwriting:  Experiencing How Artists Collaborate and Create to Identify Lessons for Leaders in Other Fields
2. Is Fear a Good Motivator?  Case Study Analysis of Employees Working for a Boss Who Rules with an Iron Fist
3. The Appeal of Trump for Evangelicals:  Interviews with a Dozen Fundamentalist Voters and What Their Perspective Reveals
4. Diet and Exercise to Defeat Diabetes:  An Exploratory Study from the Marshall Islands
5. Are Teens Addicted to Social Media?  Direct Observational Analysis from the Field
6. Do They Really Believe What They are Saying?  Interviews with University Students about Political Correctness
7. Goodbye, Classics:  A Review of Humanities Courses Offered at Major Colleges in America
8. Cultural Changes in America:  Interviews with Three Generations of Diverse Populations
9. Reflections on the Family:  A Case Study Analysis of a Single Parent Home
10. Descending into Chaos, Rising into Fame:  A Narrative Analysis of the East Bay Punk Rock Scene, 1987 to 1996.

Deforestation Essay Titles

1. Tesla and the Deforestation of Germany:  Why Environmentalists are Concerned about the Latest Gigafactory
2. Where Do Animals Go When Forest Land is Converted into Farms?
3. Causes and Effects of Deforestation:  Examples from around the World
4. The Alarming Rate of Deforestation—More Than A Million Square Kilometers Gone in a Quarter Century
5. From Hurricanes to Mining:  Natural and Human Causes of Deforestation—Which are Worse? 
6. Soil Erosion and Greenhouse Gases:  The Legacy of Deforestation
7. Is the Amazon Rainforest Disappearing Because of Deforestation?
8. With 5 Billion Trees Cut Down Each Year, It May be Time to Find a New Alternative to Timber
9. How Hemp and Hempcrete Can Replace Timber and Help End Deforestation
10. The #TeamTrees Campaign and the Goal of Reversing the Effects of Deforestation

Women's Rights Essay Titles

1. How the Women’s Movement of the 1910s Sold Out Their Anti-War Base for a Congressional Amendment on Suffrage
2. Anita Berber and the New Frau as the Poster Girl for Feminism in the West and the Spirit behind the Push for Women’s Rights
3. Ms. Magazine and the Articulation of Women’s Rights in the Second Half of the 20^th Century
4. How Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique Fueled a New Women’s Rights Movement in America
5. From Feminism to Post-Feminism:  What Has Changed and What Has Stayed the Same
6. The Male Gaze:  Once Decried as Objectifying Now Embraced as Electrifying
7. How Miley Cyrus and the Rest of the 21^st Century Sexpots are Dancing on the Grave of Old School Feminist Ideals
8. The Loss of the Nuclear Family in the Cultural Pursuit of Women’s Rights
9. Gloria Steinhem as the Original Feminist Sexpot:  How Second-Wave Feminists Used Sex to Sell Their Ideas
10. First Wave, Second Wave, Third Wave and Fourth Wave Feminism Compared and Contrasted

Divorce Essay Titles

1. The Rising Rate of Divorce in America, 1920 to 2020
2. How  a Loss of the Sense of the Purpose of Marriage Fueled the Exponential Rise in the Divorce Rate
3. Single Parent Families and the Struggles Faced by Mothers
4. Divorce and Remarriage:  The End of the Nuclear Family and the Rise of the Blended Family
5. The Normalization of Adultery:  How Social Acceptance of Divorce Gave Way to New Conceptions of Conjugal Relationships
6. How the Nuclear World Nuked the Nuclear Family and Left a Trail of Divorced Couples in Its Wake
7. Divorce:  A Get out of Jail Free Card for Couples Who Do Not Want to Abide by Their Marriage Vows?—Or a Practical Solution to the Problem of Irreconcilable Differences?
8. How Henry VIII Normalized Divorce for the Modern World
9. The Effects of Divorce on Children:  A Longitudinal Study of Development Using the Erikson Model
10. The Vatican and the Issue of Divorce

Abortion Essay Titles

1. Does Being Alive Grant a Person the Right to Use Someone Else’s Body?
2. Are Anti-Abortion Activists Pro-Life or Anti-Woman?
3. Should the Right to Choose Be Conditioned on a Woman’s Previous Choices: Why Exceptions for Rape and Incest Are Illogical
4. Maybe People Should Be Required to Save Others Whenever Possible
5. What Does a Heartbeat Mean in Terms of Life?

About Love Essay Titles

1. Is Monogamy Outdated:  Exploring Modern Romantic Patterns
2. Long Distance Love: A Guide to Creating an Enduring Romantic Relationship
3. Is Marriage Still Relevant?
4. Why Do Children Ruin So Many Marriages?
5. Is Sex Essential to Romantic Relationships?

Immigration Essay Titles

1. It’s Not Your Land, Anyway: How Native Americans Feel About the Modern Immigration Debate
2. Christopher Columbus: Explorer or Exploiter?
3. Do Christians have a Religious Obligation to Welcome Refugees?
4. The Color Test: How White Immigrants Receive Preferential Treatment
5. Illegal Immigrants: What Are the Consequences to Criminalizing Someone’s Existence?

Conclusion

When working on coming up with your essay titles, first think about what your paper is about—and then try to say what it’s about in the most clever and creative way you can.  You want your title to be like a great movie trailer:  show just enough to get the audience interested—but no need to give away the whole plot!  If you can pull that off, your essay title will be like the perfect wrapping, ribbon and box and a gift that you can give to any reader to enjoy.  So don’t rush your titles and let them sound dull.  Spice them up with a catchy phrase or idea—and then pinpoint the exact subject to show how that phrase or concept is connected to the paper.  Experiment!  Try out a few different titles and see which works best for your paper’s tone, subject and audience!  But most of all, be sure to enjoy!—writing should always be fun.

Still have issues coming up with titles?  Try our essay title generator, which will provide you with amazing examples to help spark your mind.