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I Can't Think Of A Title For This One

May 1, 2000 Write an essay on this topic.

I'm a mom to three children and one unruly 16 year-old niece. I'm an At-Home mom who's about to start working out of the home on a part-time basis. My husband depends on me to produce our daily food intake. I occasionally have to round up the dustballs so that neighbors aren't dying from allergic reactions upon entering our house.

So, I really don't have time to zip through every Epinion on the Just In list. What really grabs my eye are titles that have that "Hey, pay attention" look or are just plain amusing.

I'm sorry, but you're going to lose me if you title your stuff, "Try This!" or "This Product Suckz." It's especially confusing if I don't even have any idea what a Sony Thingmajig is that you're reviewing.

There are a few reviewers that I can get a great chuckle from their titles alone. Judging from the amount of hits they receive, it is safe to say that their titles alone probably reeled in a few newcomers and made them faithful reviewers of their work.

Of course, if you have nothing but flashy titles and weak content, you're not going to go very far in terms of keeping reviewers captivated and hopefully learning something from your review. I'm guilty of this myself, just take a look at some of my early reviews and you'll cringe along with me. I still have a ways to go, but taking cues from some seasoned Epinioners, I've learned to improve a bit here and there.

First and foremost, don't waste any time thinking until you've checked out the titles in the category you're writing about. It would be quite a waste of time to come up with a brilliant title, only to find out that someone else beat you to the punch and wrote a brilliant article to boot.

If you know what you want to write about, but stare at the empty title box each time you write a review, toss that aside and get on with writing your content. The title may come to you in the middle of writing your review. That's how I came up with "Potential For Traumatic Brain Injury" while writing about a toy ball that was made out of hard plastic.

Sometimes titles can inspire you to write something. I came across I'm Out of My Mind, Be Back In Five Minutes and suddenly, I had an article about Motherhood. It's my most popular article to date, but maybe its only because there are so many moms on this site who can relate. I'm looking forward to the day I can write, I've Found My Mind!

Ask yourself the question, "What title would make someone click on my Epinion?" Come up with something that would attract you if you were looking for information on the product or editorial. Puns, humor, interesting references to the product or editorial or a play on words are some ways to draw your readers in.

Capitals are hard on the eyes, not to mention it conveys the idea that you're screaming. Now, if you meant to scream the title in reference to a review about screaming, well, it serves its purpose there. For those of you who have the annoying habit of typing everything in lower-case, I'll refer you to the 21-day reform program. For 21 days in a row, you practice hitting the "shift" and letter key at the same time and poof! A capital letter! And your habit is cured.

Well, I've gotten this far and the article still doesn't have a title. What am I gonna do?? Oh well, a little honesty goes a long way.

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