Best title generator for essay

Type a few relevant keywords in the relevant section of the tool to describe your paper.

Pick the subject that fits you.

Hit the Generate button to get plenty of fresh and catchy ideas and pick the perfect one!

What is an academic essay title generator?

It is worth noting that the titles of your articles have a significant impact. Even if the content of your essay is exceptional, a boring title can spoil the overall impression. A strong title sets the right tone for your article and captures the reader's attention. Our advanced title generator for essay assignments is created to help you get catchy headlines. With our tool, students who want to buy an essay can find great titles in a few simple clicks. And the best part of it is that it’s free, with no word limit, and no sign up!

titles for essays about belonging

Why choose an essay title generator from Studyfy?

With a creative essay title generator by Studyfy.com, creating winning headlines is made easy! Our tool allows you to find the best titles for your papers. But even that’s not all! Here are the top benefits that make our tool the best choice for students:

No registration and no charges

Students love our free essay title generator because no fees are involved. You don’t even have to sign up. Choosing Studyfy, you can create outstanding titles anytime, anywhere, without any limitations!

Intuitive & fast in use

Our tool is fast and easy to use. All you need to get a brilliant heading for your essay is to follow three quick steps - type relevant keywords, choose a subject, and click Generate. Just that easy!

A large database of information

Our title generator has a huge database of information to help you find tons of great ideas that will surprise your professor. It collects ideas from our own database, as well as from outside sources, that are constantly being updated to make relevant suggestions.

Guaranteed Originality

Rest assured, our paper title generator ensures complete originality, eliminating any concerns about plagiarism. With our free tool, you can generate titles that are 100% unique and creatively tailored to your needs. Say goodbye to worries about unintentional duplication and welcome a hassle-free way to generate captivating titles for your essays.

Free features

We can turn your paper into a perfect one.

At Studyfy, we provide superior writing assistance to support your academic journey. Our team comprises skilled professionals adept at various tasks, including homework aid, proofreading, and essay refinement. With extensive knowledge and experience, our experts ensure your writing is impeccable and tailored precisely to your needs. When you rely on our team, rest assured your papers will surpass expectations and adhere to rigorous academic criteria.We invite you to take action and experience the difference our services can make in your academic success. Don't hesitate to utilize our expertise and entrust us with your " write my essay " requests today.

How does an essay title generator work?

Insert the keywords.

Use keywords to define your essay’s topic or a central idea. Our title generator will analyze the inserted keywords and search for relevant suggestions in our database. The more keywords you put, the easier it will be to find your perfect topic!

Pick subject category

To get even more accurate results, choose the subject category that suits your needs most from the list. The tool will use both your keywords and the chosen category to find relevant titles. There are plenty of categories to suit every user’s needs. Try to use different ones to find even more interesting and catchy ideas.

Get many great ideas

After inserting your keywords and choosing a category, click the Generate button. The tool will scan the database, which updates regularly. It will suggest creative options for you to choose from. Run it as many times as you need to find your perfect essay topic!

Tell Us Your Instructions

How can Studyfy title generator for essay help you succeed?

Tons of attention-grabbing topics, constantly updated databases for relevant results, lots of subject categories to choose from, unique ideas exclusively.

titles for essays about belonging

Tips for using our essay title generator to your benefit

titles for essays about belonging

Pick the right subject

Is there any specific subject or area of research that has to be covered in your essay? Then try choosing a subject that fits you from the list of suggestions

Choose the best topic

So, you found many title ideas with our essay titles generator. How to choose the best one?Copy your options or write them down. Then, eliminate them individually until you are left with the perfect one.

Are the topics on our list broad? Even better! With our title maker, you'll have a starting point to narrow them down further and find the best option. Whether you're seeking inspiration or guidance, our tool is here to streamline your search and aid you in crafting the perfect title for your needs.

Our customer reviews

Students and professionals choose our creative essay title generator to find the best, catchiest, and most intriguing titles for papers. Here is what customers who’ve used our tool have to say about it:

Thanks a lot! :) This generator is my golden ticket! Brainstorming with it takes almost no time, and each idea I find is flawless. Studyfy is a lifesaver for students!

With this tool, I always know what to cover in my essayUnlike any other random essay topic generator, this one has helped me generate tons of great ideas. It suggests awesome topics, and I feel inspired! Now that I found Studyfy and this awesome tool, academic writing is just a piece of cake :)

I use this all the time! It’s free and does its job so well. Thanks Studyfy for helping me get inspired and taking my writing to the next level!

I usually write essays myself However, sometimes I feel like I just need an extra push to find a starting point. In such cases, I use this title generator. It helps me find dozens of cool ideas in a few seconds. Anyone who needs inspiration for writing, this is the place to seek it!

Awesome generator! It really helps me find great titles for papers on any subject matter! Earlier, I tried a few different ones, but this one is my fav; it is truly a catchy essay title generator.

Frequently asked questions

What topic categories i can choose from, what should the good essay title generator be like, how many times i can run the tool to find my topic, will my topic be unique, get the most out of studyfy essay topic generator.

  • Don’t be afraid to experiment and choose different keywords to
  • Pick the title that suits your unique voice.
  • Use the tool for inspiration and shape your own topic.
  • Don’t hesitate to get help from our pro editors if you’re facing other issues. We will be happy to assist in making every paper perfect!

Studying / Writing Tools

Essay Title Generator

essay title generator

Essay titles are not the easiest things to come up with on your own. We know. That’s why we developed our Essay Title Generator to help you create the title your paper deserves. How does it work? Simple. Just enter the topic you’re interested in researching and a random title will be generated from our database based on the parameters you provide.

Why start with a title? Easy. The best way to start your research is to identify a specific focus within your topic—and that’s what a title does. It tells precisely what your paper is going to be about. So if you’re lost and confused about where to start, try our essay title generator.

How to Use our Essay Title Generator

1. Select your "essay topic" or "type of essay" from drop down menu 2. Click the button for "Generate Essay Title." 3. Read the title that our auto-generating system produces. 4. Want more? Click the button for "Generate More Essay Titles." 5. That’s all there is to it! Use our title to help get yourself started on your research.

Essay Title:

Topic not listed in drop down? Search your specific topic

Essay Titles

Why would generating an  essay title  help you get started in your research? Think about it. Picking a focus for your paper is no walk in the park. How do you whittle down a broad topic to a narrow subject? Well, here’s a way! Try thinking of a snappy title first and going from there! Of course, not everybody is good at whipping up a creative title to get the juices flowing. That’s why we’re here to help.

All you have to do is select your topic from the drop down menu. If you have more than one topic in mind, use the generator more than once and get a bundle of titles to pick from. If you go berry-picking you don’t head out with a basket and come back with one berry, do you? NO! You fill that basket up with as many berries as you can find, then you sort them out, select the best ones, and make yourself a delicious berry pie!

That’s what we’re doing here with our essay title generator. We’re helping you to create a great essay by helping you take the first step in that process. Get your title, get your engine revving, and get going!

Important! Don’t stress—no one likes stress, and it doesn’t help anyone—ever! So leave your stress at the door and see for yourself how simple this can be. No more worries that you can’t think of anything, no more fretting over whether you’ll ever be able to focus and create a thesis. This is easy. You tell us the topic. We tell you a title idea. Want another? Click the generator button again. Need another after that? Keep clicking. Our database is filled with great titles that will launch you into the stratosphere of great ideas quick than a SpaceX Falcon rocket. So strap yourself in because we are going for a ride!

Essay Titles Generate Ideas

The title is just the beginning. It’s where the action starts. Getting a great title can be like getting a ray of sunlight that cuts right through the fog. Everything clears up and suddenly you can see where to go. There down in the valley is your essay and laid out in a path all the way to it are the stones that your essay title has tossed out. Look how they stretch out down into the valley of sweet success.

Think about it—that’s what an essay title can do for you! It gets you elevated and out of the haze so that the research becomes accessible. In the dark, you’re fumbling for a way in, unable to find the key. Well, quit fumbling! The essay title is the key. It is the way in. It opens the door for you and turns on the lights. It points you in the right direction so all you need to do is follow the straight and narrow path

As you get started on that path, stop to look around at all the fruit that pops up along the way on the vines and trees that line the path. These are the ideas that our essay titles have been designed to generate in your own mind. You see, our essay title generator is not just a generator of titles: it is a generator of ideas. It supplies the fuel that will get your brain humming and before you know it your imagination will take over and all the information you have at your disposal will suddenly start clicking into place. That’s what a good essay title does, after all. It gets all cylinders firing!

Brainstorming Essay Titles

The brainstorming process is one of the most important steps when it comes to writing. Though some professors say you should wait until after you’re finished writing to come up with a title, the reality is that sometimes starting with a title can jumpstart the brainstorming process. This is especially true when you’re having writer’s block and can’t come up with a focus for your paper. You may have the topic, but where do you go from there? There are a thousand ways you could approach it, so which one do you choose? Or—worse—you can’t think of a single one! How do you know how to start, or, if see some options, how do you know which will get you where you need to go and not end up just getting you lost?

Brainstorming is the key! So how do you brainstorm successfully? You generate ideas! And how do you do that?

Why, you pick your topic, click the generate title button, and let the brainstorming process begin!

These titles have been specially designed to stimulate your brain and get you thinking about all the possibilities to pursue with your topic. Our titles are filled with ideas. They are brimming with possibilities. There are more potential ideas in our titles than there are grains of sand on a sandy beach. Okay, so maybe there aren’t that many—but you get the idea.

Let’s get started! You need a title, and we have the answer: our essay title generator will give you exactly what you need to get going. Don’t even think about how to come up with that perfect, snappy title. Just enter in your topic and click the button. Our titles will keep you coming back for more and keep you buzzing with ideas. We’re sure you’ll find one that hits you the right way and gives you the spark to get started with your research. Our titles help to illuminate the research process. They give you an indication of where you can go and what you can do. As soon as you feel like you’re getting stuck and need some help, don’t delay. Come get the title you need and deserve. Life’s hard. Don’t wait. Select your topic from the drop down menu and click the blue button. Generate that title, and get some great ideas—let’s go!

titles for essays about belonging

Join thousands of other students and "spark your studies."

titles for essays about belonging

Register now for FREE and get Unlimited Access to all Studying & Writing Tools.

You’ve reached your preview limit this month

titles for essays about belonging

Already a Study Spark member? Log In

or Contact customer support in case of any questions.

Study Guides

Writing Guides

Customer Service

Your customer service team resolved my issue in minutes!

Studyspark

Study Spark - providing your mind the spark it needs to help improve your grades.

©2020 Study Spark LLC.

Studyspark.com uses cookies to offer our users the best experience. By continuing, you are agreeing to receive cookies. Privacy Policy

Learn to build a world where everyone belongs. Take free classes at OBI University.   Start Now

The Othering & Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley brings together researchers, organizers, stakeholders, communicators, and policymakers to identify and eliminate the barriers to an inclusive, just, and sustainable society in order to create transformative change.

Denise Herd speaks at conference event

  • Faculty Clusters

john a. powell is an internationally recognized expert in the areas of civil rights, civil liberties, structural racism, housing, poverty, and democracy.

john powell is seen from the side and his head turned at 3/4 profile toward the camera smiling. He wears a black suit with white pinstripes.

Launched in Fall 2018 as the Institute's official podcast, Who Belongs? is an ongoing series that demonstrates our commitment to public dialogue.

Elsadig, a Sudanese man, speaks during a podcast recording session.

  • Email Sign Up

An illustration of four people gathered around a fire; one wears a hijab, another a turban, and one sits in a wheelchair. A large hand cups and holds them up. A soft yellow glow emanates in the background.

  • Publications

On Belonging

  • Publication
  • January 19, 2022
  • By john a. powell & Stephen Menendian

<  Previous page     |     Next page  >

Introduction

“Belonging” is both a powerful and ambiguous concept.  It reflects something essential to the human experience — a core need — but is not as tangible or easily comprehensible as shelter, nutrition, and rest. Appropriately, belonging rests in the middle of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. 1 This suggests that belonging is both tremendously important and central to the human condition. Yet exactly why that is so is less obvious. Defining belonging is no simple task.

This essay serves as a backdrop to the papers submitted for this volume. These papers cover topics ranging from  motherhood-driven civic engagement by migrant mothers in Sweden, to “togetherness” oriented childhood education in Denmark, to refugee-led Covid-19 responses in Berlin and their impact on the experience of integration. As these papers draw upon a conception of belonging presented or prompted by us, we wish to describe the contours of our understanding of the term so the papers make sense in context. Our presentation is not exhaustive, but should be sufficient to the goal of making the papers comprehensible in their own terms.

Defining Belonging in the Negative

Perhaps the best way to understand belonging is through the light of contrast, by defining what it is not. Let’s start with Equity and Inclusion. Equity and Inclusion refer to how social groups are stratified across society and critical institutions. Inclusion is a concept that demands institutions and communities open themselves to members of formerly excluded social groups. For example, in the 1960s Yale University finally admitted women onto its campus as undergraduate students, decades after most public universities had done so. 2 Inclusion is a powerful regulative ideal, as well as a strategy or mechanism for reducing social inequality.

Equity moves beyond simple or formalistic notions of equal treatment. When groups are situated differently in society with respect to status, resources, and opportunities, then equal treatment can perpetuate rather than ameliorate social, economic, legal, or political inequality. This is where ‘equity’ comes in. Equity is a recognition that sometimes fair treatment requires differential treatment. Most European constitutional systems recognize equity in this form, as captured by the Spanish expression: “ igual a los iguales y desigual a los desiguales ”, also known as equal treatment.

This is obvious in some cases, as when we prioritize vulnerable groups for vaccines or create special accommodations for people with disabilities or pregnant women. But it is denied in other contexts in which formal equal treatment can lead to significant disparities.

While important concepts, neither equity nor inclusion guarantee belonging. It is possible for institutions to become accessible to formerly excluded groups, and for social or economic disparities to be ameliorated or even eliminated, even as social stigmas or feelings of exclusion persist. Women, for example, were admitted into Yale, but excluded from the social life of the university, from its social clubs to its dining halls. Tangible resources and measurable disparities can be equalized even as certain social stigmas persist, such as caste or gender associations. In India, for example, affirmative action programs can guarantee employment opportunities for lower caste social groups, but that does not mean that cultural assumptions have been extirpated. 3

In this sense, belonging goes beyond Inclusion and Equity, yet includes them in meaningful ways. It would be difficult to imagine that belonging can fully manifest in a society where social groups are excluded from key institutions or large disparities exist between those groups. Yet, belonging calls for something more.

Manifesting Belonging

In our conception, Belonging is both objective and subjective.  It can be quantified and measured, but it is also perceptual, laying in the eye of the beholder. In this respect, Belonging, unlike both Equity and Inclusion, contains a psychological component — an affective component, which shapes the way social groups regard whatever it is they are regarding, an institution, a city, or even society writ large.

If members of a social group feel as if they belong, then belonging exists.  But if they do not, despite being included and having little tangible resource inequities or other disparities between groups, then belonging is lacking. Thus, in biographies of women such as Sonia Sotomayor and Michelle Obama, they report a feeling of “not belonging” on Princeton’s campus of the 1970s. 4 Both women came from vastly different social and economic milieus — the Bronx and the south side of Chicago, respectively — than that which they encountered on that Ivy League campus.

Belonging can be measured by campus climate, and climate surveys, but these surveys must reflect both objective and subjective experiences. 5 This also explains the development of so-called “mindset” interventions, messages designed to signal or express greater belonging, and hopefully engender it in the process. 6

This reveals a core element of belonging: the expressive or communicative message that a group belongs. It can be expressed explicitly, through representation or by signaling that members of a particular group are welcome in a particular space, institution, or community. It can also be expressed implicitly, as when accommodations are made, such as when special food or holidays are provided for. For example, the French Military created accommodations for Muslim cultural traditions by having halal foods served in the military, and providing space for prayer and worship. 7 The absence of accommodations or sensitivities is an equally simple way to signal that members of certain groups do not belong.

Illustration of four people gathered around a fire; one wears a hijab, one a turban, one wears their hair long, and one uses a wheelchair. They are all held up and cupped in a large hand. A soft glow emanates behind them.

Illustration by Peter Wood

Realizing Belonging

As important as these components are to belonging, there is still a missing component to a full manifestation of belonging. Belonging is perceptual and tangible; it is a feeling and a practice. But belonging requires more than accommodation; it also demands agency.

A board or council may be diverse and inclusive, but if members of socially marginalized groups are included without the ability or agency to re-shape and redesign the institution, then inclusion is realized without full belonging. In this model, members of the socially marginalized group are brought in as guests rather than as members. Simply revisiting holiday schedules or respective food traditions can help members of social groups feel more welcome, but they do not create a sense of ownership or control over the mission, values, or core operation of the institution.

Belonging is realized fully when included groups have more than a voice — they are actually able to reshape the institution together with existing stakeholders. Thus, hospitals and other anchor institutions are not just responsive to elite sensibilities, but oriented to serve communities’ needs.  In the process, some institutions may need to be redesigned or their mission rethought. Efforts toward realizing this conception of belonging are already underway in examples like Germany’s requirement for employees to comprise a third of supervisory board seats in companies of at least 500 employees, and half in companies of 2000 or more. Research shows that this measure to provide a decision making role to employees broadens the issues and concerns companies give attention to while simultaneously increasing profits and productivity. In another instance of co-creative belonging, the organization Participatory City worked with the council of the Borough of Barking and Dagenham in the United Kingdom to address the area’s high levels of homelessness, violence, and unemployment. They worked with community members to create a welcoming committee for newcomers, plant community gardens together, and collaborate on community improvement projects. These activities have fostered a sense of togetherness and shared destiny among the residents of Barking and Dagenham, as people have overcome prejudices and isolation to strengthen bonds and deepen community. This kind of agency — co-creation — is the most radical and potentially transformative aspect of true belonging. 

How, then, can these ideas be brought into practice? This digital volume makes significant headway into answering this question. Because Europe and America, and indeed, much of the world, are struggling with many of the same issues, we seek to transport the frame of belonging into the European context to explore models and exciting case studies, as well as to deepen our collective understanding of the problems that impede a sense of belonging. This volume is one fruit of this emerging work.

Toward Belonging

The papers brought together for this online publication illuminate our understanding of the nuances of belonging and model how we can realize it in practice. Exploring topics and themes such as refugee integration, civic engagement and mutual aid, human development and well-being, motherhood and race, as well as much more, this volume is a major step toward deepening our understanding of inter-group dynamics and processes, interventions, and case studies that can promote or lead toward greater belonging. What follows is a brief introduction to a few of the papers included in this digital collection.

Jessica Joelle Alexander’s paper on “Obligated Togetherness” or “ Fællesskab ” is a fascinating exploration of holistic cultural values and practices that emphasize well-being and inclusion in Denmark. Drawing upon a major national survey conducted in 2016, the author demonstrates how certain cultural practices, namely, intentionally and specifically incorporating lessons on social connection and wellbeing into parenting and education, contribute to societal well-being and belonging. She explores, in local terms, how the focus on togetherness and connectedness may lead to a correlation with happiness — in a country that is consistently described as one of the happiest in the world. 

In his essay, Tom Crompton, the Director of the Common Cause Foundation, brings to the fore the role that values — and especially our perception of fellow-citizens’ and neighbors’ core values — plays in community cohesion, well-being, and a sense of belonging. Unsurprisingly, he finds that recognising our mutual core values and value commitments can bridge understanding and build community. Looking at programming his organization has conducted in Manchester, England, the author describes community based interventions work in the real world.

Jonelle Twum’s essay explores the grassroots activities of migrant mothers in the suburbs of Sweden.  Making use of  her fieldwork and interviews, she helps us understand processes of racialization, integration, and gender-informed interventions in Sweden’s exurban areas. In particular, she illuminates strategies employed by these women to thrive and to imagine spaces of greater belonging — even as official institutions and municipal leadership fail to provide the material resources needed to support their communities.

Daniel Stanley, the CEO and founder of the Narrative Futures Lab, deconstructs our understanding of polarization. Although conventionally understood in simplistic or categorical ways, such as racial or economic polarization, he suggests that polarization is best viewed as a byproduct of deeper forces and dynamics, and related to a number of other disturbing phenomena. This essay challenges assumptions about individual and group psychology and political conformity from the post-war period, while also arguing, more hopefully, that a better understanding of the problem can lead to belonging and social cohesion.

Evan Elise Easton provides a broader perspective on refugee experiences in Germany, as they relate to integration processes and activities that foster a sense of belonging. In particular, their essay describes and elevates the cutting edge work of refugee led organizations in Berlin during the Covid-19 Pandemic — allowing us the opportunity to see how integration relates to belonging and community building in a time of social turmoil.

Building Belonging

Belonging is a broad, encompassing concept, and there is no single prescription for how it can be manifested or realized, as the papers in this volume will amply illustrate. It is also a multi-faceted concept relating to agency, connection, place, identity, and security, among other elements. As a result, belonging can exist in many forms or be expressed or experienced in a myriad of different ways.

Belonging can exist in a superficial sense or a deeper sense. It can be experienced as a social dynamic between people or institutionalized in governance, organizations, and associations. It can become embodied in laws, codes, rules and regulations, or it can exist as norms and cultural values.  Intergroup dialogue projects in the United States and Europe that not only create spaces for exchanging stories, but also teach how to communicate across boundaries of difference or realize shared values, advance belonging.

The pressures and challenges within our societies make the work of building belonging more complicated, but also more necessary. Economic inequality, displacement and migration, social media and technology, ethnic conflict and religious violence, wars and political oppression, are tectonic forces that build pressure under our societies. The pressure is often relieved through social fault lines, such as those of race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity and religion. If we are to build stronger and more cohesive societies, less susceptible to the dangers of demagoguery and division, then we need to find ways to retrofit our social structures and institutions to survive these pressures.

Art description: “As I read through the introduction for this article, I wanted to understand inside myself what it means to feel a sense of belonging. After some processing, I was drawn to the feeling of sitting around a campfire with friends — an activity that creates, within a foreign space, a sense of home and shelter. In this image the four figures gather around the flame, cradled within a nurturing, open gestured hand.”

Artist bio:  Peter Wood is a British artist who was born in Bedford, England in 1991. He studied in London at Central St Martin’s College of Art and Design, and later at the University of Westminster, where he graduated with a degree in Illustration and Visual Communication in 2014. He has been living in Berlin since 2016 and works as an artist, selling prints at an outdoors art market, and through illustration commissions.  

  • 1 Maslow, Abraham. “A Theory of Human Motivation.” Psychological Review 50, no. 4 (1943): 370–96.
  • 2 Fetters, Ashley. “The First of the ‘Yale Women.’” The Atlantic , September 22, 2019. https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/09/first-undergraduate-women-yale/598216/.
  • 3 "Why India Needs a New Debate on Caste Quotas.” BBC News , August 29, 2015. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-34082770.
  • 4 Lithwick, Dalia. “Sonia Sotomayor, Outsider.” Slate , September 4, 2015. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2015/09/sonia-sotomayor-conversation-at-notre-dame-first-latina-doesnt-feel-like-she-belongs-on-supreme-court.html .
  • 5 “My Experience Survey 2019: Campus Findings and Recommendations.” UC Berkeley Office of the Chancellor, 2020. ttps://myexperience.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/myexperiencesurvey2019-final.pdf .
  • 6 Dweck, Carol. Mindset: The New Psychology of Success . New York: Ballantine Books, 2006.
  • 7 Onishi, Norimitsu, and Constant Méheut. “In France’s Military, Muslims Find a Tolerance That Is Elusive Elsewhere.” New York Times , June 26, 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/26/world/europe/in-frances-military-muslims-find-a-tolerance-that-is-elusive-elsewhere.html .

Illustration of Hands produced by the artist Edinah

Essay Title Generator (Free & No Login Required)

Discover the perfect title for your next essay with our AI-powered Essay Title Generator! Designed for students and writers, this tool creates unique and engaging essay titles based on your topic or main ideas. Simply enter your subject, such as ‘the benefits of renewable energy’, and receive a list of potential titles in seconds.

How to Use the Essay Title Generator

Using the Essay Title Generator is a breeze. Just type in your essay topic, key concepts, or main points into the generator, and with a single click, you’ll receive a variety of title suggestions. Browse through the generated titles and choose the one that best fits your essay’s theme and captures your intended message. Once you’ve found the perfect title, you can use it for your writing assignment, research paper, or academic project. This tool is user-friendly and suitable for writers of all levels, making the process of finding a great title quick and easy.

What is the Essay Title Generator?

The Essay Title Generator is an AI-based tool that creates original and thought-provoking essay titles. By analyzing your input keywords or themes, it generates a range of titles suitable for various academic disciplines and writing styles. This tool is a helpful resource for students and writers looking to create titles that accurately reflect their essay’s content and grab the reader’s attention. Whether you’re working on a persuasive essay, an expository piece, or a narrative essay, these AI-generated titles can provide inspiration and help you get started on your writing journey. The Essay Title Generator aims to simplify the process of finding the perfect title, allowing you to focus on crafting a compelling essay.

The easy to use tool for converting text to headline case. We've also included tools for converting text to uppercase, lowercase, hyphenated, and spongebob text.

Enjoyed Title Capitalize?  Buy Me a Coffee

Text Conversion Tools

  • Convert text to title case
  • Convert text to sentence case
  • Convert text to lowercase
  • Convert text to uppercase
  • Convert text to spongebob meme text
  • Convert text to dot.case
  • Convert text to snake_case
  • Convert text to camelCase
  • Convert text to invertcase
  • Small text generator
  • Bold text generator
  • Italic text generator
  • Strikethrough text generator
  • Bubble text generator
  • Replace spaces with hyphens
  • Remove numbers from text
  • Extract links from text

Text Generators

  • Book Title Generator
  • Essay Title Generator
  • Poem Title Generator
  • Free Blogging Tools
  • RightBlogger
  • Social Media Share Preview
  • MightyShare
  • Domain Name Generator
  • Online EXIF Viewer
  • Code to Image
  • Word Finder Pro
  • Color Palette From Image
  • SunriseSunset.io

© 2024 TitleCapitalize.com

  • Social Justice
  • Environment
  • Health & Happiness
  • Get YES! Emails
  • Teacher Resources

titles for essays about belonging

  • Give A Gift Subscription
  • Teaching Sustainability
  • Teaching Social Justice
  • Teaching Respect & Empathy
  • Student Writing Lessons
  • Visual Learning Lessons
  • Tough Topics Discussion Guides
  • About the YES! for Teachers Program
  • Student Writing Contest

Follow YES! For Teachers

Nine brilliant student essays on honoring your roots.

Read winning essays from our fall 2019 student writing contest.

devault.jpg

For the fall 2019 student writing contest, we invited students to read the YES! article “ Native and European—How Do I Honor All Parts of Myself? ” by Kayla DeVault. Like the author, students reflected on their heritage and how connected they felt to different parts of their identities. Students then wrote about their heritage, family stories, how they honor their identities, and more.

The Winners

From the hundreds of essays written, these nine were chosen as winners. Be sure to read the author’s response to the essay winners, literary gems and clever titles that caught our eye, and even more essays on identity in our Gallery of Voices.

Middle School Winner: Susanna Audi

High School Winner: Keon Tindle

High School Winner: Cherry Guo

University Winner: Madison Greene

Powerful Voice: Mariela Alschuler

Powerful Voice: Reese Martin

Powerful Voice: Mia De Haan

Powerful Voice: Laura Delgado

Powerful Voice: Rowan Burba

From the Author, Kayla DeVault: Response to All Student Writers and Essay Winners

Gallery of voices: more essays on identity, literary gems, titles we loved, middle school winner.

Susanna Audi

Ethical Culture Fieldston School, Bronx, N.Y.

Susanna Audi

BRAZIL: MY HEART’S HOME

Saudades. No word in the English language sums up the meaning of this Portuguese term: a deep feeling of longing that makes your heart ache and pound like a drum inside your chest. I feel saudades for Brazil, its unique culture, and my Brazilian family. When I’m in my second home, Bahia, Brazil, I’m a butterfly emerging from its cocoon—colorful, radiant, and ready to explore the world. I see coconut trees waving at the turquoise waves that are clear as glass. I smell the familiar scent of burning incense. I hear the rhythm of samba on hand-beaten drums, and I feel my grandma’s delicate fingers rub my back as I savor the mouth-watering taste of freshly made doce de leite .  Although I’m here for only two precious weeks a year, I feel a magnetic connection to my father’s homeland, my heart’s home.

My grandfather or vovô , Evandro, was born in Brazil to a family who had immigrated from Lebanon and was struggling to make ends meet. His parents couldn’t afford to send him to college, so he remained at home and sold encyclopedias door-to-door. My vovô eventually started a small motorcycle parts company that grew so much that he was able to send my father to the U.S. at age sixteen. My father worked hard in school, overcoming language barriers and homesickness. Even though he has lived in America for most of his life, he has always cherished his Brazilian roots. 

I’ve been raised with my father’s native language, foods, and customs. At home, I bake Brazilian snacks, such as the traditional cheese bread, pão de queijo , which is crunchy on the outside but soft and chewy on the inside. My family indulges in the same sweet treats that my father would sneak from the cupboard as a child. Two relaxing customs we share are listening to Brazilian music while we eat breakfast on weekends and having conversations in Portuguese during meals. These parts of my upbringing bring diversity and flavor to my identity. 

Living in the U.S. makes me feel isolated from my Brazilian family and even more distant from Brazilian culture. It’s hard to maintain both American and Brazilian lifestyles since they are so different. In Brazil, there are no strangers; we treat everybody like family, regardless if that person works at the local shoe store or the diner. We embrace each other with loving hugs and exchange kisses on the cheeks whenever we meet. In the U.S., people prefer to shake hands. Another difference is that I never come out of Starbucks in New York with a new friend. How could I when most people sit with their eyes glued to their laptop screens? Life seems so rushed. To me, Brazilians are all about friendships, family, and enjoying life. They are much more relaxed, compared to the stressed and materialistic average American. 

As Kayla DeVault says in her YES! article “Native and European—How Do I Honor All Parts of Myself,” “It doesn’t matter how many pieces make up my whole: rather, it’s my relationship with those pieces that matters—and that I must maintain.”  I often ask myself if I can be both American and Brazilian. Do I have to choose one culture over the other? I realize that I shouldn’t think of them as two different cultures; instead, I should think of them as two important, coexisting parts of my identity. Indeed, I feel very lucky for the full and flavorful life I have as a Brazilian American. 

Susanna Audi is an eighth-grader who lives in the suburbs of New York. Susanna loves painting with watercolors, cooking Brazilian snacks, and playing the cello. On weekends, she enjoys babysitting and plays several sports including lacrosse, soccer, and basketball. Susanna would love to start her own creative design business someday. 

High School Winner

Keon Tindle

Kirkwood High School, Kirkwood, Mo.

Keon Tindle

Walking Through the Forest of Culture

What are my roots? To most people, my roots only go as far as the eye can see. In a world where categorization and prejudice run rampant, the constant reminder is that I am Black. My past is a living juxtaposition: my father’s father is a descendant of the enslaved and oppressed and his wife’s forefathers held the whips and tightened the chains. Luckily for me, racial hatred turned to love. A passion that burned brighter than any cross, a love purer than any poison. This is the past I know so well. From the slave ship to the heart of Saint Louis, my roots aren’t very long, but they are deeply entrenched in Amerikkkan history.

This country was made off of the backs of my brothers and sisters, many of whom have gone unrecognized in the grand scheme of things. From a young age, White children are told stories of heroes—explorers, politicians, freedom fighters, and settlers whose sweat and determination tamed the animalistic lands of America. They’re given hope and power through their past because when they look in the mirror they see these heroes. But what about me? My stories are conveniently left out of the textbooks; I have never been the son of a king or a powerful African leader, just expensive cargo to be bought and sold to the highest bidder. It seems we, as a people, never truly left the ship.

Even now, we’re chained to the whitewashed image of Black history. I can never truly experience the Black tradition because there are multiple perspectives. The truth is clouded and lost due to the lack of documentation and pervasive amount of fabrication. How am I supposed to connect to my heritage? America tells me to celebrate the strength of my ancestors, the strength of the slaves, to praise something they helped create. The Afrocentrics tell me to become one with the motherland, celebrate the culture I was pulled away from. However, native Africans make it clear I’ll never truly belong.

Even the honorable Elijah Muhammad tells me to keep my chin pointed to the clouds, to distrust the creation of Yakub, and to take my place among the rest of Allah’s children. Most people don’t have the luxury of “identifying with all of the pieces of [themselves],” as Kayla DeVault says in the YES! article “Native and European—How Do I Honor All Parts of Myself?” 

They’re forced to do research and to formulate their own ideas of who they are rather than follow the traditions of an elder. For some, their past works as a guide. A walk through life that has been refined over generations. Others, however, are forced to struggle through the dark maze of life. Hands dragging across the walls in an attempt to not lose their way. As a result, their minds create stories and artwork from every cut and scratch of the barriers’ surface. Gaining direction from the irrelevant, finding patterns in the illogical. 

So what are my roots? My roots are my branches, not where I come from but where this life will take me. The only constant is my outstretched arms pointed towards the light. A life based on the hope that my branches will sprout leaves that will fall and litter the path for the next generation.

Keon Tindle is unapologetically Black and embraces his African American background. Keon is an esports competitor, musician, and producer, and especially enjoys the craft of pairing history with hip-hop music. He is always ecstatic to dabble in new creative outlets and hopes to pursue a career in neuroscience research.

Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, Alexandria, Va.

Cherry Guo

Tying the Knot

The kitchen smells like onions and raw meat, neither unpleasant nor pleasant. Nainai’s house slippers slap against our kitchen floor as she bustles around, preparing fillings for zongzi: red bean paste, cooked peanuts, and marinated pork. I clap my pudgy hands together, delighted by the festivities. 

Nainai methodically folds the bamboo leaves into cones, fills them up with rice, and binds the zongzi together with string that she breaks between her teeth. I try to follow suit, but when I try to tie the zongzi together, half the rice spills out. Tired from my lack of progress, I abandon Nainai for my parents, who are setting up the mahjong table. 

After raising me to the age of ten, my grandparents returned to China. They dropped back into their lives like they had never left, like they hadn’t shaped my entire upbringing. Under their influence, my first language was not English, but Chinese. 

At school, my friends cajoled me into saying Chinese words for them and I did so reluctantly, the out-of-place syllables tasting strange on my palate. At home, I slowly stopped speaking Chinese, embarrassed by the way my tongue mangled English words when I spoke to classmates. One particular memory continually plagues me. “It’s Civil War, silly. Why do you pronounce “L” with an ‘R’?” Civil. Civil. Civil.

At dinner, my dad asked us to speak Chinese. I refused, defiantly asking my brother in English to pass the green beans. I began constructing false narratives around my silence. Why would I use my speech to celebrate a culture of foot binding and feudalism? In truth, I was afraid. I was afraid that when I opened my mouth to ask for the potatoes, I wouldn’t be able to conjure up the right words. I was afraid I would sound like a foreigner in my own home. If I refused to speak, I could pretend that my silence was a choice.

In Kayla DeVault’s YES! article “Native and European – How Do I Honor All Parts of Myself?” she insists that “Simply saying “I am this” isn’t enough. To truly honor my heritage, I found I must understand and participate in it.” And for the first time, I wonder if my silence has stolen my cultural identity. 

I decide to take it back.

Unlike DeVault, I have no means of travel. Instead, my reclamation starts with collecting phrases: a string of words from my dad when he speaks to Nainai over the phone, seven characters from two Chinese classmates walking down the hall, another couple of words from my younger sister’s Chinese cartoons. 

The summer before my senior year marks the eighth year of my grandparents’ return to China. Once again, I am in the kitchen, this time surrounded by my parents and siblings. The bamboo leaves and pot of rice sit in front of me. We all stand, looking at each other expectantly. No one knows how to make zongzi. We crowd around the iPad, consulting Google. Together, we learn how to shape the leaves and pack the rice down. 

The gap in knowledge bothers me. Does it still count as honoring a family tradition when I follow the directions given by a nameless pair of hands on YouTube rather than hearing Nainai’s voice in my mind? 

Instead of breaking the string with my teeth like Nainai had shown me, I use scissors to cut the string—like I had done with my ties to Chinese language and culture all those years ago. And now, I’m left with the severed string that I must hurriedly tie around the bamboo leaf before the rice falls out of my zongzi.

Cherry Guo is a senior at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Virginia. Cherry rows for her school’s crew team and plays the viola in her school orchestra. She spends what little free time she has eating pretzel crisps and listening to podcasts about philosophy.

University Winner

Madison Greene

Kent State University, Kent, Ohio

Madison Greene

Carrying the Torch

I have been called a pizza bagel–the combination of a Catholic Italian and an Ashkenazi Jew. Over time, I have discovered the difficulty of discretely identifying the ratio of pizza to bagel. It is even more arduous when the pizza and the bagel have theologies that inherently contradict each other. Therefore, in a society that emphasizes fine lines and exact distinctions, my identity itself becomes a contradiction.  

In the winter, my family tops our Christmas tree with the Star of David. I’ve recited the Lord’s Prayer; I’ve prayed in Hebrew. I attended preschool at a church, and my brother was a preschooler in a synagogue. Every week at Sunday morning mass, my maternal family donates money to the collection basket during the offertory. My paternal family has donated authentic Holocaust photographs to a local Jewish heritage museum. Growing up, none of this was contradictory; in fact, it all seemed complementary. My Jewish and Catholic identities did not cancel each other out but rather merged together.

However, the compatibility of my Catholic-Jewish identities was in upheaval when I decided to become acquainted with the Jewish community on campus. While attending Hillel events, I felt insecure because I did not share many of the experiences and knowledge of other Jewish students. Despite this insecurity, I continued to participate — until a good friend of mine told me that I was not Jewish enough because of my Catholic mother. She also said that families like mine were responsible for the faltering of Jewish culture. I wanted my identity to be validated. Instead, it was rejected. I withdrew and avoided not only my Jewish identity but also my identity as a whole.

I soon realized that this friend and I look at my situation using different filters. My Catholic-Jewish identities have evolved into a codependent relationship, and I am entitled to unapologetically embrace and explore both aspects of my identity. I realized that even without my friend’s validation of my identity, I still exist just the same. Any discredit of my Catholic-Jewish identities does not eliminate my blended nature. So, after a few months of avoiding my Jewish identity, I chose to embrace my roots; I resumed participating in the Jewish community on campus, and I have not stopped since.

Kayla DeVault’s YES! article “Native and European – How Do I Honor All Parts of Myself?” describes the obligation to one’s ancestral chain. The best way to fulfill this duty is to fully dedicate oneself to understanding the traditions that accompany those cultural origins. In this generation, my mother’s Catholic-Italian maiden name has no men to carry it on to the next generation. It is difficult to trace my last name past the mid-1900s because my Jewish ancestors shortened our surname to make it sound less Semitic, to be less vulnerable to persecution. Given the progressive fading of my family’s surnames, how do I continue the legacies of both family lines?

On behalf of my ancestors and for the sake of the generations still to come, I feel obligated to blend and simultaneously honor my Jewish and Catholic heritage to ensure that both prevail. 

Now I know that whether I am sitting next to my Jewish father at my young cousin’s baptism, or whether I am sitting at the Passover Seder table with my mother’s Catholic parents, it is up to me to keep both flames of my ancestry burning bright. The least I can do is hold each family’s candle in my hands. Imagine the tremendous blaze I could create if I brought the flames of my two families together.

Madison Greene is a Communication Studies major at Kent State University. Madison is also pursuing a minor in Digital Media Production. She is currently the president of her sorority.

Powerful Voice Winner

Mariela Alschuler

titles for essays about belonging

Behind My Skin

My roots go deeper than the ground I stand on. My family is from all over the world with extended branches that reach over whole countries and vast oceans.

Though I am from these branches, sometimes I never see them. My Dominican roots are obvious when I go to my abuela’s house for holidays. My family dances to Spanish music. I fill my plate with platanos fritos and my favorite rice and beans. I feel like a Dominican American girl. Maybe it’s the food. Maybe it’s the music. Or maybe it’s just the way that my whole family—aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins— laugh and talk and banter in my grandparents’ small, beautiful apartment.

Even though I am blood to this family, I stick out like a sore thumb. I stick out for my broken Spanish, my light skin, my soft, high-pitched voice and how I do my hair. I feel like I don’t belong to my beautiful, colorful family, a disordered array of painted jars on a shelf.

If my Dominican family is like a disorganized and vibrant shelf of colors, then my European family is a neat and sparse one with just a hint of color. For Christmas in New York, there are dozens of us crammed in the small apartment. For Thanksgiving in Massachusetts, there are rarely more than twelve people in the grandiose, pristine house that looks like something out of House Beautiful . I adore my grandparent’s house. It is expansive and neatly painted white. After growing up in a small house on a school campus and visiting my other grandparents’ small apartment in New York, I thought that their house was the greatest thing in the world. I would race up the stairs, then slide down the banister. I would sip Grandma’s “fancy” gingerbread tea, loving the feeling of sophistication. There, I could forget about the struggles of my Dominican family. I was the granddaughter of a wealthy, Jewish, Massachusetts couple rather than the granddaughter of a working-class second-generation Dominican abuela and abuelo from the Bronx.  

I don’t fit in with my European family either. My dark skin and my wild hair don’t belong in this tidy family. In Massachusetts, the branches of my Dominican family, no matter how strong and extensive, are invisible. The same way my European roots are lost when I am in New York.

So what am I? For years I have asked myself this question. Wondering why I couldn’t have a simple garden of a family rather than the jungle that I easily get lost in. As Kayla DeVault says in her YES! article “Native and European—How can I honor all parts of myself?,” “Simply saying ‘I am this’ isn’t enough.” And it isn’t. My race, color, and ethnicity do not make up who I am. I am still a daughter. A sister. A cousin. A friend. My mixed identity does not make me less whole, less human. I may have lightly tanned skin and my lips may not form Spanish words neatly, but behind my skin is bright color and music. There is warm gingerbread tea and golden platanos fritos. There is Spanish singing from my abuelo’s speaker and “young people” songs that play from my headphones. There is a little, cozy apartment and a large, exquisite house. Behind my skin is more than what you can see. Behind my skin is what makes me me. 

Mariela Alschuler is a seventh-grader at Ethical Culture Fieldston School and lives in the Bronx, New York. When she’s not in school, Mariela likes to read, write, do gymnastics, watch Netflix, and spend time with her friends and family. She hopes to be a doctor and writer when she grows up.

Reese Martin

University Liggett School, Grosse Point Woods, Mich.

Reese Martin

A True Irishman?

Similar to Kayla Devault in her YES! article “Native and European-How Do I Honor All Parts of Myself,” I hold holistic pride in my cultural identity. As a descendant of Irish immigrants, my childhood was filled with Irish folk music, laughter, and all things green. I remember being a toddler, sitting on my Popo’s lap wearing a shiny green, slightly obnoxious, beaded shamrock necklace. There, in the living room, I was surrounded by shamrocks hanging on the walls and decorations spread throughout, courtesy of my grandmother who always went overboard. My father and his siblings were Irish fanatics, as well. My aunt, whom I loved spending time with as a child, was notorious for wild face painting, ear-splitting music, and crazy outfits on St. Patrick’s Day. The holiday typically started in Detroit’s historic Corktown for the annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade with the promise of authentic Irish corned beef and soda bread at the Baile Corcaigh Irish Restaurant following the festivities. Charlie Taylor, a local Irish musician, belted folk songs from Baile Corcaigh’s makeshift stage. It was one of the few days a year my father and his large family came together. Although my aunt and grandparents have passed, our family’s Irish pride is eternal.

There was, however, one peculiar thing about our Irish heritage— none of my family looked classic Irish. My father and his five siblings have nearly black eyes and fairly dark skin, not the typical Irish traits of blue eyes and light skin. DeVault wrote, “When I was older, the questions came, which made me question myself.” I fell into a similar predicament, questioning my heritage. It truly came as a shock when a couple of my paternal aunts and several cousins took DNA tests through 23andMe and AncestryDNA. The results revealed the largest percentage of our ethnicity was Lebanese and Middle Eastern, not Irish.

It felt like a punch to the gut. I was clueless on how to move forward. According to the numbers, we possessed an insignificant amount of Irish blood. How was it possible to be wrong about such a huge part of my identity? Not only was I confused about my culture and history, but I also experienced a great deal of shame—not of my newfound Middle Eastern heritage, but the lack of Irish DNA, which I had previously held so close and felt so proud of. It felt as though I was betraying the memory of my late grandparents and aunt.

Even amidst my confusion, I found this new heritage intriguing; I was excited to explore all that my newly found Lebanese culture had to offer: unique foods, unfamiliar traditions, and new geography. In addition to the familiar boiled and mashed potatoes, my family now eats hummus and shawarma. I also know more about the basic facts, history, and government of Lebanon. One thing dampens my enthusiasm, however. I wonder how I can fully develop a love for my newly discovered culture without being too deliberate and appearing to be insensitive to cultural appropriation.

It is here, in the depths of uncertainty and intrigue, I relate most to DeVault’s question, “How do I honor all parts of myself?” Although my Irish ancestry may not be as authentic as I once believed, I still feel a strong connection to the Irish culture. I’ve found that to truly honor all pieces of my identity, I must be willing to accept every aspect of my ancestry. I don’t need to reject Lebanese ethnicity, nor disregard the Irish memories of my childhood. I am allowed to be everything all at once. At the end of the day, with both Irish culture and Lebanese heritage, I am still simply and perfectly me.

Reese Martin is a junior at University Liggett School in Grosse Pointe Woods, Michigan. Reese plays hockey and soccer, swims competitively and is a violinist in her school orchestra. She enjoys volunteering, especially peer tutoring and reading with young children.

Rowan Burba

titles for essays about belonging

Saluting Shadows

On the floor, a murdered woman lays bloody and dead. Two young boys stare in horror at their dead mother. At only 10 years old, my great-grandfather experienced unfathomable suffering. A generation later, my grandfather and two great-uncles grew up under an abusive roof. My great-uncle Joe, the youngest of three boys, endured the worst of the abuse. Joe’s scarred brain altered during the sexual and emotional abuse his father subjected him to. From the time he was 18 months old, trusted adults of Joe’s community violated him throughout his childhood. These traumas spiraled into a century of silence, the silence I am determined to break. 

My father’s lineage is littered with trauma. Our family doesn’t openly share its past. We constantly masquerade as “normal” so we can fit in, but the alienation we experience is understandable. In Kayla DeVault’s YES! article “Native and European—How Do I Honor All Parts of Myself?” she explains her numerous identities, which include Shawnee, Anishinaabe, Eastern European, Scottish, and Irish. Although I don’t have her rich ethnic ancestry, I question my roots just as she does. I have limited photos of my deceased relatives. There are only two prominent ones: my paternal grandmother as a child with her siblings and my maternal grandmother’s obituary photo. These frosted images hide the truth of my family’s history. They’re not perfect 4″ x 6″ moments frozen in time. They’re shadowed memories of a deeply disturbed past.

For 17 years, my family was clueless about our past family trauma. Two months ago, my great-aunt explained Joe’s story to me. Joe developed Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) as a result of his abuse. By the age of 18, his brain contained 95 alters (fragments of his identity that broke off and developed into true individuals), causing Joe to appear as the “weird one,” the one who my family dismissed, the outcast of my dad’s childhood. My dad only learned one year ago, long after Joe died, about Joe’s DID. My family’s adamancy to hold secrets outweighed accepting and helping Joe. The shadows around these secrets quickly dispersed. 

The silence and shame from a mother’s death a century ago still have a chokehold on my family today. My family appears a disaster to outsiders.  My mom’s side is so religious they would never fathom a conversation about these harsh realities. In addition to Joe, my dad’s side has uncles who struggle with codependency and trauma from past abuses. Joe’s brother coped by latching onto another “normal” family, and my grandfather coped by never talking about issues. My parents married soon after my maternal grandmother and three of her four siblings died within a few weeks of each other. Despite years of therapy, my parents divorced when I was 11 years old. I grew up surrounded by dysfunction without recognizing it. 

How do I honor my roots? I work to break the silence and stigmas of abuse and mental health. I’ve participated in therapy for about five years and have been on medicine for about two. I must reprogram my brain’s attachment to codependent tendencies and eliminate the silence within me. I’m working through my intrusive thoughts and diving into my family’s past and disrupting harmful old patterns. I’m stepping away from the shadows of my ancestors and into the light, ensuring that future generations grow up with knowledge of our past history of abuse and mental illness. Knowledge that allows us to explore the shadows without living in them. Knowledge that there’s more in life outside of the frames.

Rowan Burba, a junior at Kirkwood High School in Missouri, loves to participate as a witness in Mock Trial competitions, build and paint sets for the KHS theatre department, play viola in her school orchestra, and do crafts with kids. She is involved in politics and wants to help change the world for the better.

Mia De Haan

Estrella Mountain Community College, Avondale, Ariz.

Mia de Haan

What Being a Part of the LGBTQ+ Community Means to Me

Being queer is that one thing about me I am most proud of, yet also most scared of. Knowing that I am putting my life at risk for the simplest thing, like being gay, is horrifying.

Let’s talk about my first crush. Her name was Laurel, and she was always in front of me when we lined up after recess in first grade. I remember wishing that girls could marry girls because she had the prettiest long, blonde hair. I left these thoughts in the back of my head until middle school. I couldn’t stop staring at a certain girl all day long. That one girl who I would have sleepovers with every weekend and slow dance with at school dances—but only as friends. She changed my life. She was the first person to tell me that I was accepted and had no reason to be afraid. 

Being part of the LGBTQ+ community isn’t all rainbows and Pride parades. It is watching your family turn away from you in disgust but never show it on their faces. It’s opening Twitter and learning that it’s still illegal to be gay in 71+ countries. It’s astonishing that we had to wait until 2015 for the U.S. Supreme Court to make it legal to marry in all 50 states.  

My identity is happiness yet pain, so much pain. I hated myself for years, shoved myself back into a closet and dated my best friend for two years because maybe if I brought a boy home my family would wish me “Happy Birthday” again or send me Christmas presents like they do for my brother and sister.

When I began to explore my identity again, I asked myself, “Am I safe?” “Will I still be loved?” I was horrified. I am horrified. Legally, I am safe, but I am not safe physically. I can still be beaten up on the streets for holding a girl’s hand. Protesters at Pride festivals are still allowed to shout profanities at us and tell us that we are going to burn in hell—and the cops protect them. I am not safe mentally because I still allow the words of people and homophobes in the media and on my street get inside of my head and convince me that I am a criminal. 

When I read Kayla DeVault’s YES! article “Native and European—How Do I Honor All Parts of Myself?” I could feel how proud DeVault is to be Shawnee and Irish. While we do not share the same identity, I could tell that we are the same because we both would do anything for our cultures and want to show our pride to the rest of the world.

I honor my LGBTQ+ identity by going to Pride festivals and events. I also participate in an LGBTQ+ church and club, where, for years, was the only place I could be myself without the fear of being outed or harmed. Whenever I hear people being ignorant towards my community, I try to stay calm and have a conversation about why our community is great and valid and that we are not doing anything wrong. 

I don’t know if the world will ever change, but I do know that I will never change my identity just because the world is uncomfortable with who I am. I have never been one to take risks; the idea of making a fool of myself scares me. But I took one because I thought someone might listen to my gay sob story. I never expected it to be heard. If you have your own gay sob story, I will listen, and so will many others, even if you don’t realize it yet.  

Amelia (Mia) De Haan was born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona. Mia has devoted her entire life to art, specifically theatre and dance. While she has struggled to figure out what she wants to do for the rest of her life, she does know that she wants to inspire people and be a voice for the people of the LGBTQ+ community who still feel that no one is listening. Mia dreams of moving to New York with her cat Loki and continuing to find a way to inspire people.

Laura Delgado

Spring Hill College, Mobile, Ala.

Lauren Delgado

I moved to the United States when I was eight years old because my father knew Venezuela was becoming more corrupt. He wanted to give his family a better life. My sense of self and belonging was wiped clean when I moved to the United States, a country that identified me and continues to label me as an “alien.” On U.S Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) documents, I am Alien Number xxx-xxx-xxx.  I will not let that alien number define who I am: a proud Venezuelan and American woman.

In her YES! article “Native and European—How Do I Honor All Parts of Myself?” author Kayla DeVault says that “to truly honor [her] heritage, [she] found [she] must understand and participate in it.” This is why during Christmas I help my mom make hallacas (a traditional Venezuelan dish made out of cornmeal, stuffed with beef, pork, chicken, raisins, capers, and olives, wrapped in a banana leaf that is boiled to perfection), pan de jamón (a Christmas bread filled with ham, cheese, raisins, and olives—the perfect sweet and salty combination, if you ask me), and ensalada de gallina (a chicken, potatoes, and green apple salad seasoned with mayonnaise, salt, and pepper). While the gaitas (traditional Venezuelan folk music) is playing, we set up the Christmas tree and, under it, the nativity scene. The smell of Venezuelan food engulfs our small apartment. Every time I leave the house, the smell of food sticks to me like glue, and I love it.

We go to our fellow Venezuelan friend’s house to dance, eat, and laugh like we were back in Venezuela. We play bingo and gamble quarters as we talk over each other.  My favorite thing is how we poke fun at each other, our way of showing our love. There is nothing better than being surrounded by my Venezuelan family and friends and feeling like I belong.

My ancestors are Spanish settlers, West African slaves, and Indigenous Venezuelans. To my peers, I am a Latina woman who can speak Spanish and comes from a country they have never heard of. To my family, I am a strong and smart Venezuelan woman who is succeeding in this country she calls home. 

I was immediately an outcast as a young newcomer to this country. I was the new, exotic girl in class who did not speak a word of English; all of that led to bullying. Growing up in a country that did not want me was—and still is—hard. People often ask me why I would ever want to identify as American. My answer to their question is simple: This is my home. I knew that the chances of us going back to Venezuela were slim to none so I decided to make this country my home. At first, I fought it. My whole life was back in Venezuela. Eventually, I made lifelong friends, had my first kiss and my first heartbreak. I went to all of the homecoming and prom dances and made memories with my best friends to last me a lifetime. Yes, I was born in Venezuela and the pride of being a Venezuelan woman will never be replaced, but my whole life is in the United States and I would never trade that for the world. 

I am Venezuelan and I am American. I am an immigrant and I am Latina. The United States government will always know me as Alien Number xxx-xxx-xxx, but they will not know that my heritage is rich and beautiful and that I am a proud Venezuelan and a proud American woman.

Laura Delgado is a Junior at Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama, majoring in Graphic Design and minoring in Hispanic Studies. Laura and her family migrated to the United States from Venezuela in 2007 to escape the Chavez regime. She is a DACA recipient and a first-generation college student who has a passion for graphic design and hopes to one day open her own interior design company.

titles for essays about belonging

Dear every human who wrote in this contest or thought about writing,

I want to start by addressing all of you. 

I think stepping out of your comfort zone and writing your truth—even if you think you aren’t a writer— is a brave thing to do. 

I want you to understand that not being selected does not mean your story isn’t valid or that your identity wasn’t “enough.” Remember, you’re always enough. You’re enough to God, to Allah, to your Higher Power, to the Flying Spaghetti Monster in the sky, to your parents, and to your ancestors who endured long enough for you to come into existence. 

As I read through the various essays, I saw a common thread of food . Whether it’s the pierogi sales at churches in Pittsburgh, the neverias around Phoenix, or the soul food joints in Birmingham, the history of our ancestors’ movements have left their impressions in our cuisine. 

Another theme I found in several essays was a “uniformed diaspora.” Some of you talked about not being able to fully trace your lineage, having your history stolen by some method of political racism, and even grappling with finding that your genetics are not all you thought they were. As a Native person, I know all too well that we had much taken from us. I know that the conquerors wrote our history, so ours is recorded with bias, racism, and flippancy. 

And now to the essay winners:

To Susanna: Obrigada for your story. I encourage you to keep exploring your identity and how it informs your existence today on Lenape, Rockaway, and Canarsie traditional lands (New York City). Your imagery reflects saudades well. I think there is an intriguing and untapped story embedded in your father’s experience from Lebanon, and I encourage you to explore how that merges with your Brazilian identity.

When I read that passage about Starbucks, I thought about how the average young American seems to be private in public, but public in private—meaning this culture and its technology isolates us (private) when we are around other people (public), yet so many of us share most about ourselves on social media (public) where we can pick and choose if we want to engage with someone (private). By the way, I, too, played lacrosse… Did you know it has Indigenous roots?

To Cherry: 非常感谢你!  Don’t listen to the American stereotypes of who you are, as hard as that can be. You sadly may always hear them, but hearing is not the same as listening. People undermine the things they don’t understand because the things they don’t understand scare them. While it is not your job to feel you have to educate them, you do have the freedom to choose how you navigate those spaces.

I understand how it may feel inauthentic to learn how to make traditional foods like zongzi from a YouTube video. For me, I have had to learn beading and other crafts because I was too ashamed to learn them when I had the elders still in my life. I  tell young folk to know their elders now while they can. Furthermore, please speak every language no matter how imperfect because it’s a gift. Also, I’ll eat your zongzi any day, even if all the rice falls out!

To Keon: The imagery and symbols of slavery you use, powerfully describe a revisionist history that further blocks access to what would be a culturally-rich ancestry. 

I remember standing on the shores of Ouidah, Benin, from where the majority of slaves left, looking through La Porte du Non Retour (The Door of No Return) memorial, and hearing a local say, “Our relatives, they left these shores for the ships and then… we never heard from them again.” And so we come to realize our stories are known only so far as they have been carried. 

I see hope in the way you have embraced your roots as your branches to move forward. I believe that, in looking towards your branches, you have actually found your roots. You are a product of all the stories, told and untold, remembered and forgotten. I encourage you to keep writing and exploring how your seemingly contradicting and somewhat unknown roots shaped your ancestors and shape their product: you. Don’t hold back. 

To Madison: Grazie and תודה. First of all, pizza bagels are delicious… just saying… talk about the best of both worlds! You write about the challenge of fitting into your communities, and I can certainly see how religious differences can become contentious. 

I am sorry that you had a negative Hillel experience. In the end, we can’t let the persecutors steal our ancestral identities from us because that allows them to win. Cultures are fluid, not rigid and defined as peers might bully us into thinking. It’s rotten when people label us with things like “pizza bagel,” but if you boldly embrace it, you can turn it on its head. So I encourage you to be the smartest, wittiest, and most deliciously confident pizza bagel out there, writing your experience for all to read!

To Laura: Gracias , you write with a motif of sorts, one that conflates your identity to a number and the label of “alien.” For people in the United States to be dismissive of immigrants and judgmental of their cultures and languages is for the same people to forget their own origins, their own stories, and their own roles (as benefactors or as victims) in this age-old system of oppression for gain. It is also rather ironic that we call people “aliens;” unless they are from an Indigenous nation. Are not nearly all Americans “aliens” to some degree?

You write about being bullied as the new, exotic girl in school and I have also experienced that as my family moved around a bit growing up; however, I have also had the privilege to speak English.

It’s sad that these experiences are still so proliferate, and so I think it is vital that people like you share their experiences. Perhaps your background can inform how you think about spaces as an interior designer. 

To Mariela: Gracias and תודה for the story you shared. You write about a complex existence that is a mix of poor and wealthy, white and brown, warm and cool. Learning to navigate these contrasting sides of your family will help you work with different kinds of people in your future.

I can understand your point about feeling out of place by your skin color. Lighter skin is largely considered a privilege in society, yet for those of us with non-white heritages, it can make us feel like we don’t belong amongst our own family. We have to walk a fine line where we acknowledge we may be treated better than our relatives in some circumstances but we have to sit with the feeling of not being “brown enough” other times. I encourage you to keep exploring your branches and sharing your feelings with your relatives about these topics. Perhaps one day you can use your deep understanding of human relations to inform your bedside manner as a doctor!

To Mia: Thank you for your brave piece, despite your fears. Your emotional recollection about the first girl you loved is very touching and powerful. 

I am sorry that you don’t feel as though you are treated the same by your family on account of your identity and that you have to take extra steps to be accepted, but I believe your continuing to be your authentic self is the only way to prove you mean what you mean.

I hope the utmost safety and acceptance for you. I also thank you for seeing and relating to my pride that I have for myself, and I encourage you to consider creative outlets— maybe even podcast hosting—to uplift your story and the stories of others, spread awareness, and facilitate change.

To Reese: Go raibh maith agat . That’s how you thank a singular person in Irish, if you didn’t know already. I enjoyed your piece because, of course, we have an Irish connection that I understand.

I find it pretty interesting that you came back with a lot of Lebanese results in your family tests. Understand those tests only represent the inherited genes, so if both of your parents were a quarter Irish but three-quarters Lebanese, for example, you would get half of each of their genes. You might get half Lebanese from both and you would appear full Lebanese—or any other variation. My point is those tests aren’t exact reports.

I am excited you have found new aspects of your heritage and I hope you will continue to explore—as best you can—what your ancestral history is. And, by the way, I, too, play hockey and the violin—fine choices!

To Rowan: Many families put up a facade, and it’s only the brave ones, like you, addressing the trauma head-on who will be able to break the cycle that causes intergenerational trauma. 

When we explore the parts of our identity, many of us may find how much trauma —including historic policy, racism, and displacement—has impacted our ancestors, perhaps centuries upon centuries ago. Learning about my family history and about religious factors has revealed stories of abuse and secrets that have been hushed wildly, even within my immediate family. Photos can be sad when we know the stories behind them and even when we never knew the person; they’re still a part of us and we can honor them by remembering them. I think you choosing to write about your Uncle Joe and the effects of trauma in your family— especially as you process and heal yourself—will be a tremendous resource both internally and for others. Thank you for sharing and I hope you find happiness in those frames.

Again, thank you all for your essays. It is exciting to see the youth writing. I am grateful for my piece to have been chosen for this contest and, I hope I’ve encouraged readers to consider every part that makes up their whole and how it has informed their life experiences.

Kayla DeVault

“ In seventh grade, I went to an affinity group meeting. And all I remember was being called a bad Asian again and again. I was called a bad Asian because I couldn’t use chopsticks. I was called a bad Asian because I didn’t know what bubble tea or K-pop was. Time and again, I was called a bad Asian because I didn’t know the things I was expected to know, and I didn’t do the things that I was expected to do. That meeting made me truly question my identity. “ . —Sebastian Cynn, Ethical Culture Fieldston Middle School, Bronx, N.Y. Click here to read the entire essay.

“It’s difficult being Dominican but born and raised in New York. I’m supposed to speak fluent Spanish. I’m supposed to listen to their music 24/7, and I’m supposed to follow their traditions. I’m supposed to eat their main foods. I’m unique and it’s not only me. Yes, I may not speak Spanish. Yes, I may not listen to their kind of music, but I don’t think that defines who I am as a Dominican. I don’t think I should be discriminated for not being the same as most Dominicans. Nobody should be discriminated against for being different from the rest because sometimes different is good. “ —Mia Guerrero, KIPP Washington Heights Middle School, New York, N.Y. Click here to read the entire essay.

When I hang out with some of my older friend groups, which are mainly white, straight kids, I don’t mention that I’m Asian or Gay, but as soon as I’m with my friends, I talk about my identifiers a lot. A lot of them are part of the LGBTQ+ community, and 11 out of 14 of them are a person of color. With my grandparents, I am quieter, a good Asian grandchild who is smart, gets good grades, is respectful. And I don’t act “Gay.” … Why do I have to act differently with different people? Why do I only feel comfortable with all of my identities at school?

—Gillian Okimoto, Ethical Culture Fieldston Middle School, Bronx, N.Y. Click here to read the entire essay .

“ Torah, Shema, yarmulke, all important elements of Jewish identity—except for mine. All these symbols assume the existence of a single God, but that doesn’t resonate with me. Religion is a meaningful part of my family’s identity. After all, wanting to freely practice their religion was what brought my great-grandparents to America from Eastern Europe. Being very interested in science, I could never wrap my head around the concept of God. Can I be Jewish while not believing in God? “ —Joey Ravikoff, Ethical Culture Fieldston Middle School, Bronx, N.Y. Click here to read the entire essay.

“ Yes, I am transgender, but I am also a son, a friend, an aspiring writer, and a dog trainer. I love riding horses. I’ve had the same volunteer job since sixth grade. I love music and trips to the art museum. I know who I am and whether other people choose to see me for those things is out of my control.  Holidays with my family feels like I’m suffocating in a costume. I’ve come out twice in my life. First, as a lesbian in middle school. Second, as a transgender man freshman year. I’ve gotten good at the classic sit-down. With hands folded neatly in front of me, composure quiet and well-kept, although I’m always terrified. “ —Sebastian Davies-Sigmund, Kirkwood High School, Kirkwood, Mo. Click here to read the entire essay.

“ No longer do I wish to be stared at when civil rights and slavery are discussed. In every Socratic seminar, I shudder as expectant white faces turn to mine. My brown skin does not make me the ambassador for Black people everywhere. Please do not expect me to be the racism police anymore. Do not base the African American experience upon my few words. Do not try to be relatable when mentioning Hannukah is in a few days. Telling me you tell your White friends not to say the N-word doesn’t do anything for me. “ —Genevieve Francois, Kirkwood High School, Kirkwood, Mo. Click here to read the entire essay.

“ I often walk into the kitchen greeted by my mother sitting on her usual stool and the rich smells of culture—the spicy smell of India, the hearty smell of cooked beans, or the sizzling of burgers on the grill. Despite these great smells, I find myself often yearning for something like my friends have; one distinct culture with its food, people, music, and traditions. I don’t have a one-click culture. That can be freeing, but also intimidating . People who know me see me as a fraction: ¼ black, ¾ white, but I am not a fraction. I am human, just human. “ —Amaela Bruce, New Tech Academy at Wayne High School, Fort Wayne, Ind. Click here to read the entire essay.

“‘We just don’t want you to go to hell. ‘ I am not an atheist. I am not agnostic. I have no religion nor do I stand strong in any one belief. My answer to the mystery of life is simple: I don’t know. But I live in a world full of people who think they do.  There will be a day when that capital G does not control my conversations. There will be a day when I can speak of my beliefs, or lack thereof, without judgment, without the odd stare, and without contempt. The day will come when a life without religion is just another life. That is the day I wait for. That day will be Good. “ —Amara Lueker, New Tech Academy at Wayne High School, Fort Wayne, Ind. Click here to read the entire essay.

“¡Correle!” yell the people around him. He runs to the grass, ducks down and starts to wait. He’s nervous. You can smell the saltiness of sweat. He looks up and hears the chopping of helicopter blades. You can see the beam of light falling and weaving through the grass field … out of a group of thirteen, only four were left hidden. He and the others crossed and met up with people they knew to take them from their own land down south to the opportunity within grasp up north. That was my father many years ago. I’ve only asked for that story once, and now it’s committed to memory. “ —Luz Zamora, Woodburn Academy of Art Science & Technology, Woodburn, Ore. Click here to read the entire essay.

“ How do I identify myself? What do I connect to? What’s important to you? Here’s the answer: I don’t. Don’t have a strong connection. Don’t know the traditions. Don’t even know the languages. I eat some of the food and kinda sorta hafta** the major holidays but thinking about it I don’t know anything important. I think that the strongest connection to my family is my name, Mei Li (Chinese for “beautiful” Ana (a variation on my mother’s very American middle name: Anne) Babuca (my father’s Mexican last name). “ —Mei Li Ana Babuca, Chief Sealth International High School, Seattle, Wash. Click here to read the entire essay.

“ My whole life I have felt like I don’t belong in the Mexican category. I mean yeah, I’m fully Mexican but, I’ve always felt like I wasn’t. Why is that you ask? Well, I feel that way because I don’t know Spanish. Yes, that’s the reason. It may not sound like a big deal, but, for me, I’ve always felt disconnected from my race. I felt shameful. I felt like it was an obligation to know what is supposed to be my mother tongue. My whole family doesn’t really know fluent Spanish and that has always bothered me growing up. “ —Yazmin Perez, Wichita North High School, Wichita, Kan Click here to read the entire essay.

“ I believe differently from DeVault, who believes it’s important to connect and participate with your heritage. I believe that our personal pasts have more to do with who we are as people than any national identity ever could. Sure, our heritage is important, but it doesn’t do nearly as much to shape our character and perspective as our struggles and burdens do. Out of all my past experiences, illness—and especially mental illness—has shaped me. “ —Chase Deleon, Central York High School, York, Penn. Click here to read the entire essay.

“ … I can now run that whole grape leaf assembly line, along with other traditional plates, by myself. I have begun speaking out on current topics, such as Middle-Eastern representation in acting. I have become so much closer with my relatives and I don’t mind busting a move with them on the dance floor. Although a trip to Syria is not in my near future, DeVault made me realize that a connection to your geographical cultural roots is important. According to my aunt, I have become a carefree, happy, and more passionate person. I no longer feel stuck in the middle of ethnicity and society. Becoming one with and embracing my identity truly is ‘A Whole New World.’” —Christina Jarad, University Ligget School, Grosse Pointe Woods, Mich. Click here to read the entire essay.

“While my bow is not made of wood and my arrows lack a traditional stone tip, the connections are always present, whether I am stalking bull elk in the foothills of the Rockies or fly fishing in the mystical White River. The methods and the technologies may be different, but the motivations are the same. It is a need to be connected to where my food originates. It is a desire to live in harmony with untouched lands. It is a longing to live wild, in a time where the wild is disappearing before our eyes. “ —Anderson Burdette, Northern Oklahoma University, Stillwater, Okla. Click here to read the entire essay.

“Black people always say that White people don’t use seasoning. This saying is one of those sayings that I always heard, but never understood. I am Black, but I was adopted into a White household … Even though I identify as a Black woman, all my life I have struggled with breaking into the Black culture because other people around me consciously or unconsciously prevent me from doing so. “ —Brittany Hartung, Spring Hill College, Mobile, Ala. Click here to read the entire essay.

We received many outstanding essays for the Fall 2019 Student Writing Competition. Though not every participant can win the contest, we’d like to share some excerpts that caught our eye:

How can other people say that I only have one identity before I can even do that for myself? —Arya Gupta, Ethical Culture Fieldston Middle School, Bronx, N.Y.

‘Middle Child’ by J. Cole blasts through the party. Everyone spits the words like they’re on stage with him. J. Cole says the N-Word, and I watch my Caucasian peers proudly sing along. Mixed Girl is perplexed. Black Girl is crestfallen that people she calls friends would say such a word. Each letter a gory battlefield; White Girls insists they mean no harm; it’s how the song’s written. Black Girl cries. —Liz Terry, Kirkwood High School, Kirkwood, Mo.

To me, valuing my ancestors is a way for me to repay them for their sacrifices. —Jefferson Adams Lopez, Garrison Middle School, Walla Walla, Wash.

A one-hour drive with light traffic. That’s the distance between me and my cousins. Short compared to a 17-hour flight to the Philippines, yet 33 miles proved to create a distance just as extreme. Thirty-three miles separated our completely different cultures. —Grace Timan, Mount Madonna High School, Gilroy, Calif.

What does it mean to feel Korean? Does it mean I have to live as if I live in Korea? Does it mean I have to follow all the traditions that my grandparents followed? Or does it mean that I can make a decision about what I love? —Max Frei, Ethical Culture Fieldston Middle School, Bronx, N.Y.

Not knowing feels like a safe that you can’t open (speaking about her ancestry) . —Madison Nieves-Ryan, Rachel Carson High School, New York, N.Y.

As I walked down the halls from classroom to classroom in high school, I would see smiling faces that looked just like mine. At every school dance, in every school picture, and on every sports team, I was surrounded by people who looked, thought, and acted similar to me. My identity was never a subject that crossed my mind. When you aren’t exposed to diversity on a daily basis, you aren’t mindful of the things that make you who you are. —Jenna Robinson, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio

When my Great-Great-Grandfather Bill was 12, he ran away to work with his uncles. And then when he was older and married, he called up his wife and said, “Honey, I’m heading off to college for a few years. Buh-Bye!” Because of his adventurous spirit, Bill Shea was the first Shea to go to college. Ever since my mom told me this story, I’ve always thought that we could all use a little Bill attitude in our lives.  —Jordan Fox, Pioneer Middle School, Walla Walla, Wash.

I defy most of the stereotypes of the Indian community. I’m a gender-fluid, American, Belizean kid who isn’t very studious. I want to be a writer, not a doctor, and I would hang out with friends rather than prepare for the spelling bee. —Yadna Prasad, Ethical Culture Fieldston Middle School, Bronx, N.Y.

While my last name may be common, the history behind my family is not. A line of warriors, blacksmiths, intellectuals, and many more. I’m someone who is a story in progress. —Ha Tuan Nguyen, Chief Sealth International High School, Seattle, Wash.

My family is all heterosexual. I did not learn about my identity from them. LGBTQ+ identity is not from any part of the world. I cannot travel to where LGBTQ+people originate. It does not exist. That is the struggle when connecting with our identities. It is not passed on to us. We have to find it for ourselves. —Jacob Dudley, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio

My race is DeVault’s childhood kitchen, so warm and embracing. Familiar. My sexuality is DeVault’s kitchen through adulthood: disconnected. —Maddie Friar, Kirkwood High School, Kirkwood, Mo.

At school, I was Dar-SHAW-na and at home DAR-sha-na. There were two distinct versions, both were me, but neither were complete. \ —Darshana Subramaniam, University Liggett School, Grosse Pointe Woods, Mich.

I do not think that heritage and ethnic roots are always about genetics. It is about the stories that come with it, and those stories are what shapes who you are. —Lily Cordon-Siskind, Ethical Culture Fieldston Middle School, Bronx, N.Y.

In my sixteen-year-old mind, the two ethnicities conflicted. I felt like I couldn’t be both. I couldn’t be in touch with Southern roots and Cuban ones at the same time. How could I, they contradict each other? The Cuban part of me ate all my food, was loud and blunt, an underdog and the Southerner was reserved, gentle, and polite. —Grace Crapps, Spring Hill College, Mobile, Ala.

I thought I was simply an American. However, I learned that I am not a jumbled mix of an untraceable past, but am an expertly woven brocade of stories, cultures, and hardships. My ancestors’ decisions crafted me…I am a story, and I am a mystery. —Hannah Goin, Pioneer Middle School, Walla Walla, Wash.

We received many outstanding essays for the Fall 2019 Student Writing Competition, and several students got clever and creative with their titles. Here are some titles that grabbed our attention:

“A Mixed Child in a Mixed-Up Family” Caitlin Neidow, Ethical Culture Fieldston Middle School, Bronx, N.Y.

“Diggin’ in the DNA” Honnor Lawton, Chestnut Hill Middle School, Liverpool, N.Y.

“Hey! I’m Mexican (But I’ve Never Been There)” Alexis Gutierrez-Cornelio, Wellness, Business & Sports School, Woodburn, Ore.

“What It Takes to Be a Sinner” Amelia Hurley, Kirkwood High School, Kirkwood, Mo.

“Mirish” Alyssa Rubi, Chief Sealth International High School, Seattle, Wash.

“Nunca Olvides de Donde Vienes ” ( Never forget where you came from ) Araceli Franco, Basis Goodyear High School, Goodyear, Ariz.

“American Tacos” Kenni Rayo-Catalan, Estrella Mountain Community College, Avondale, Ariz.

“Corn-Filled Mornings and Spicy Afternoons” Yasmin Medina, Tarrant County Community College, Fort Worth, Tex.

Get Stories of Solutions to Share with Your Classroom

Teachers save 50% on YES! Magazine.

Inspiration in Your Inbox

Get the free daily newsletter from YES! Magazine: Stories of people creating a better world to inspire you and your students.

Home — Essay Samples — Psychology — Human Behavior — Why Do People Need To Belong

test_template

Why Do People Need to Belong

  • Categories: Human Behavior

About this sample

close

Words: 413 |

Published: Mar 14, 2024

Words: 413 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

Image of Dr. Oliver Johnson

Cite this Essay

Let us write you an essay from scratch

  • 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
  • Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

author

Dr Jacklynne

Verified writer

  • Expert in: Psychology

writer

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

1 pages / 469 words

3 pages / 1420 words

1 pages / 528 words

5 pages / 2133 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on Human Behavior

Children are often described as the future of society, and understanding their development and behavior is crucial in shaping their growth. Writing a letter to describe a child provides an opportunity to explore the complexities [...]

Human behavior and interaction are complex subjects that are often studied and analyzed from various perspectives. In the case of Rachel and Brock, these two individuals provide an interesting basis for analysis. By examining [...]

One of the most significant and complex dimensions of human experience is personal relationships. Relationships, whether they are romantic or platonic, can be challenging and trying, but they can also be rewarding and [...]

Materialism in anthropology is a concept that has garnered significant attention and debate in recent years. While traditionally, anthropologists have focused on the study of culture, society, and human behavior, the importance [...]

Dishonest behaviour is a phenomenon we often encounter in our everyday life. It is used in social situations to achieve goals such as making a good impression, supporting and protecting the people we care about, or to influence [...]

The discussion of role that an individual’s genetics play in their personality and development has been debated for decades. The question of nature versus nurture is at the heart of behavioral genetics. Nature involves the [...]

Related Topics

By clicking “Send”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement . We will occasionally send you account related emails.

Where do you want us to send this sample?

By clicking “Continue”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy.

Be careful. This essay is not unique

This essay was donated by a student and is likely to have been used and submitted before

Download this Sample

Free samples may contain mistakes and not unique parts

Sorry, we could not paraphrase this essay. Our professional writers can rewrite it and get you a unique paper.

Please check your inbox.

We can write you a custom essay that will follow your exact instructions and meet the deadlines. Let's fix your grades together!

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

  • Instructions Followed To The Letter
  • Deadlines Met At Every Stage
  • Unique And Plagiarism Free

titles for essays about belonging

titles for essays about belonging

Best Tips on How to Title an Essay

titles for essays about belonging

How to Make a Good Title for an Essay

The success of an essay heavily depends on its title. This may not come as a surprise given that the essay title is the first aspect to provide the reader with a sneak peek into the text. It piques our interest to read the paper in the first place and gives us a preview of what to expect from the author.

Our research paper writing help prepared a thorough guide on how to title an essay. Here you may find tips and tricks for developing an effective APA or MLA essay title. So, let's dive straight into the article for more exciting details!

Essay Title Format

During your essay writing process, ensure you know the stylistic requirements before beginning an essay. Knowing the format you need to employ is crucial because different style manuals may have varying requirements. Mostly, you could have used an APA or MLA essay title format. Our service, where you can buy essay online , explains these two in more detail below.

Essay Title MLA

If you're required to create an essay title MLA format, check whether your instructor wants you to make a separate cover page. If not, put a heading at the beginning of your work that includes your name, the name of your professor, the course ID, and, lastly, the date.

On the other hand, if you must present a cover page for your essay title MLA, then you need to include the following:

  • The name of the college
  • The title of your paper
  • The subtitle of your paper, if applicable
  • Your first and last name
  • Your teacher or professor's name
  • The class name or course number
  • The date the paper is due

The formatting instructions are as follows:

  • Double-spaced
  • Times New Roman font
  • Size 12 font
  • Apart from very short terms, each word's initial letter should be capitalized. The initial word, however, must always be uppercase.
  • The title page shouldn't include a header with the page numbers.

Essay Title APA

Having discussed the MLA format essay title, let's explore what the APA student title page includes:

  • The paper title
  • Author names
  • Institutional affiliation where the author carried out the study
  • Name and number of the course
  • Professor name
  • Page number

The title of an essay format instructions:

  • double-spaced
  • 1" margins
  • 12-point Times New Roman
  • According to APA, your title should be targeted and brief, without unnecessary words or abbreviations

How to Choose a Good Title for an Essay: Important Qualities

Nobody will read a dull headline. Your title should grab your audience's attention and encourage them to read the rest of the work. As it is one of the initial things readers see, having a strong attention grabber is essential when writing an essay from scratch. To fully understand how to come up with a title for essay that is strong and exciting, let's consider a few following factors:

Employ a Catchy Hook - Usually, the title of essay format follows a similar basic structure, especially if they are used for an academic article. The hook serves as a unique component that attracts the reader. It's a captivating statement informing others about the topic of the essay. You can also explore several types of sentences with examples that can help you develop the ideal hook structure.

Consider Topic Keywords - These are essential terms or expressions pertinent to your subject and help your reader understand the focus and body of your article. These focus keywords should serve as a brief, one- to two-word article summary. You can choose some terms from the research topic your instructor gave you, but after your thesis statement is formed, this is where you should hunt for ideas.

Use a Colon - A colon is frequently used in academic titles to separate concepts and sentences. The standard procedure is to place a clever remark or brief quotation before the colon. Although these beginning words offer flavor, they can be overdone. Because of this, some individuals find using the colon to be repugnant. Therefore be careful not to misuse this method.

Ask a Question - To write essay title that is strong, consider asking a question. But, use it with caution because posing a question will make your tone less formal. As long as the question is suitably phrased to meet the subject of your essay, feel free to employ it. Always check to see if the title question still applies to your points in the essay's body. The thesis statement should be appropriately reflected as well.

Find Inspirational Quotes - There is no formula for selecting essay titles from the textual content. You may get playful and choose any quotation, proverb, or catchphrase that applies to your particular publication and works as a title. You may also create a great essay title using well-known expressions or idioms. Doing so will help your readers relate to and feel more comfortable discussing your subject.

How to Title an Essay headline

Here are other rules for how to create a good title:

  • Title every section of writing: In the process of writing, create interesting subheadings to give your paragraphs an identity. Also, they make your text look ordered and clear. 
  • The title must bear the theme of the text: choose a title that summarizes the essay. 
  • Capitalize all words with certain exceptions: Capitalize the first letter of every word in the title, but do not capitalize pronouns, articles, prepositions, and conjunctions.
  • Avoid underlining the title: Since topics come in boldface, underlining it will amount to overemphasis. Some authorities say that if you must underline it, do not bolden it.
  • Review the final version of the title: Do not forget to do a quick review of the final version of the title—check for grammar, structure, spelling and so on. Re-read it to determine if the title has given justice to the essay. Confirm if the topic is catchy enough to attract your reader’s attention. 
  • When using a colon in your title, follow the rules: Since we are dealing with punctuation rules here, let us talk about the colon – when you have two eye-catching topics, separate them with a colon.

Student’s Guide on How to Come Up with a Title for an Essay

Titling an essay can be easy, but there are a few core principles to be taken into account. The following tips will help you stay on track and avoid any common pitfalls.

Essay Goes First

Never start with a title! If you write it before the rest of the text, it will be based on it, and it should be vice versa. Writing an essay before choosing a heading will give you a clear understanding of what should make sense to the reader. Re-read the finished paper several times to decide on the title. The last thing to create is a title - such strategy will give more time to spend on crafting an essay outline, conducting research, or writing the paper itself.

How to Title an Essay, Complete Guide 2

What are you writing about? What is the style of your paper, and is it an academic essay or a free-form essay like a narrative essay? If the topic of your essay is “Do people who commit heinous crimes deserve the death penalty?” your title should not be humorous; it should be strict and to the point.

If your topic is “Why do people like watching funny cat videos?”, feel free to craft a funny title. Determine the tone of your essay and base your title on it—in consideration with the essay’s topic.

The tone can be:

  • Serious - “The implications of global warming”
  • Funny - “How cats and dogs love their masters”
  • Amiable - “Ways to fight depression”
  • Persuasive - “Why positive thinking is a must have skill for every person”
  • Informative - “Ten rules for creating a chemical at home”

The main goal of a title is to name its paper. There is no need to tell an entire story in the title, or provide any useless details. Sum up your paper in a few words! Another way to do this is to sum up your thesis statement, as it represents the main idea of your essay. Take your thesis and squeeze it into 3-4 words. Imagine that you are creating a title for your favourite newspaper or a slogan for Coca-Cola.

Don’t use fancy words! Take 2-3 main words (keywords), put them together, and stop wasting your time. Avoid jargon and abbreviations.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is something that can help any student and young writer reap benefits. While working on a title, detect the words related to the central idea of the paper. Type the words into the search field of Google and add the word “quote.” A search engine will show numerous web pages with in-text quotations that could be useful. Select the fragment you like. It is possible to learn how to make a creative title for an essay in this way.

Discover several more tips from experts:

  • Never forget the “What,” “Who,” “When,” “How,” “Why,” and “Where” questions (if you start with one of these questions, your title has a chance of getting noticed);
  • Come up with an unexpected image not related to the selected topic;
  • Sometimes, starting with a lie increases the chances of a title being able to catch an eye;
  • Review our catchy essay title examples.

Need Some Help With Your Essay's Title?

Feel free to contact EssayPro and we will provide you with a writing help at a moment’s notice. With the years of essay writing experience, titling becomes second nature, so you no longer need to worry about having a catchy headline on your paper.

Essay Title Examples: Bad vs Good

The strongest essay titles condense lengthy essays into concise statements. When wondering how to make an essay title, think carefully about your stylistic choices and essay format to produce an excellent one. Our dissertation help has provided essay title examples to let you understand the difference between good and bad ones more vividly.

bad good essay titles

Bad Essay Title Examples

As we discussed how to create an essay title and the specific elements that go into it, you should have a clear idea of how important it is to craft a strong title. In contrast, first, look at weak essay title ideas that can break your paper. This should serve as an example of why your heading should not be like this:

Ex 1: ' How Television Has Changed Our World ' - too vast and not informative

Ex 2: 'The Ara Pacis Augustae' - unclear for those who don't know Latin

Ex 3: 'The Most Poisonous Frog' - does not provide any insight

Ex 4: 'A Brief History of Subcultures and How They Manifest Themselves in a Constantly Changing Socio-Economic Environment' - too long and complicated

Ex 5: 'The Little Mermaid 29 Years Later: Selling a Harmful Sexist Message Through a Naughty Image' - inappropriate language

Good Essay Title Examples

Now that you know what a bad essay title looks like, let's explore good essay title examples as their substitutes. Examine the following essay title format styles that will give you a clear understanding.

Ex 1: ' The Electronic Babysitter: A Social History of Uses of the Television' - gives an exact description of what the essay will be about

Ex 2: ' The Modern Historical Significance of the Ara Pacis Augustae to the City of Rome' - here, the reader can understand what they will be reading about

Ex 3: ' A Deadly Beauty: The Evolution of Skin Coloration and Toxicity of the Poisonous Dart Frog' - clear, informative, and on-point.

Ex 4: 'Reconsidering Counterculture in Contemporary Society' - informative enough and brief

Ex 5: 'The Projection of Gender Stereotypes in The Little Mermaid' - employs appropriate language

Catchy Essay Title Ideas

You now understand that long, complicated headlines do not accurately convey the paper's main idea. Take ample time to consider the word choice before tilting your work. How do you create good essay titles? Think creatively and with common sense. But meanwhile, for your convenience, we compiled title ideas for essays you may use as inspiration.

Persuasive Essay Titles

  • Why Receiving College Education is Important: Examining Long-term Benefits
  • Face-to-Face Courses Cannot Be Replaced by Online Learning
  • An MBA Does Not Ensure Corporate Success.
  • Every Company Should Adopt a Green Strategy.
  • Energy Drinks Represent a Lucrative Market Segment.
  • Aircraft, Excess Weight Charges, Need to be Prohibited.
  • Patients' Life Shouldn't be Put to Death by Nurses.
  • Google Glasses May Increase the Number of Auto Accidents.
  • All of the Conventional Malls Will Soon be Replaced By Online Shopping
  • How Do Team-building Exercises Contribute to the Development of Inventions?
  • Illegal immigrants are entitled to remain in the US.

Academic Essay Titles

  • Several English Dialects: The Link Between Various Cultures
  • Instagram: A social media innovation
  • Is it possible to reverse drug-induced brain damage, and if so, how?
  • What the Future Holds for Humans in the Light of Artificial Intelligence
  • The Story of Two Nations after Decades of Conflict: North and South Korea
  • Video Games and Their Learning Context in Schools
  • Free Wi-Fi: Strategies for Enhancing the City's Economy

Strong Research Paper Titles

  • Digital World Cybersecurity
  • E-business to Provide New Paths for Booksellers
  • Outsourcing for Large Businesses
  • Preparing for College Costs for High School Students
  • What News Reporters Should Do in the Digital Age and How to Do It: Examples
  • The Transformative Power of Music: How Heavy Metal Impacted My Life

Best Essay Titles for College Students

  • The Possible Benefits and Risks of Artificial Intelligence for Humans
  • The Potential for Time Travel in Virtual Reality
  • What Role Has Mathematics Played in Human History?
  • How to Succeed in the Real Estate Industry
  • E-Commerce: An Empire of Virtual Businesses Worth Millions of Dollars
  • How to Achieve Financial Independence in the Digital Age Without Opening a Real Business

More Creative Titles for Essays

  • When getting rewarded for their grades, would kids do better left alone?
  • How Does Fake News Impact the Mainstream press?
  • Homelessness in Contemporary Society: A Dilemma
  • What News Reporters' Best Job Is in the Digital Age and How to Uphold It
  • Elon Musk: Brilliant Mind or Insane Person?
  • Positives and Negatives of Employing a Smoker
  • Do We Employ the Appropriate Student Success Metrics?

Professional Academic Help

Now that you know how to make a good title for an essay, you should also understand that you should approach the task as a process. While composing your essay title, you must condense your whole thesis and point of discussion into a single, concise, yet powerful sentence. If you have time before your deadline, give it some thought and don't hurry.

Don't forget that you can always rely on our professional academic assistance, whether you need a reflection paper , ideas for a strong essay title, or any other academic papers. Consider the following words - write my essay for me - magic keywords for delegating your most complex tasks to our skilled writers!

Is the Volume of Schoolwork Getting Out of Hand?

Find an essay for sale online and handle your tasks without stress. You may always count on our experienced writers for help with any endeavor!

How To Title An Essay?

How to title an essay in mla format, what are some good titles for an essay.

Daniel Parker

Daniel Parker

is a seasoned educational writer focusing on scholarship guidance, research papers, and various forms of academic essays including reflective and narrative essays. His expertise also extends to detailed case studies. A scholar with a background in English Literature and Education, Daniel’s work on EssayPro blog aims to support students in achieving academic excellence and securing scholarships. His hobbies include reading classic literature and participating in academic forums.

titles for essays about belonging

is an expert in nursing and healthcare, with a strong background in history, law, and literature. Holding advanced degrees in nursing and public health, his analytical approach and comprehensive knowledge help students navigate complex topics. On EssayPro blog, Adam provides insightful articles on everything from historical analysis to the intricacies of healthcare policies. In his downtime, he enjoys historical documentaries and volunteering at local clinics.

Related Articles

What Is a Capstone Project: Definition, Types, Writing Steps

Essay Title Generator

Essay Title Generator

Essay title generator – unleash your creativity.

Essay Title Generator

Generate creative and engaging essay titles easily with our Essay Title Generator. Perfect for students and writers seeking inspiration.

Crafting the perfect title for your essay can be just as challenging as writing the essay itself. That’s where the Essay Title Generator steps in – a tool designed to spark creativity and provide a starting point for your writing journey.

At Essay Title Generator, we understand the struggle that comes with starting an essay. The title is not just a label; it’s the first impression, the hook that captures the essence of your work and engages the reader. Whether you’re a student grappling with academic essays or a writer exploring various topics, the right title can make a significant difference in how your work is perceived.

Our tool leverages the power of Natural Language Processing (NLP) to generate thought-provoking and relevant titles. With a focus on simplicity and effectiveness, it’s tailored to inspire you, offering a plethora of ideas that resonate with your essay’s theme. Imagine the ease of having a list of potential titles at your fingertips, saving you time and sparking your imagination.

Think about the last time you struggled to title your essay. How long did you stare at a blank screen? How often did you rewrite that one line? The Essay Title Generator alleviates this challenge, offering an array of titles with just a few clicks. It’s more than just a tool; it’s a companion in your creative process.

Our goal is to streamline your writing process, starting from the very beginning. The Essay Title Generator is designed to offer a blend of creativity and practicality, ensuring that your essay stands out. So, the next time you find yourself pondering over the right words to crown your work, remember, a seamless, inspiring solution is just a click away.

Table of Contents

About the Essay Title Generator Tool

In the realm of essay writing, the inception of your work begins with a title. It is the gateway to your thoughts, the first glimpse into your argument or narrative. This is where the Essay Title Generator tool, a cornerstone feature of our website, comes into play. This innovative tool is not just a random title maker; it is an advanced, user-friendly platform that employs Natural Language Processing (NLP) to generate meaningful and relevant essay titles.

How the Tool Works

The Essay Title Generator is built on the foundation of NLP, a branch of artificial intelligence that deals with the interaction between computers and human languages. NLP enables the tool to understand, interpret, and generate human language in a way that is both meaningful and contextually relevant. When you input keywords or a topic into the tool, it processes this information using complex algorithms to create a list of potential titles.

These algorithms analyze patterns and structures in language, drawing from an extensive database of words, phrases, and commonly used linguistic structures in essay titles. By understanding the nuances of language, the tool can create titles that are not only unique but also resonate with the topic you are exploring. This makes each suggested title more than just a string of words; it’s a reflection of your essay’s core idea and purpose.

Benefits of Using the Essay Title Generator

  • Saves Time: Brainstorming a compelling title can be time-consuming. Our tool streamlines this process, providing you with multiple title options within seconds.
  • Sparks Creativity: Sometimes, all you need is a little nudge in the right direction. The generated titles can serve as a source of inspiration, helping you to develop more focused and creative ideas for your essay.
  • Enhances Essay Relevance: A well-crafted title directly influences the perceived relevance of your essay. The titles generated by our tool are designed to be closely aligned with your essay’s content, making your work more appealing to readers.
  • User-Friendly: The tool is designed for ease of use. Regardless of your technological expertise, you can navigate and utilize this tool effectively.
  • Adaptable to Various Essay Types: Whether it’s a narrative, descriptive, expository, or persuasive essay, the tool is capable of generating titles that suit different types of essays and writing styles.
  • A Learning Aid: For students and novice writers, the tool is not just a convenience but a learning aid. It demonstrates how effective titles are constructed, offering insights into the art of title formulation.

In conclusion, the Essay Title Generator tool is more than just a utility; it’s a bridge between your ideas and their expression. It respects the complexity of language and the creativity of essay writing, providing a synergy of technology and artistry. As you embark on your essay writing journey, let this tool be your guide, transforming the daunting task of title selection into an exciting leap into your creative endeavor.

Step-by-Step Guide to Using the Essay Title Generator

Navigating the Essay Title Generator is a seamless and intuitive process, designed to make your journey from a blank page to an inspiring title as effortless as possible. Here’s a straightforward guide on how to use this innovative tool, along with some tips to extract the best possible titles for your essays.

Step 1: Access the Tool

Begin by visiting our website and locating the Essay Title Generator tool. It’s prominently featured on our homepage for easy access.

Step 2: Enter Your Keywords or Topic

In the provided input field, type in the keywords or the main topic of your essay. These words should capture the essence of your essay and are crucial in generating a relevant title. For example, if you’re writing about the impact of climate change on marine life, your keywords could be ‘climate change,’ ‘marine life,’ ‘impact.’

Step 3: Generate Titles

Once you’ve entered your keywords, click the ‘Generate Title’ button. The tool will process your input and use its NLP algorithms to produce a list of potential titles.

Step 4: Select Your Title

Review the suggested titles. The tool will provide a variety of options, from which you can select the one that best fits your essay’s content and tone.

Step 5: Customize if Necessary

If needed, you can tweak the chosen title to better suit your essay. The tool aims to inspire, and a bit of personal touch can make the title perfect for your work.

Tips for Best Results

  • Be Specific with Keywords: The more specific your keywords, the more tailored the title suggestions will be.
  • General terms may yield too broad a range of titles.
  • Use Key Themes: Think about the central themes or arguments of your essay and include them as keywords.
  • Keep it Short: Limit your keyword entry to a few words or a short phrase to avoid overwhelming the tool.

Example Scenario

Case Study: A student writing an essay on ‘Renewable Energy Sources in the 21st Century’ uses keywords like ‘renewable energy,’ ‘21st century,’ ‘sustainable sources.’ The generator then comes up with titles like “Navigating Renewable Energy: Sustainable Sources for the 21st Century” and “The Future of Energy: Embracing Renewables in the 21st Century.”

Using the Essay Title Generator is about merging technology with your creative process. It’s an aid designed to enhance your writing journey, providing a starting point that resonates with your content and sparks your imagination. With each use, you’ll find navigating the tool becomes a natural part of your essay-writing ritual.

Importance of a Good Essay Title

The journey of writing an essay is punctuated with various crucial steps, but perhaps none is as underestimated yet vital as crafting the perfect title. A title is more than just a heading; it’s the first impression, a decisive moment where readers decide whether to continue reading or move on. The significance of a good essay title cannot be overstressed, as it plays a pivotal role in the success and reception of your essay.

First Impressions Count

A title is the initial point of contact between your essay and its potential reader. Just as one dresses appropriately for an interview to make a good first impression, an essay must have a title that immediately captures attention. A compelling title acts like a window, offering a glimpse into the soul of your essay. It sets the tone and expectation, priming the reader for what lies ahead. A mundane or uninspiring title might lead to your essay being overlooked, regardless of the quality of its content.

Engagement and Curiosity

Engagement begins with curiosity, and a well-crafted title is a tool to pique the interest of the reader. It acts as a hook, intriguing the audience and sparking their curiosity. A title like “The Unseen Consequences of Climate Change” invites the reader to explore a possibly unconsidered aspect of a well-known issue. The title should entice the reader, promising them new insights and perspectives.

Reflecting the Content

A good title is a summary of your essay in a nutshell. It should be a distillation of the essence of your work. This doesn’t mean it has to be plain or direct; rather, it should encapsulate the central theme or argument in an engaging way. Titles that mislead or don’t align with the content can disappoint or confuse readers, detracting from the trustworthiness and credibility of the essay.

Keywords and Discoverability

In the digital age, where many essays are accessed online, titles play a crucial role in discoverability. Titles that incorporate relevant keywords improve the essay’s visibility on search engines and academic databases. This aspect is particularly important for students and researchers who want their work to be easily found and accessed.

Memorability

An effective title is memorable. It sticks in the reader’s mind, prompting them to think about the essay long after they’ve read it. Memorable titles often use literary devices such as alliteration, metaphors, or puns. For example, “Fahrenheit 451: The Temperature at Which Books Burn” by Ray Bradbury is not only descriptive but also intriguing and memorable.

Connection with Success

There is a direct correlation between a good title and the success of an essay. Academic essays with striking titles tend to be cited more often, as they catch the attention of other scholars and researchers. In more informal settings, a compelling title can be the difference between an essay that is widely read and shared and one that languishes in obscurity.

Tips for Essay Writing

Writing an essay can be a challenging yet rewarding process. Whether you are a student, a budding writer, or someone who needs to craft an essay for professional purposes, understanding the nuances of essay writing is essential. This comprehensive guide offers valuable tips, discusses different types of essays, and provides insights into structuring your essay effectively.

Understanding Different Types of Essays

  • Narrative Essays: These essays tell a story, usually from the writer’s perspective. The key is to engage the reader with a compelling narrative. Title Suggestion: “A Journey Unveiled: [Your Story Topic]”
  • Descriptive Essays: These focus on painting a picture with words, describing a person, place, thing, or event in vivid detail. Title Suggestion: “The Colors of [Your Description Topic]”
  • Expository Essays: These essays aim to inform or explain a topic clearly and logically. They are fact-based and devoid of personal feelings. Title Suggestion: “Unraveling the Facts: [Your Subject]”
  • Persuasive Essays: The goal here is to convince the reader to accept the writer’s point of view or recommendation. Title Suggestion: “The Case for [Your Argument]”
  • Argumentative Essays: Similar to persuasive essays but with a more balanced view, presenting both sides of an argument. Title Suggestion: “Navigating the Debate: [Your Topic]”
  • Compare and Contrast Essays: These essays examine the similarities and differences between two subjects. Title Suggestion: “Contrasting Worlds: [Subject 1] vs. [Subject 2]”

Essay Writing Tips

  • Start with Research: Before you begin writing, thoroughly research your topic. Gather all the necessary information and data to ensure your essay is well-informed and factually accurate.
  • Create an Outline: An outline helps organize your thoughts and structure your essay logically. It serves as a roadmap, guiding you through the writing process.
  • Craft a Strong Thesis Statement: Your thesis statement should clearly state your essay’s main idea or argument. It sets the direction and tone of your essay.
  • Engaging Introduction: Your introduction should capture the reader’s attention and provide a preview of what the essay will cover.
  • Body Paragraphs with Clear Arguments: Each paragraph should focus on a single idea or argument, supporting your thesis statement. Use evidence, examples, and explanations to substantiate your points.
  • Use Transition Words: Transition words help the flow of your essay, guiding readers smoothly from one idea to the next.
  • Conclude Effectively: Your conclusion should summarize the main points and restate the thesis in light of the evidence presented. It’s your final opportunity to leave a lasting impression.
  • Revise and Edit: Review your essay for any grammatical, spelling, or punctuation errors. Ensure that your essay flows logically and that your arguments are well-presented.
  • Avoid Plagiarism: Always credit your sources properly. Use citations and references to acknowledge the work of others.
  • Seek Feedback: If possible, have someone else read your essay and provide feedback. Fresh eyes can catch errors and provide a new perspective.

Structuring Your Essay

  • Introduction: Set the stage for your essay. Begin with a hook, provide background information, and end with your thesis statement.
  • Body Paragraphs: Each paragraph should begin with a topic sentence that relates to your thesis. Follow this with supporting sentences and concrete evidence.

How to Brainstorm Essay Titles

Brainstorming an essay title is a crucial step in the essay writing process. A title acts as the gateway to your content, setting the tone and expectation for the reader. Here are techniques and insights into how creativity, research, and the strategic use of keywords can lead to the creation of compelling essay titles.

Techniques for Brainstorming Essay Titles

  • Mind Mapping: Start by jotting down words or phrases related to your essay topic. This can include main themes, arguments, or any words that resonate with your subject. Mind maps help in visually organizing your thoughts and finding connections between ideas.
  • Use Writing Prompts: Writing prompts can stimulate creative thinking. For instance, if your essay is about climate change, prompts like “What if we fail to act?” or “The future of renewable energy” can lead to intriguing title ideas.
  • Play with Words: Experiment with alliterations, metaphors, and puns to make your title catchy and memorable. For example, a title like “Solar Saviors: Harnessing the Sun’s Power” uses alliteration effectively.
  • Ask Questions: Titles framed as questions can be very effective in engaging readers. They provoke thought and curiosity. For instance, “Is Artificial Intelligence the End of Human Creativity?” immediately piques interest.

The Role of Creativity and Research

  • Creativity in Titling: Creativity in titles involves thinking outside the box and experimenting with language. It’s about crafting a title that not only summarizes your essay but also captures the reader’s imagination.
  • Research for Relevance: Research ensures that your title is relevant and accurate. Look at existing literature on your topic, especially the titles of academic papers, books, and articles. Notice patterns, commonly used terms, and how titles are structured in your field.

Integrating Keywords Effectively in Titles

  • SEO-Friendly Titles: In the digital age, where many essays are accessed online, using keywords effectively in your title can boost the visibility of your work. Identify keywords that are most relevant to your topic and integrate them into your title in a way that feels natural.
  • Balancing Keywords with Creativity: While keywords help in SEO, it’s important not to sacrifice creativity. Your title should be a blend of SEO-friendly terms and creative expression. For example, “Green Revolution: The Future of Sustainable Energy” combines keywords with a creative element.
  • Keyword Positioning: Place important keywords toward the beginning of your title if possible. Titles are often truncated in search engine results, so placing keywords at the start ensures they are visible.

Example Scenarios

  • For an Argumentative Essay on Social Media: Start with keywords like ‘social media,’ ‘impact,’ ‘society.’ Brainstorm around these words to come up with titles like “Social Media: Society’s New Catalyst or Culprit?”
  • For a Descriptive Essay on a Personal Experience: Creativity takes the front seat. If your essay is about overcoming a challenge, a title like “Beyond the Abyss: My Journey of Resilience” can be compelling.
  • For an Expository Essay on Technology: Incorporate both technical terms and a layman-friendly approach. A title such as “The Digital Dawn: Explaining Blockchain Technology” strikes a balance between being informative and accessible.

FAQs about Essay Writing and Title Generation

Essay writing and title generation are essential skills for students, academics, and writers. Here, we address some common questions, incorporating NLP-friendly keywords to assist in understanding and improving these skills.

1. How Do I Choose the Right Topic for My Essay? Answer: Choosing the right topic involves considering your interests, the essay’s purpose, and the audience. Start by brainstorming ideas related to your interests or course material. For academic essays, ensure the topic is researchable and relevant to your field. For personal essays, choose a topic that resonates with your experiences or viewpoints.

2. What Makes a Good Essay Title? Answer: A good essay title is catchy, concise, and reflective of the essay’s content. It should capture the essence of your essay and engage the reader’s curiosity. Using relevant keywords can also make your title more searchable and accessible, especially for online content.

3. How Can I Improve My Essay Writing Skills? Answer: Improving essay writing skills involves regular practice, reading extensively, and seeking feedback. Focus on structuring your essays clearly, developing a strong thesis, and supporting your arguments with evidence. Also, pay attention to grammar, style, and clarity. Writing workshops and online resources can be beneficial for skill enhancement.

4. Can You Explain the Structure of a Typical Essay? Answer: A typical essay structure includes an introduction with a thesis statement, body paragraphs with supporting arguments and evidence, and a conclusion that summarizes the main points and restates the thesis. Each body paragraph should start with a topic sentence and provide clear and coherent arguments.

5. How Important Are Keywords in an Essay Title? Answer: Keywords in an essay title are crucial, especially for digital content. They help in search engine optimization (SEO), making your essay more discoverable online. Include keywords that are central to your essay’s topic and align with what your potential readers might search for.

6. What Is the Best Way to Start an Essay? Answer: The best way to start an essay is with a hook that grabs the reader’s attention. This could be a provocative question, a surprising fact, a quotation, or a brief anecdote relevant to your topic. An engaging start sets the tone for your essay and encourages readers to continue.

7. How Can NLP Tools Help in Title Generation? Answer: NLP (Natural Language Processing) tools can assist in title generation by analyzing patterns in language and suggesting titles based on the content and context of your essay. They use algorithms to generate creative, relevant, and unique titles that can enhance the appeal of your essay.

8. What Are Common Mistakes to Avoid in Essay Writing? Answer: Common mistakes include unclear thesis statements, lack of structure, poor grammar, and insufficient evidence to support arguments. Avoid plagiarism by properly citing sources. Ensure that your essay addresses the prompt and stays on topic throughout.

9. How Do I Conclude My Essay Effectively? Answer: Conclude your essay by summarizing the main points and restating the thesis in the context of the information provided. Avoid introducing new arguments in the conclusion. Instead, leave the reader with a final thought or call to action that reflects the essay’s key message.

10. How Can I Make My Essay More Engaging? Answer: Make your essay more engaging by writing in a clear, concise, and lively style. Use examples, anecdotes, and rhetorical questions to connect with the reader. Vary your sentence structure and use active voice. Ensure that your essay flows logically and maintains the reader’s interest throughout.

A Crisis of Belonging

  • Posted March 3, 2023
  • By Jill Anderson
  • Disruption and Crises
  • Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
  • Families and Community
  • K-12 School Leadership

Belonging illustration

Subscribe to the Harvard EdCast.

Social psychologist Geoff Cohen believes a crisis of belonging is destroying us. One in five Americans suffers from chronic loneliness. Young people are struggling with high levels of anxiety and mental health issues at times when they desperately need a sense of connection and belonging. 

“Belonging isn't just a touchy feely construct. It's actually something that touchy feely has hard consequences. It's associated with physical illness, early death, cardiovascular disease, also vulnerability,” says Cohen, a professor at Stanford's Graduate School of Education. 

Although most of us know what it feels like to be excluded or question our belonging, Cohen says we don't do the greatest job of recognizing that feeling when it happens to others. In fact, we often threaten other people's sense of belonging, he says. It's having a serious effect on our wellbeing. The good news is there are small ways we can change and even nurture belonging as educators, parents, and citizens. 

JILL ANDERSON: I'm Jill Anderson. This is the Harvard EdCast. Social psychologist Geoff Cohen says a crisis of belonging is destroying us. Most of us know what it feels like to be excluded or question our belonging, but he says we don't do the greatest job of recognizing that feeling when it happens to others. 

In fact, we often threaten other people's sense of belonging. It's having a serious effect. One in five Americans suffers from chronic loneliness. Young people are struggling with high levels of anxiety and mental health issues at times when they desperately need a sense of connection and belonging. 

The good news is there are small ways we can change and even nurture belonging as educators, parents, and citizens. First, I asked Geoff to tell me more about what he means when he says there's a crisis of belonging destroying us. 

GEOFFREY COHEN: I co-opted the term from Pete Buttigieg, who used it to describe the state of America, where so many of our connections are frayed, so many people feel economically left behind. And I would add, as our surgeon general has pointed out, Vivek Murthy, that we have what some call an epidemic of loneliness wherein roughly 20% I think of Americans are so lonely that it poses a health risk, a severe health risk as bad as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. 

So on top of that, indicators of division are at a high now, such as political polarization. I think hate crimes are roughly at a 10-year high. So the markers of divisiveness, the indicators of isolation, the feeling of being left behind economically, not being part of a community or a country, are great now. Also as workplaces have changed in their nature and they become less of a place where people get meaning and a sort of lifelong sense of belonging and community, frays to communities, religious associations have opened up because, of all that, I think it is an apt term for the era we're in. Very few groups feel confident in their sense of belonging. And groups that once did are now a bit unmoored and adrift. So I would say that. 

And then what the crisis of belonging implies is that it's a crisis, that this matters. Belonging isn't just a touchy feely construct. It's actually something that touchy feely has hard consequences. It's associated with physical illness, early death, cardiovascular disease, also vulnerability. 

There's some exciting research to hate groups, and extremists, and conspiratorial thinking. When we feel like we don't belong, we become vulnerable to dangerous and ridiculous beliefs with groups that provide us that sense of belonging. So I think, though there are many things contributing to the problems that [? belie ?] our country now, belonging could be one underlying symptom or underlying cause that, if we address it, could have manifold benefits for our society. 

JILL ANDERSON: When I hear that, it just sounds so scary, even though it makes a lot of sense. And you could probably add a whole bunch of more things like our young people seem to have so many mental health issues, and we're seeing so many young males, especially in America, acting out. 

GEOFFREY COHEN: Yes, yes. Half of college students have an anxiety disorder, I think it's the rough figure. And teen suicidality and self cutting among girls is rising. Lots of factors contribute, but it is partly a problem of belonging. 

When you feel like you don't belong or when you have that sense of I'm not part of a larger cause, it turns out there's biological research that suggests that's one of the worst things our central nervous system can say to the rest of our body is you are alone here. It puts us in a sort of fight-or-flight response. That's very good evolutionarily to deal with physical threat, preparing to be wounded, but when it's chronically activated, it can really wreak havoc on our health. 

JILL ANDERSON: How do we course correct for some of this feeling that you don't belong or this crisis of belonging that's happening? 

GEOFFREY COHEN: Well, of course, we need systemic and structural change. We're living through a kind of reckoning with systems of exclusion that have been with us since the founding of our country, so that is very, very important, dismantling these systems of exclusion. 

At the same time, there are little things that we can all do every day to nurture belonging in one another as teachers, as parents, as friends. And that's what the theme of a lot of our research is focused on is just the small things we can do every day to make things a little bit better, and if we all do them, we can make things a lot better. 

For instance, something as simple as being polite to other people, research suggests, saying please and thank you, that is a powerful indication that I see you as belonging in the circle of those to whom I should show respect. And I know that seems obvious, but it's actually a really powerful indicator. And there's research showing, for instance, that police officers are not as polite with Black individuals that they pull over in driver stops as they are with white individuals. We accord less respect to those we see as other, and that sends a message that you don't belong. 

A story that really stuck with me was told to me by Mary Rowe, an organizational behaviorist at MIT, who describes that she was a university ombudsman. And a Black employee came to her saying, I'm going to quit here. This feels like a place I don't belong. 

And she said, Mary said, to the Black employee, well, why don't you just keep a log of what happens to you? Let's look at this systematically. Keep a log of what happens here. I really want to understand why the environment is so toxic for you. 

So the employee kept a log, then came back to Mary a week later and shared the log. Mary opened it and saw nothing. What's going on? 

And that was the whole point. The employee said, yeah, the whole time I'm here no one asks me about how my day is going. No one expresses appreciation for the work I've done. I feel like I'm not even seen. And so the problem lay in what wasn't said a lack of basic collegiality. That's one example of politeness. 

A second example is research on what we call affirmations, values, affirmations, or self affirmations, and these are things that we can do in our day-to-day lives to create a channel or opening in a situation where people can express who they are and what they value and feel valued for it. And in a number of studies that my colleagues and I and others have done, we found that the simple act, for instance, of just asking students to reflect on, what is core to you? What are your most important values? What would you stand up for? What would you die for? What is really dear to your heart? Giving students the opportunity to write about their core values in the classroom has been found, under some circumstances, to have these wide-ranging benefits, closing achievement gaps in GPA, even after just a few sessions of doing these kinds of activities, improving health and well-being, leading to greater retention throughout high school and college. And this has been replicated in several studies. 

It doesn't happen all the time, but in schools and classrooms where there are resources and pathways to success, if I now feel like this is a place where my whole self is accepted. I'm more likely to seize those opportunities. So these are just examples of many of little things we can all do to make the situations a lot better. 

JILL ANDERSON: It seems like we know belonging is this condition for success. We know students do better if they feel like they belong. But why is it that, so often in education, we seem to just have students leave their full identity at the door? Our doors are open, but you're not really welcome to bring your full self into that. 

GEOFFREY COHEN: I have a friend who was teaching at a school, and she said one of the bits of advice she got was don't smile until winter break. You got to keep up a tough demeanor with these teenagers, in her case. I think that's really bad advice. I think a lot of schools would be much better off if they supported students' need to connect, especially with adults. 

I think elementary schools generally do a pretty good job of nurturing connection and belonging among students, but then it's as if, when students enter middle school, that transition to seventh grade, things just-- the policies and the ways we structure our schools are peculiarly mismatched. For instance, students at that age really, as she says, want to connect with adults, but now they're circling through different teachers throughout the day. 

They like to mingle and talk to other kids, but the cardinal value of middle schools and high schools is often punctuality. There's a bell that rings to get to class — it's actually a ritual borrowed from the factory-- as well as divisive zero-sum policies. We're getting better in some contexts, like honor roles and limited slots in sports and extracurricular activities. 

These are all policy decisions and resource issues that undermine students' need to connect. So there are kind of existing aspects of many middle schools and high schools that seem almost uncannily mismatched to students' needs to connect. And so we could start there. We could start there by changing the schools in ways that promote connection. 

I love some of this old research on cooperative learning, the jigsaw classroom by Elliot Aronson, [INAUDIBLE] honors workshops in college settings, the pure instructional model in physics, where, basically, you harness students need to belong by having them learn in groups. So that's one simple thing that can be done. But there are many, many other little things that we can do to create greater connection. 

Two other barriers beyond the contextual aspects of schools that get in the way of nurturing belonging that I just want to call out, one is stereotypes. So too many of us unconsciously and, sometimes consciously, stereotype individuals as being troublemakers if they're in certain groups. And research by Jason Okonofua and Jennifer Eberhardt shows that teachers are way too quick to judge a Black student who misbehaves in class as a troublemaker and apply punitive decisions, like detention and suspension, to them in reaction relative to the same behavior when it happens from a white student. 

Those [INAUDIBLE] reactions actually really undermine belonging. They aggravate the underlying problem. Often, students are acting out because they don't feel connected. They feel like they don't belong, and then when we punish them or send them to detention or especially suspend them — not a good idea at all — aggravate the underlying belonging uncertainty that contributes to the problem. 

So stereotyping, and then lastly, the other causal culprit here is what my colleague Lee Ross calls the fundamental attribution error. We think that what causes misbehavior amongst students is something internal, their character or their ability, when, oftentimes, it's their circumstances or how they're perceiving them. And if we can better understand those circumstances, we can better support them. 

But instead, we're too quick to judge. We think that troublesome behavior reflects a troublesome student, and we act in a punitive way that just worsens the problem. So the fundamental attribution error, this tendency to think — to downplay the importance of students circumstances and to overemphasize the importance of character and ability is another culprit here to the crisis of belonging, at least in our school settings but probably beyond. 

JILL ANDERSON: As you're talking, I'm thinking about belonging as just a social thing, where it feels maybe, in some ways, like it is disconnected from the actual practice of teaching. But in reality, that is not true. You tend to think of belonging, especially in the teen years, as just this social entity that kids must feel if they're left out, but it's so much bigger than that. 

GEOFFREY COHEN: The teacher has a lot of power to create it. One of my graduate students, Joseph Moore, has done some studies where he's just asked people to remember their most important teacher. Often, it's from their teenage years, and yeah, one thing they single out about 50% of time is that, wow, they were really good teachers, great at instruction. 

But just as often, they say this teacher really made me feel like I belonged. Often, they'll say something like, they saw more in me than what I saw in myself and helped me to become that person, to reach a higher standard. And so I think teachers have so much capacity to create that sense of connection. 

Of course, the teacher isn't going to solve all the problems, and there are so many factors that contribute to kids not belonging. But teachers, like all of us in every encounter, have a power to create situations right here right now that help people to feel included. And you can always do a little bit better. You can always create a little bit more inclusion than there is. 

I love that old study by Rosenthal and Jacobson. I know it's controversial in educational circles, but I think it still stood the test of time and been replicated several times. All they do is to inform teachers that some of the students in their classrooms will be intellectual bloomers, but unbeknownst to the teachers, those students who are singled out as intellectual bloomers were just randomly chosen. Then they found, at the end of the year, that those earmarked students ended up getting higher IQ scores, gaining more in their IQ than the nonearmarked students, the students who had not been singled out as bloomers, which just says, wow, teachers can create classrooms that are more likely to draw out students' potential if they believe in them.   JILL ANDERSON: Wow. You've mentioned value affirmation exercises, and I want to dig a little bit more into that because I think it's really interesting stuff, and how those can combat stereotype threat, and be helpful for students before they take tests, when they're applying to college. What do value affirmation exercises look like in practice? 

GEOFFREY COHEN: Values affirmations often take the form of a worksheet or a packet of writing prompts, and the first page is a menu of values that present students with various different values, such as compassion, relationships, kindness, creativity. And students are asked to indicate which of the values on the list are most important to them. 

And then, on a second page of the activity, they write about why those values are important to them, why do they matter, and maybe some times in their lives in which they mattered. And we've done these studies. It comes out of research by Claude Steele on self-affirmation theory, and we've done these studies. I've read probably hundreds, maybe thousands of these essays, and they're almost always heartfelt. 

And oftentimes, the kids who have a history of poor performance or who feel less belonging in school, like as measured by our surveys, often have the most to say. It's actually really interesting. I just remember one kid who wrote about how taking care of his mother, who was sick, represented his values of family and connection. And he wasn't doing so well in school, but this activity brought to the fore something really powerful for him. 

So even though the activity seems really small, it's bringing out into the situation something really deep and powerful for the kids. And the writing activity is just one way to do this. I'm sure there's other ways to do this, like through conversations with kids, getting to know them, activities where kids get to talk about what's important to them or present it. 

But this is just one, and what it does is it helps students to feel whole in the classroom, to feel like their whole self is seen. And that's one of the key messages of belonging is you are seen here. This is a place where your whole self is recognized. 

And that's what we found is that little kind of activity, these values affirmations, can be very beneficial for students' motivation, sense of belonging, their persistence in school, their GPA. In one study, we found that just doing this activity three to five times throughout the year in their seventh grade increased the percentage of students who went on to a four-year college years later by 20 percentage points, which seemed to set in motion like, oh, my whole self is recognized here, I can feel at ease, perform better, and put them on a positive trajectory. 

That happens under certain circumstances as we talked about. So that's values affirmations, and in that case, it was especially effective for African Americans. They often work best for those students who are seen as outsiders, the ones who feel like their whole self isn't fully accepted here. These activities have the biggest impact for those groups. 

JILL ANDERSON: How do educators critique students work in a way that reinforces belonging? 

GEOFFREY COHEN: The second message of belonging-- so there's that message of you are seen. A second message is you have potential. You have the potential to succeed. I believe in you. There is more here that you're capable of than what you are currently manifesting. 

So that message, you have potential to succeed, maybe to contribute to a larger mission, is also key. And one of the ways that we can send that message is through the criticism that we give to students. In some research with Claude Steele and David Jager, Valerie Purdie-Greenaway, and others, we worked with college students and middle school students, and we just looked at that situation, where they get critical feedback. 

Now, that moment is a key moment because, when you get criticism, you can do one or two things. You can dismiss it, or respond defensively, or attribute it to bias on the part of the teacher. Or you can take it seriously and learn from it. 

And we're forever given the gift of criticism, and what we do with it is really key. So we looked at that moment. We had teachers in this one study — these were seventh grade teachers — give students critical feedback, serious critical feedback, on an essay that they had written. And we told the teachers just write whatever criticism or encouragement you would usually write on these essays that you give to students. 

Then for one-half of the students, we had the teacher append a note that said, I'm giving you this critical feedback because I have high standards and because I believe in your potential to reach them. And that was it. The other half of the students received a control note that said, I'm giving you this feedback so you have comments on your essay. 

And teachers were blind to condition. I'm going to spare you the methodological details, but they didn't know which students got which notes because they penned the notes in advance. And we, the researchers, tagged them to the essays. And then we looked at the impact. 

This little note had a big impact, especially for students who were from negatively stereotyped groups so, in this case, African-American or Black students. Among Black students who received the control note, only 17% revised their essay when given the opportunity. But for African-American students who got that note, that I believe in your potential, 71% revised their essay. 

JILL ANDERSON: Wow. 

GEOFFREY COHEN: More than quadrupling the percentage. It's so interesting to me because I think if you were a teacher and saw that 17% revision rate, you'd say, oh, what is going on with my students? Are they just under motivated? 

We would commit the fundamental attribution error. We think there's something lacking in them. But what we would miss is our power to create a situation where what's inside them is more likely to come out into the situation, and here, just took a little note, saying, I believe in your potential. 

Not only that, these little things can have big domino effects under some circumstances. Years later, we found that the students who got that wise feedback note about five or six years later, they got in less trouble in the next academic year. Getting in less trouble, they were on a better academic trajectory, and they were more likely to make it into college compared with those students who... Black students who got the control note. 

So as teachers, we have power that we often don't even see because we don't know how our words set in motion these virtuous, sometimes vicious, cycles, leading students to destinations that we often never hear about. But in this study, we quantified that impact, conveying that message at a key formative moment in student's development, the seventh grade, the transition to middle school, had these ripple effects. You have potential led them to show grit, become more gritty, and become more successful over the long term. 

JILL ANDERSON: That's so unbelievable, huge. 

GEOFFREY COHEN: I just find it incredibly inspirational. We all have this power to make things a little bit better. And I don't want to be pollyannaish. I'm not saying that this is the whole solution. 

And these kinds of activities, these practices, they have effects only under certain circumstances. It's key that, first and foremost, there are resources for learning. Students are getting critical feedback. They're in a pretty good school. We're looking at a relatively decent functioning school. 

And under those circumstances, when there are real opportunities to learn, yeah, just make me feel a little better, a little more believed in, and it's like a chain reaction that starts building on itself over time. I do want to make it really clear, though, that, yeah, if those resources are lacking, like if a student really doesn't know how to spell, for instance, or if there's no resources for learning how to spell, then there's no message that's going to change that reality. 

JILL ANDERSON: One area that's always challenging is the teenage years. We've already talked about the growing issue of mental health with teens and young people. How can we better support teens through these transitions in their life to make sure that they feel connected and feel like they belong? 

GEOFFREY COHEN: One of the things I do with my own kids is just to convey that message I refer to as a third message of belonging, you are not alone here. We have your back. So there's three messages of belonging we discuss here. 

One is you are seen. The second is you have potential. And the third and final one is you're not alone. You're not alone. We're here for you, and that message is just so important, especially when people are going through challenges. 

I don't know if you felt this, but there's been times in my life, where, wow, man, I don't know if I can get through this. And then I'll go talk to a friend or even someone I don't even know that well and have a pretty good conversation. I suddenly feel energized and revitalized, at least a little bit. Even though they don't solve the problem, just feel like having someone at my back gives me a higher perch from which to view the challenge. I feel lifted. 

So one of the things I did with my kids is to just make it clear I'm here. If there's a problem, I want to know about it. And I think too often with teenagers we're talking at them rather than with them, and so I just try to be available. That's the first and foremost, and if they know you're available, the key impact of that is then they come to you later when the problems get more significant. 

You are there. You're available without judgment. Just listening and being available is really, really key. I do think that the focus on disciplining teenagers gets in the way of this. We hear about some troublesome behavior they've engaged in. 

I remember my kid once did something regrettable, and we were talking about it. I was like, well, why did you do that? And the urge to discipline him it was so great. I just wanted to chastise him.  But we had a discussion, and it became clear it was about needing to fit in. the reason he did this. And he said something that stuck with me. He's like, yeah, sometimes I care more about my ego than about myself. 

And I was like, yeah, that's wisdom. And so I think having those kinds of conversations are really key. There's some nice research showing that, when you put teenagers in the MRI and you have them listen to audio files of their mother lecturing at them, their brains basically shut down. [LAUGHS] Not totally shut down, but the regions associated with perspective taking and empathy are less activated, as if they're distancing themselves. 

I, instead, talk with them, and there's a lot of research suggesting that this is possible. Judy Harackiewicz and her lab has some wonderful research applying this in the domain of academic achievement in STEM, where they simply train parents to have conversations with their teenagers about science and their daily lives, how it relates to technology, and cell phones, and social media. 

They have conversations. So rather than just kind of telling them, telling their kids how science is important, they have conversations that help kids to reach that conclusion for themselves. And they find that increases kids performance and interest in science and even, I think, years later, increases their likelihood, as I recall, majoring in STEM in college. As I recall, there was a bit of evidence of that. 

So talking with kids, doing what Nick Epley calls — and Juliana Schroeder call perspective getting. Getting people's perspective. I want to know what your situation is. Tell me about it. 

JILL ANDERSON: What does it mean to truly belong? 

GEOFFREY COHEN: What it means to truly belong is to be accepted for who you are. I think that is true, and that's something we're always searching for. We feel it at that place called home, which is a psychological experience more than a brick-and-mortar place. It is that feeling of we are accepted, fully accepted, for who we are. 

And of course, you can never attain that perfectly, but you can get a little bit closer. And I feel as though those places, such as middle schools, and high schools, and colleges, would-- a lot of the problems, they wouldn't disappear, but they would subside a bit if people felt more at home. 

I remember that debacle at Yale University a number of students were upset about. There's was a suggestion that students not wear any costumes that were racially or culturally offensive. I don't want to get into too many details, but there was a big brouhaha, a big conflict, confrontation between faculty and students. 

At the end of a big yelling match, one student just cried out, this isn't about freedom of speech. Of course, freedom of speech is important. Absolutely. She said, it's about creating a home. It's about creating a home. 

And I think once people feel at home, then they're far more venturesome, far more able to sit at the table, and have free speech, and talk, and embrace different perspectives. But if that's not there, then it leads to all kinds of sensitivities and vulnerabilities that get in the way of creating a truly inclusive place, institution, community, even society. 

JILL ANDERSON: Right. Well, thank you so much, Geoff, this is really amazing and insightful. 

GEOFFREY COHEN: Thank you so much, Jill. It was delightful to talk with you. 

JILL ANDERSON: Geoff Cohen is a social psychologist and professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Education. He's the author of Belonging: The Science of Creating Connection and Bridging Divides . I'm Jill Anderson. This is the Harvard EdCast, produced by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Thanks for listening. 

EdCast logo

An education podcast that keeps the focus simple: what makes a difference for learners, educators, parents, and communities

Related Articles

Students happy in school hallway

What Do Immigrant Students Need? It Isn't Just ELL

Pink, Blue, and Rainbow Hearts on Stands

Creating Trans-Inclusive Schools

Illustration of hands in a circle

Building Strong Community Partnerships and Schools

A roadmap for finding champions and collaborators in your city or district

  • UNH Library

University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository

  • < Previous

Home > STUDENT > THESIS > 1427

Master's Theses and Capstones

Belonging: essays.

Wesley Hood , University of New Hampshire, Durham

Date of Award

Winter 2020

Project Type

Program or major, degree name.

Master of Fine Arts

First Advisor

Susan Hertz

Second Advisor

Jaed Coffin

Third Advisor

Melinda White

This thesis is a collection of essays that tackle, at their heart, what it means to “belong.” They are raw, honest, relatable to those who too, like the narrator, question what it means to “Belong.” Each essay progressively brings to light and questions what “belonging” truly is, and “what it means to belong.” Through the viewpoint of our narrator, each essay takes on a different topic of life and contemplates what belonging means in relation to those things – in particular: masculinity, abuse, place, boxing, voice, queerness, and so on.

This collection, the culmination of nearly two years work, hopes to answer, and help others through their personal struggles of sense of belonging, through contemplation on the page.

Recommended Citation

Hood, Wesley, "Belonging: Essays" (2020). Master's Theses and Capstones . 1427. https://scholars.unh.edu/thesis/1427

This document is currently not available here.

Since March 04, 2021

Advanced Search

  • Notify me via email or RSS
  • Collections
  • Disciplines

Contributors

  • Submit Research

Home | About | FAQ | My Account | Accessibility Statement

Privacy Copyright

Free Essay Title Generator

How to use topic generator:

  • Begin typing words related to your essay topic in the keyword section
  • Select the subject from the category section as needed
  • View the variations generated and inform our writers which you would like them to use on your essay

Decided on the topic, but not sure what to write?

We have over 900,000 samples to help you brainstorm!

We Can Turn Your Paper Into a Perfect One

Captivating titles, your way with papersowl, how to use free essay title generator.

Creating titles for your papers can be one of the toughest tasks. Sometimes, the document name is chosen for you – the teacher may pre-determine the title. If this is the case, the problem solved! Oftentimes, however, you have to choose the title for yourself. This is where difficulties can start. For example, you may be given a dissertation – this gives you free rein in a certain subject – you can literally choose the subject.

Let’s say you are studying history. The central subject is World War 2. How do you even begin to start choosing a particular subject for this event? World War 2 is such an expansive and detailed time-era – the possibilities are endless. This is why using an essay title generator online is beneficial. In this article, we look at why using a free paper title generator tool could help your studies or writing our research paper.

How Can Essay Title Generator Help You?

You may wonder why using a topic generator for an essay is beneficial. There are numerous ways that you can prosper. As stated above, if you are given free rein to choose your own title, the task can be overwhelming. Where do you start? How do you narrow down a whole subject into one single line of text? By using the title maker for essay assignments and an academic essay, you can remove the stress. You can literally enter the desired keywords and be presented with a list of potential ideas in seconds.

This, of course, gives you more time actually researching, planning, and writing the document. Precious time can be wasted thinking of a subject line. By using this tool, you can remove any unnecessary time wastage and get straight to the work!

Furthermore, using this tool can help your creativity. There are hundreds and thousands of exiting assignments. Choosing a unique and interesting topic can be difficult. Using the tool, you can see a list of ideas and then formulate your own fantastic title from this list.

How To Use Our Essay Idea Generator

So how do you actually use the essay topic generator? It is quite a simple process! The following are the steps that you must take:

  • Open the Tooly free essay topic generator
  • Type in associated keywords to your subject
  • Use the drop-down list to select a category
  • Look at the list of topics displayed
  • Press, “load more” to see additional titles

As you can see, the process couldn’t be easier! From opening the website and clicking the “look for topic” button, you can complete the whole process in less than a minute.

What Types of Papers Are Supported

If you are worried that your document won’t be supported then fear not! The topic generator for essay supports a vast array of types including (but not limited to):

  • Research paper
  • Personal essay
  • Persuasive essay
  • Argumentative essay
  • Compare and contrast essay
  • Academic essay
  • College essay

It also supports common types such as thesis, dissertation, and term paper. The database is continually being filled with new subjects and topics too. For example, the following subjects are currently supported:

  • World History
  • Mathematics

No matter what subject you are studying, this tool will have a large list of titles for you to utilize. As you will see below, the benefits are numerous and this free paper title generator is a cut above the rest.

Advantages of PapersOwl Tools

Why choose our essay title maker.

Now you should understand what we have to offer and how you can benefit. But what makes this tool a standout choice? The following are some of the main reasons why you should use this essay topic generator:

  • Exceptionally fast website and processing time
  • A straightforward process that anyone can follow
  • Immense database packed full of titles
  • New information is added on a regular basis
  • Many types of essay type covered such as academic essay
  • Many studying subjects covered such as law, science, and sociology
  • Unique and interesting topics to choose from

The combination of a fantastic and easy to use the website, together with the complete nature of our database really does give you a superb end product. The database will continue to grow, therefore the service should only improve as time progresses.

Don’t struggle with your topics! Make use of this superb essay idea generator. You can use it completely free of charge. As a result, your college essay and other types of paper will be much more varied and interesting. You can then concentrate on the work itself and use your skills to produce an exceptional end product with a fantastic title. Why not give this amazing essay title generator online a try today and see what excellent subjects you can find?

HOW DOES ESSAY TITLE GENERATOR WORK?

  • Our generator will help you create an original title for your essay. Enter the relevant keywords in the corresponding field.
  • The next step is to select your essay topic from the drop-down list.
  • Once you have filled in the keywords and topic, click on the search button. The system will generate several title options for you.
  • You can order a custom essay for yourself with one of the generated titles. Click on it and fill out your requirements for a writer.

Advantages of Essay Title Generator

Use our PapersOwl's Essay Topic Generator to develop innovative ideas for your paper writing.

No need to make an account, pay anything, waste time viewing irritating advertisements, or give us any personal information. Our generator is free!

There's no reason to be concerned about violating someone's rights. We check titles for plagiarism.

The program will do all the work for you. Just enter the keywords and the topic of the paper.

We will generate many suggestions for you from our database of more than 900,000 essays.

Free Tools for Writing

Papersowl contacts

WHY WAIT? PLACE AN ORDER RIGHT NOW!

Just fill out the form, press the button, and have no worries!

We use cookies to give you the best experience possible. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy.

titles for essays about belonging

122 Workplace Diversity Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best workplace diversity topic ideas & essay examples, 👍 good essay topics on workplace diversity, 🥇 most interesting workplace diversity topics to write about, 📌 simple & easy workplace diversity essay titles, ❓ workplace diversity research questions.

  • Managing Diversity in the Workplace In the hospitality industry, the success of product differentiation and customer service improvement efforts depends on the competencies of the employees.
  • Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging in the Workplace Thus, the paper aims to provide a reflection on the three critical workplace factors and analyze their role and importance in the organization.
  • Gender and Diversity in the Workplace The modern world of human resource management seems to have changed significantly and as policies and regulations change, the need to reconsider workplace gender equity and diversity has received considerable attention across organizations.
  • Workplace Diversity Consciousness Diversity consciousness refers to being aware and respecting the differences that exist among people of varying backgrounds.
  • Diversity in Society, Community, and Workplace As a leader, the best way to be sure that the benefit of having diversity and overcoming the challenges is by promoting synergy.
  • Managing Diversity at Workplace In the workplace, diversity, if properly managed, optimises the willingness and ability of all employees to contribute to the organisational success by encouraging each employee to draw fully on the talents, different points of view, […]
  • Diversity in the Workplace: Advantages and Disadvantages The process of globalization influences every aspect of human life, and the workplace is not an exception. Every organization aims to involve people from different countries in the working process to improve creativity and seek […]
  • Ethnocentrism and Diversity in the Workplace In general, communication with a stranger goes down to the anticipation and the prediction of the answers. On the contrary, when communicating with strangers, the individuals involved in the communication are more cautious of the […]
  • Workplace Diversity and Challenges of Leadership However, the importance of attaining diversification strategy within the organization was due to two broad reasons: retaining competitiveness of the organizations after employing the diversity strategy and morally, diversification of the organization is the right […]
  • KPMG and Cable Bahamas Ltd.’s Workplace Diversity First, it is necessary to define diversity in the context of the workplace in companies. Finally, it is notable that many subsidiaries and companies working in the Bahamas are open to diversity and promote it […]
  • State-Level Culture and Workplace Diversity Policies The authors of this article explored how the culture of different states of the United States influences the decision-making of company leaders regarding the policy of diversity in enterprises.
  • Nursing Workplace Diversity and Inclusion Of particular interest for this study is the introduction and interpretation of the concepts of diversity and inclusion in the context of nursing practice.
  • Cultural Diversity at the Workplace: Challenges and Benefits Bowing is a common greeting in Japan, as well as a way of saying “welcome,” “goodbye,” “a prayer at a place of worship,” “thank you,” and “grace during mealtime”.
  • Workplace Diversity and Organizational Leadership The purpose of this annotated bibliography is to examine academic literature related to the subject of workforce diversity in order to draw conclusions about the related effects, practical implications, and future projections.
  • Workplace Diversity: The Global Social Event Additionally, the event is associated with the transformation of the culture of modern society towards the values of personal characteristics and skills.
  • Social Justice, Diversity and Workplace Discrimination It also includes the fair distribution of the national wealth and resources among all citizens and the unbiased treatment of all individuals.
  • Aspects of Diversity in the Workplace The importance of social and cultural intelligence. The importance of a non-discrimination policy.
  • Accomplishing Workplace Diversity One needs to be highly aware of vast cultural and linguistic differences among patients, which can be more easily overcome through a presentation of a diverse set of workers in the workplace.
  • Age Diversity and Conflicts in the Workplace The problem of the generation gap has always affected workplace relationships globally due to the differences in the circumstances under which people belonging to different age groups developed their values.
  • AT&T Diversity in the Workplace AT&T is an American multinational company that offers telecommunications solutions to retail and enterprise consumers. It is among the largest employers in the United States.
  • Recognizing the Impact of Diversity on the Workplace: A Training Plan Before introducing the training series that would help employees to recognize the impact of diversity in the workplace, it is crucial to define diversity.
  • Diversity in the Workplace: Benefits and Advantages One of the benefits of the diversity in the workplace is the achievement of enhanced organizational flexibility. This approach is associated with some weaknesses as the funds invested can exceed the gains as the employee […]
  • Cultural Diversity and Conflict in the Health Care Workplace Dealing with these problems and the issues that they involve is necessary to ensure the quality of health care delivered by the organization.
  • IBM: Issues in Democratic Principles & Diversity in the Workplace In consequence, employees have the freedom and “…right to influence the conditions of work as well as the policy of the workplace”.
  • Gender Diversity in the Workplace and Social Changes This is a research paper, seeking to understand and discuss the benefits of gender diversity at the workplace and how far the firefighting industry has come in appreciating the trend.
  • Managing Diversity: People Skills for a Multicultural Workplace They wonder, and the culture of gays, lesbians and trans-gender is viewed as ‘abnormal.’ by other co-workers who are a majority.hence discrimination, bullying and isolation what makes it more difficult for gays, lesbians, and trans-genders […]
  • Workplace Flexibility in Managing Diversity Though the objective of diversity management is also the utilization of all available talents it is said that there is a shift in the orientation of this policy from the concept of equal opportunities.
  • HR Management: Diversity in the Workplace The key notion of the article follows the mentioning, that despite the increase of study on favoritism, the charge of diversity, and multiculturalism in companies, the literature is not successful to address the more crucial […]
  • Cultural Diversity & Communication in the Workplace When she arrives at the workplace, she finds that she is the only woman in that office. She is unable to follow the American accent in the language.
  • Diversity in the Workplace: A Melting Pot of Conflict An example of conflict as a positive force is that the creation and resolution of conflict may lead the company to constructive problem-solving.
  • Workplace Diversity in American Countries According to Scott and Sims, successful companies have realized that diversity is a strength that enables them to understand varying needs of customers in the market.
  • Gender Parity and Cultural Diversity at Workplace I believe that a combination of equal treatment and teamwork encourages cooperation in the workplace and minimizes instances of gender and cultural bias.
  • Workplace Diversity and Its Benefits for Business In the present worldwide economy, different individuals from different corners of the globe are finding themselves working in the same office environment with a shared objective, be it in the short-term or the long-term.
  • Workplace Diversity: Values and Challenges The majority of the multicultural companies are embracing cultural diversity as a resourceful strategy to support new and unique ideas. Young people are also eager and prepared to work in a global setting due to […]
  • Equality and Diversity: Benefits in the Workplace It is essential to understand the importance of diversity and equality in the workplace because the world is becoming more diverse and many organisations are learning to manage employees from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds.
  • Disability and Diversity in the Workplace For instance, the American Association of People with Disabilities is a non-profit organization that concentrates on the rights of people with disabilities.
  • Workplace Diversity Consciousness: Barriers and Programs This situation will affect the performance of every employee at the workplace. Every barrier to effective communication will affect the level of performance.
  • Workplace Diversity in Silicon Valley According to Hubbard, diversity pays and it helps to cater the customer’s demands, it helps to comprehend the heartbeat of the marketplace and enhances the quality of goods and services.
  • Workplace Diversity: Human Performance Enhancement Strategy The existence of a gap between the ongoing actions and expectations of the organization worsens the state of discrimination based on gender and ethnicity among other aspects.
  • Managing Cultural Diversity in the Workplace It holds that while the department’s leaders may have the option of mitigating such clashes by reducing the diversity composition of the department, complying with the concerns of the quality of life and social justice […]
  • Diversity in the Workplace Within the Department of Health The embracement of such factors through the implementation of appropriate leadership and management strategies were seen to improve the engagement of the employees in teamwork thereby promoting positive perception of the differences amongst cultures that […]
  • Strategies of Managing Workplace Diversity Addressing the issues of the diversity at the workplace and maintaining comfortable and harmonious working process for the employees of all kinds is one of the highest and most important priorities for the managers these […]
  • AT&T Diversity in the Workplace Most notably, AT&T manages its workforce through a HRM team that consists of the corporate executive of the company, the human resource department staffs, the strategic business units heads, and members from delivery and business […]
  • Diversity Training Program in the Workplace According to Colquitt, Conlon, Wesson, Porter and Ng, the next perspective is anchored on the organisational response to the impact of the legal and political environment, which introduce diversity training programs when they have lost […]
  • Importance of Diversity at the Workplace To do so, organisations are called upon to ensure that they cerate awareness of the need for diversity at the workplace to their employees.
  • Diversity and Inclusion in Relation to Music in the Workplace Most of the employees have complained that the genres of music that is played in the office do not apply to their cultural affiliation and they fail to represent the majority of the employees’ listening […]
  • Diversity and Discrimination in the Workplace: The Role in Activities of an Organization Women, African Americans, Latinos and Asians have been the main victims of workplace discrimination in the United States. So long as the activities are not related to work performance and creativity, they amount to discrimination.
  • Workplace Diversity: Transparency’ and Team Spirit’ Principles Based on the content presented in the articles Rethinking Diversity in Public Organizations for the 21st Century: Moving Toward a Multicultural Model and The Ideal of Diversity in Organizations, I have stood a chance to […]
  • Workplace Diversity Benefits and Challenges The second one is that managers are supposed to implement diversity friendly policies which recognize the diversity of the employees. The most challenging aspect of diversity in my organization is to convince every person that […]
  • Challenges and Benefits of Workplace Diversity A company that limits itself in terms of diverse employee demographics runs the risk of being unable to understand the quirks and cultural norms in specific ethnic and racial markets resulting in the creation of […]
  • Effects of Diversity of Workforce at the Workplace Normally, if an organization is shifting from a homogenous culture to a diverse one, members of the former may dislike the change. In the process of implementing a diverse workplace, an organization may need to […]
  • Implementation of a Diversity Management Strategy in the Workplace The management of this organization has realized the importance of increasing diversity in the workforce. This has been achieved through positive efforts by the organizational management to improve the diversity of employees in the organization.
  • Increasing Diversity in the Workplace They have conformed to the traditional way of life, and therefore are rigid to some of the changes that take place in the external environment. Technology is one of the leading factors that have contributed […]
  • Strategies of Workplace Diversity Management Additionally, it is crucial to train employees on the importance of diversity within the workforce and how it can be harnessed for the betterment of the company. This has helped in addressing the challenges and […]
  • The Importance of Interactionism and Diversity in the Workplace Various corporations and government agencies tend to improve their competitive advantage as there is a need to comprehend the importance of management strategies to manage diversity in the workplace. So, it is rather important to […]
  • Concept of Diversity in Workplace When the manager understands the diversity of his or her workforce, he/she will know how to use the diverse workforce to maximize the benefits of the organization rather than to let it divide the workers.
  • Developing the Cultural Diversity at the Workplace The managers have to present clients with a diverse representation in the firm thus the need to ensure sharing of common grounds between the client and the server.
  • Cultural Awareness and Diversity in the Workplace Employees can do research about the culture of their work mates during their free time in order to enhance their cultural knowledge and understanding.
  • Managing Workplace Diversity: Issues and Challenges
  • Workplace Diversity and Public Policy: Challenges and Opportunities for Psychology
  • Workplace Diversity and Group Relations: An Overview
  • The Impact of Workplace Diversity on Organisations
  • Understanding the Dilemmas of Managing Workplace Diversity
  • Increasing Workplace Diversity: Evidence From a Recruiting Experiment at a Fortune 500 Company
  • Defining the Domain of Workplace Diversity Scholarship
  • Workplace Diversity and Job Satisfaction Dependence
  • The Psychological Benefits of Creating an Affirming Climate for Workplace Diversity
  • Developing an Instrument for Measuring Attitudes Toward and Perceptions of Workplace Diversity
  • Harnessing Demographic Differences in Organizations: What Moderates the Effects of Workplace Diversity?
  • Workplace Diversity: Emerging Issues in Contemporary Business
  • Transsexuals and Workplace Diversity: The “Change” Management
  • Changing Attitudes Over Time: Assessing the Effectiveness of a Workplace Diversity Course
  • Prospects and Challenges of Workplace Diversity in Modern Day Organizations
  • The Elusive Effects of Workplace Diversity on Innovation
  • Workplace Diversity Management in Australia: What Do Managers Think and What Are Organisations Doing?
  • Strategies for Addressing the Challenges and Opportunities of Workplace Diversity
  • Workplace Diversity Management in a Multicultural Society
  • Linking Workplace Diversity to Organizational Performance: A Conceptual Framework
  • The Deceptively Simple Economics of Workplace Diversity
  • Workplace Diversity and Inclusion: Policies and Best Practices for Organisations Employing Transgender People in India
  • Support of Workplace Diversity Policies: The Role of Race, Gender, and Beliefs About Inequality
  • Walking the Talk on Diversity: CEO Beliefs, Moral Values, and the Implementation of Workplace Diversity Practices
  • Cross-Level Effects of Workplace Diversity on Sales Performance and Pay
  • Workplace Diversity in South Africa: Its Qualities and Management
  • Workplace Diversity: A Social-Ecological Framework and Policy Implications
  • The Scope and Impact of Workplace Diversity in the United Arab Emirates
  • Religion as an Aspect of Workplace Diversity: An Examination of the US Context and a Call for International Research
  • Workplace Diversity in the United States: The Perspective of Peter Drucker
  • Exploring Workplace Diversity and Organisational Effectiveness: A South African Exploratory
  • The Effect of Workplace Diversity Management in a Highly Male-Dominated Culture
  • A Longitudinal Evaluation of Senior Managers’ Perceptions and Attitudes of a Workplace Diversity Training Program
  • Why Is There a Lack of Workplace Diversity Research on Asian Americans?
  • Blowback, Backlash, and Other Forms of Resistance to Workplace Diversity Initiatives That Support Sexual Minorities
  • Effects of Workplace Diversity Management on Organizational Effectiveness
  • Managing Workplace Diversity: Performance of Minority Employees
  • Workplace Diversity and Intercultural Communication: A Phenomenological Study
  • Diversity in the High-Tech Workplace: Diversity and Performance in R&D
  • Advancing Workplace Diversity Through the Culturally Responsive Teamwork Framework
  • What Are the Problems and Challenges of Managing Diversity in the Workplace?
  • What Are Workplace Diversity and Group Relations?
  • What Are the Areas of the Definition of Workplace Diversity Scholarship?
  • How Can Diversity and Ethics Be Managed in the Workplace?
  • What Are the Psychological Benefits of Creating a Diversified Workplace Climate?
  • What Is the Development of a Tool to Measure Attitudes and Perceptions of Diversity in the Workplace?
  • How Are Diversity and Inclusion Used in the Workplace?
  • What Are the Perspectives and Challenges of Diversity in the Workplace in Modern Organizations?
  • What Is the Impact of Workplace Diversity on Innovation?
  • What Strategies for Addressing the Challenges and Opportunities of Diversity in the Workplace?
  • How Can Diversity Be Managed in the Workplace in a Multicultural Society?
  • What Is the Relationship Between Workplace Diversity and Organizational Performance?
  • What Does Diversity Analysis Look Like in the Workplace?
  • What Does Diversity Look Like in the Workplace?
  • What Is the Difference Between Defining Diversity in the Workplace and Managing It?
  • What Is the Purpose of Effective Leadership and Diversity in the Workplace?
  • What Do Equity and Diversity Look Like in the Workplace?
  • What Equal Opportunity and Job Diversity?
  • What Is Globalization and Job Diversity?
  • How Different Cultures Helped Shape Our Nation and Promote Diversity in the Workplace?
  • How Can Considerations of Diversity Affect Conflict in the Workplace?
  • How Are Human Resource Management and Diversity in the Workplace Interrelated?
  • How Can Diversity Be Managed in the Workplace?
  • Chicago (A-D)
  • Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2024, March 2). 122 Workplace Diversity Essay Topic Ideas & Examples. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/workplace-diversity-essay-topics/

"122 Workplace Diversity Essay Topic Ideas & Examples." IvyPanda , 2 Mar. 2024, ivypanda.com/essays/topic/workplace-diversity-essay-topics/.

IvyPanda . (2024) '122 Workplace Diversity Essay Topic Ideas & Examples'. 2 March.

IvyPanda . 2024. "122 Workplace Diversity Essay Topic Ideas & Examples." March 2, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/workplace-diversity-essay-topics/.

1. IvyPanda . "122 Workplace Diversity Essay Topic Ideas & Examples." March 2, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/workplace-diversity-essay-topics/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "122 Workplace Diversity Essay Topic Ideas & Examples." March 2, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/workplace-diversity-essay-topics/.

  • Team Leadership Research Ideas
  • Respect Essay Topics
  • Teamwork Research Ideas
  • Conflict Resolution Essay Topics
  • Tolerance Essay Ideas
  • Workplace Discrimination Research Topics
  • Employee Benefits Paper Topics
  • Team Management Paper Topics

Logo

  • Anagram Generator
  • Barcode Generator
  • Gamertag Generator
  • Password Generator
  • Random Letter Generator
  • Random Number Generator
  • Username Generator
  • AdSense Calculator
  • Backlink Generator
  • Domain Age Checker
  • Domain Name Generator
  • Google Cache Checker
  • Google Index Checker
  • Readability Checker
  • Server Status Checker

Title Generator

  • ASCII Art Generator
  • Bold Text Generator
  • Comma Separator
  • Duplicate Lines Remover
  • Font Generator
  • Reverse Text Generator
  • Small Text Generator
  • Upside Down Text Generator
  • Word Cloud Generator
  • Zalgo Text Generator
  • Color Meanings
  • Color Names
  • Color Picker
  • Color Theory
  • CSS Color Codes
  • HEX Color Codes
  • HTML Color Codes
  • Minecraft Color Codes
  • Random Color Generator
  • Resistor Color Codes
  • RGB Color Codes
  • Roblox Color Codes
  • Everyday Life

Create relevant and appealing titles with the Title Generator. You may use keywords, phrases, or topics you have entered to create titles.

How would you like the results to appear?

What is Title Generator?

Title Generator helps you generate a host of titles based on the search terms, keywords, or topics you have entered.

A title is a key feature that will induce people to click on your site and read your blog or article. If your site doesn't have a catchy title, the chances are that the reader may not click through to read it. Having a unique title is as important as writing good content for your blog or article.

A specific title will inform your reader what questions you have a deal with, what information you are offering. The reader will make an informed decision as to whether to click and read the content or not and will do it only if they think that it is something they will need or something they will find interesting. All this from the title.

A good title should be interesting, grab the reader's attention, solve their needs or be informative, set expectations for the rest of the article, induce the reader to click through and read, and include keywords of the topic or niche are writing on.

When you select titles, you will know how hard to include all or most of them into your headline.

All this involves extensive research, but our Title Generator will make this easier for you. You need to focus on excellent content; we will ensure we develop great title options for it.

Features of Title Generator:

Generate Relevant Titles - The titles generated will be relevant to the industry, niche, topic, etc., that you want. It wouldn't be some random or irrelevant keyword.

Generate Customized Titles - Whether you want your title result to be a sentence case, title case, or all caps, etc., you can customize.

Generate Category Based Titles - You will get a host of suggestions based on the category. The tool will analyze whether it is a Generic Term, an Event, a Skill, an Industry, a Brand/Product, a Location, etc. And give results based on the category.

Generate Unlimited Titles - If you are not happy with the first several titles shown up, you can generate more. Overall, you will be shown up to 700 titles from which to make your pick.

Accurate & Quick Results - Once you enter the keyword, the sophisticated algorithm will analyze its database for topics related to it. The results are correct and highly accurate. You will be shown all the results in a matter of seconds. You don't have to wait around for a long time.

How to Use Title Generator?

Do a bit of analysis, identify keywords relevant to the content you will write on, and then enter the keyword in the Enter Your Keyword box.

Select whether your keyword is a Noun or Verb .

Now click on the Generate button.

Choose how you want the title results, whether an upper case or title case, etc., by choosing the Advance Options .

You will see results in a popup for the keyword that you have entered in a matter of seconds.

If none of these titles are what you are looking for, select other categories at the bottom of the window.

Keep checking more titles until you identify a title that you think will work for you.

Once you have a great title, the rest of the content will fall in place.

Final Words:

A great title will increase your conversion rate by a whopping 528%. So, it makes sense to use Title Generator. It will help you curate titles for your articles, blogs, stories, essays, magazines, site pages, email, and just about any content that requires catchy, unique, relevant, and meaningful titles.

If you want to jump out and grab the reader's attention, a great title has the power to do this. Add great content to it, and you will see your traffic and conversions skyrocket.

A title generated using Title Generator will grab attention, drive engagement, enhance your SEO readability , increase clicks and conversions, and excite and interest the readers to peruse the content.

Frequently Asked Questions:

- Title Generator is a tool designed by our developers to create different titles for the specific content you have asked for.

- To use this tool, you must go through the tool and use it by following the how-to section's steps.

- There is no such basic plan available with our tool. Our tool is 100% free of cost, and hence, you are not required to pay for the same.

- No, there is no extension available till now. You can go through the website and use the tool for now.

COMMENTS

  1. Best Essay Title Generator

    Our title generator for essays is a student-oriented, intuitive, and fast-to-use tool, equipped with a vast database to always suggest engaging ideas. Best of all, it's completely free! We've seamlessly integrated all these features into our generator to ensure that students have access to a comprehensive and user-friendly tool for crafting ...

  2. Essay Title Generator

    The essay title generator tool can help you come up with even more ideas for topics. Browse through the drop down menu and select various topics that you find interesting. Run the search for titles and then generate additional titles at the end of the search. After you do this process a few times, you will have a list of great essay topic ideas ...

  3. 93 Personal Identity Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

    He argues that, the identity of a soul alone in an embryo of man is one and same that is the identity of it in a fully grown up man. Personal Identity & Self-Reflection. In the reflection, Ivan examined his past life and the values that he had lived by in all of his life. Ship of Theseus and Personal Identity.

  4. Essay Title Generator

    1. Select your "essay topic" or "type of essay" from drop down menu. 2. Click the button for "Generate Essay Title." 3. Read the title that our auto-generating system produces. 4.

  5. On Belonging

    Introduction. "Belonging" is both a powerful and ambiguous concept. It reflects something essential to the human experience — a core need — but is not as tangible or easily comprehensible as shelter, nutrition, and rest. Appropriately, belonging rests in the middle of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. 1 This suggests that belonging is both ...

  6. Essay Title Generator (Free & No Login Required)

    The Essay Title Generator is an AI-based tool that creates original and thought-provoking essay titles. By analyzing your input keywords or themes, it generates a range of titles suitable for various academic disciplines and writing styles. This tool is a helpful resource for students and writers looking to create titles that accurately reflect ...

  7. Nine Brilliant Student Essays on Honoring Your Roots

    From the hundreds of essays written, these nine were chosen as winners. Be sure to read the author's response to the essay winners, literary gems and clever titles that caught our eye, and even more essays on identity in our Gallery of Voices. Middle School Winner: Susanna Audi. High School Winner: Keon Tindle. High School Winner: Cherry Guo.

  8. Why Do People Need To Belong: [Essay Example], 413 words

    In this essay, we will explore the reasons why people seek to belong, examining the psychological, social, and evolutionary factors that drive this universal impulse. By understanding the importance of belonging, we can gain insight into the complexities of human relationships and the impact of social connections on our well-being.

  9. How to Title an Essay: Tips and Examples

    Here are other rules for how to create a good title: Title every section of writing: In the process of writing, create interesting subheadings to give your paragraphs an identity. Also, they make your text look ordered and clear. The title must bear the theme of the text: choose a title that summarizes the essay. Capitalize all words with certain exceptions: Capitalize the first letter of ...

  10. 99 Cultural Identity Essay Topics & Examples

    99 Cultural Identity Essay Topics & Examples. Our experts have gathered identity essay topics that you can research or discuss in a class. See the list and find the perfect title here! In high school or college, you might be assigned to write a cultural identity essay. Topics on the subject are quite easy to find, given that culture surrounds ...

  11. How to Title an Essay: Guide with Creative Examples [2024]

    Still, some formatting rules are to be strictly followed. The MLA paper should start one inch from the top of the document, flush left. Write the author's name, then the instructor's name, the course number, and the date. Each item should be on a separate double-spaced line. Add the title of your paper.

  12. Essay Title Generator

    Answer: NLP (Natural Language Processing) tools can assist in title generation by analyzing patterns in language and suggesting titles based on the content and context of your essay. They use algorithms to generate creative, relevant, and unique titles that can enhance the appeal of your essay. 8.

  13. Identity, Belonging, and Culture

    Identity, Belonging, and Culture Essay. Belonging is a necessary process for youth during the period of meaning and making because it helps them to craft their own identity carefully. A person's economic and socio-cultural resources help him to create new cultural possibilities (Butcher and Thomas, 2006). For example, Australian migrants ...

  14. Stories of Identity and Belonging

    In this lesson, students deepen their exploration of the interplay between personal and social identity. They read and discuss a collection of narrative essays, written by four young people, who reflect on the ways in which their identities have been shaped by their beliefs about themselves, others' perceptions of them, and messages they receive from society at large.

  15. A Crisis of Belonging

    Social psychologist Geoff Cohen believes a crisis of belonging is destroying us. One in five Americans suffers from chronic loneliness. Young people are struggling with high levels of anxiety and mental health issues at times when they desperately need a sense of connection and belonging. "Belonging isn't just a touchy feely construct.

  16. "Belonging: Essays" by Wesley Hood

    This thesis is a collection of essays that tackle, at their heart, what it means to "belong." They are raw, honest, relatable to those who too, like the narrator, question what it means to "Belong." Each essay progressively brings to light and questions what "belonging" truly is, and "what it means to belong." Through the viewpoint of our narrator, each essay takes on a ...

  17. 127 Friendship Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

    Paper titles are important because they grasp the reader's attention and make them want to read further. However, many people find it challenging to name their work, so you can search for friendship essay titles online if you need to. Once you get the first two steps right, you can start developing the structure of your essay.

  18. Title Generator for Essay

    Enter Essay Context: Describe your essay's main theme, argument, or subject in the provided field. Select Essay Type (optional): If you want a title tailored to a specific type of essay, choose from our dropdown menu. Generate: Click the 'Generate' button and explore a variety of title suggestions. Pick, Tweak, and Finalize: Choose the ...

  19. Free Essay Title Generator

    The following are the steps that you must take: Open the Tooly free essay topic generator. Type in associated keywords to your subject. Use the drop-down list to select a category. Look at the list of topics displayed. Press, "load more" to see additional titles. As you can see, the process couldn't be easier!

  20. Belonging Essay

    Belonging is defined as fitting in to a particular environment or having the right personal or social qualities to be a member of a particular group. Our belonging to or connections with people, places and groups allows one to develop a distinct identity characterised by affiliation, acceptance. 1459 Words. 6 Pages.

  21. 122 Workplace Diversity Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

    It contains thousands of paper examples on a wide variety of topics, all donated by helpful students. You can use them for inspiration, an insight into a particular topic, a handy source of reference, or even just as a template of a certain type of paper. The database is updated daily, so anyone can easily find a relevant essay example.

  22. Title Generator

    Do a bit of analysis, identify keywords relevant to the content you will write on, and then enter the keyword in the Enter Your Keyword box. Select whether your keyword is a Noun or Verb. Now click on the Generate button. Choose how you want the title results, whether an upper case or title case, etc., by choosing the Advance Options.