If you haven’t already, take a minute to write a sentence describing your project. Use that information to guide your title. For instance, if your project is about the quality of water in Kansas City, your title should reflect that. A title like, “Kansas City Water Quality,” provides insight about your project without giving away too many details. On the other hand, a title like, “KC H2O,” is too broad and vague. If you’re title makes a reference to something too obscure, your teacher probably won’t get it.
Try reading through the text you wrote for your project. Copy down any sentence that may work for a title. Look for sentences that cover the main areas of your project. For instance, the sentence “Water in our city is not filtered properly and contains contaminants,” may be a good descriptor of your project. Shorten it to make it more useful as a title: “Kansas City Water is Contaminated. " You could also rephrase it to “Determining if Kansas City Water is Contaminated. "
For example, one option is to pick out concrete images to use. A concrete image is something that you can see, smell, taste, hear, or feel. For instance, something like, “Brown water came out of the faucet,” is concrete. [3] X Research source Another way to add a creative element is to use a famous saying, poem, or song to play into your title. You can use the quote straight (with quotation marks) or twist it to make it work with your project. For instance, “Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink” is a famous quotation Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner that would work for a paper on contaminated water. Keep in mind that the title shouldn’t be too long or wordy.
Also, consider trading in less specific words for more specific words. For instance, “water” in “Kansas City Water is Contaminated” could be more specific. You could write “Kansas City Tap Water is Contaminated. " “Tap” indicates the water is coming out of everyone’s tap, and it would certainly grab people’s attention.
This technique helps you use a creative title, but it also gives your reader the description they need to be informed about your project. For instance, you could write: “Water, Water Everywhere, and Not a Drop to Drink: The Contamination of Kansas City Tap Water. " Generally, you put the subtitle on a second line. If it’s included on the same line, you use a colon (:) to separate them.
Also, make sure you include the keywords. Think of the main words that describe your topic. For instance, when writing a title for a project about contaminated water supply, obviously words like “water” and “contaminated” are crucial.
In other words, don’t choose fonts that are too fancy or have so many swirls that you can’t read it. Also, make the lettering large enough to read it from 4 feet (1. 2 m) away. Ask a parent to test it out. Stick to a single color. Choose a dark color for a light background or a light color for a dark background. Also, putting it in bold can help. You can make the subtitle in another color or smaller font to help people tell it is different from the main title.
Mixing up “affect” and “effect” is a common mistake on science projects. “Affect” is a verb that creates “effects” (noun). For instance, “The scent affected the girl. The effect was her sneezing. "
Note that if “the” is the first word of the title, it should be capitalized, but if it’s elsewhere within the title, keep it lowercase.
In other words, if you have a trifold, skip putting parts of the title on the side panels. Your title may not fit all on one line in the center, and that’s okay. Just go go the next line.
It can be helpful to try it several ways before writing or gluing. You may decide you like another arrangement better. Remember to center your title. That is, you probably don’t want it all the way over to the left, unless you are running it down the board instead of across. Line it up. Make sure your title is straight across the board. Use a ruler to draw in lines in pencil if that will help. Just be sure to do draw them in lightly so you can erase them when you’re done putting the title in. [9] X Research source
