Before you write an essay it is important to fully analyse the title in order to understand exactly how you need to answer it. (If you have to create your own essay title, make sure you include all the elements of an essay question included in this page).

Picking the essay title to bits

Read the title carefully, several times.
Underline the key words and phrases.
Break the title down into its elements, making sure you don’t miss any out.
Identify all the instruction words and define them.

Instruction words

Most essay titles contain a key instruction word such as ‘Explain’, ‘Discuss’ or ‘Analyse’. These have specific meanings in the context of an academic essay and you can download our key words glossary for a comprehensive list to help you.

Critical or not critical?

Sometimes essay titles will say 'critically analyse' or 'critically evaluate' and other times just 'analyse' or 'evaluate'. Don't be confused by this - you should always be writing critically at university. Help on writing critically can be found on our Being Critical pages.

Topic v focus

As well as this instruction word, essays titles will usually also contain a topic and a focus.

The topic is the big picture: the broad area that you are going to write about.
The focus is the specific aspect (or aspects) that you must concentrate on.

You are never going to get a question that says 'write everything you know about x'. You need to make sure you focus on the particular aspects of x required by the question.

The table below shows examples of essay titles in some different academic areas. It pulls out the general topic, specific focus and instruction for each one.

Question	Topic	Focus	Instruction
"Discuss the causes of war in [play] by [author]"	The play	The causes of war	Discuss
"How important was the role of Bismarck in the formation of the German state?"	The formation of the German State	The role of Bismarck	Analyse
"What are the relative merits of qualitative and quantitative methods of evaluation in [subject]?"	Methods of evaluation	Qualitative and quantitative types	Compare and Contrast*
"How can a teacher's knowledge of different learning styles help to improve pupils' learning?"	Different learning styles	Pupils' learning improved by teacher's knowledge	Examine [how a teacher's knowledge can be put into practice]
"To what extent did food shortages provoke the start of the French Revolution?"	French Revolution	The way in which food shortages (plus other factors) provoked unrest	Compare a variety of factors and conclude on the relative role of food shortages

* Note that the instruction word is sometimes not explicit in the title itself but is just implied.

Picking the essay title to bits

Instruction words

Critical or not critical?

Topic v focus

Question

Topic

Focus

Instruction