Why Are Titles So Important?
While we don’t often think about it during the outline process, project and request titles are client-facing! Throughout our work on each project, every communication sent to the client includes the title, so each should be a concise summary of the project/request as a whole and be written in a professional manner.
Titles that are too long are not changed from the client’s original ask, or have spelling/grammar errors can undermine Wonder’s credibility and the credibility of our research as a whole.
[Bonus: Internally, titles are also used to track and reference projects throughout the research process, and clear, concise titles are also helpful to our admin and ops teams!]
Crafting a Project/Request Title
- Summarize the research project concisely (ideally, 4-5 words maximum)
- Use a professional tone and take care that there are no spelling or factual errors
- Refer to the actual research topic (do not use vague/general titles)
- Follow standard MLA capitalization rules:
- Capitalize the first word of the title/heading
- Capitalize all major words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and pronouns) in the title/heading, including the second part of hyphenated major words (e.g., Self-Report, not Self-report)
- Capitalize all words of four letters or more
When Writing Project/Request Titles- Don't's
- Don’t use abbreviations or any “shorthand” terms
- Don’t use full sentences
- Don’t use any pronouns such as “you, we, I, etc.”
Writing Follow-Up Titles
- Summarize the research project concisely (ideally, 4-5 words maximum)- as normal.
- Add a number to the front of the request that will indicate it is a follow-up.
- Do not use the words Follow Up in the title.
- For example, we do a Project Teammate named Banana Market Size, and the client approves a follow-up that is a competitive analysis. We will write it like this:
- (2) Banana Market Competitive Landscape
- Then, the client comes in and approves a second follow-up for trends. We will write it like this:
- All subsequent follow-ups will follow this pattern.
What are Some Examples of 5-Star Project/Request Titles?