With any essay title you receive, you'll notice that some tension or uncertainty exists at the heart of it. It would be rare (and pointless!) for an instructor to assign an essay title that has one clear answer. Consider this invented essay question:
'How many people own houseplants in the UK now compared to pre-COVID?'
This is a terrible essay title because it is flat. There is nothing to explore or think through critically: just the expectation to provide the pre-pandemic number, find the post-pandemic number, and...then what? There is no tension.
Now, consider this essay question:
'Analyse the rising popularity of houseplants that began in the UK during the pandemic.'
This is a better essay prompt because it leaves room for the writer to discover and develop an angle. The question itself begets more questions. For example, what factors (social, personal, economic, etc.) influenced this change? Did popularity shift across all demographics or just some (and which, and why)? In other words, this question reveals layers of uncertainty that you can dig into as a writer.
Let’s return to examine the tension in an earlier essay prompt:
'Critically evaluate whether the Magna Carta is still relevant today.'
The word still suggests potential change over time, and there we discover a tension between the past and present. The writer will need to closely consider if/how the Magna Carta (i.e., a legal document of the past) translates or applies to contemporary society (i.e., the present).
In the assignment question, keywords and phrases such as to what extent and whether point you directly to the crux of the uncertainty.
If you are still struggling to identify the tension in an essay title, turning it into a question can help. We'll explore that trick in the next tab of this guide.
