There are tried and tested Title Templates which will attract your audience to your session. We’ll show you how to use these templates by taking one topic and generating a number of possible presentation titles using the templates.
The topic is teaching bioethics in schools.
1. Promise Benefits
Dale Carnegie’s famous book “How to Win Friends and Influence People” is still one of the best-selling communications books on Amazon. The title of the book is a big part of it’s success. That title works because it promises benefits. It’s not enough to say:
- How to teach bioethics
That’s ho-hum. Adding benefits to the title makes it sing:
- How to teach a bioethics class that makes students think
- How to be an inspiring bioethics teacher
- How to engage and inspire your students through teaching bioethics
2. Promise a story
You can use the power of the story in your presentation title. For example:
- How a poor school turned delinquent teenagers into philosophers
- How a burnt-out teacher reconnected with the love of teaching through bioethics
If you’re presenting a case-study, this format is ideal for your presentation title. Here’s the format “How A got to B”. Make “A” and “B” as far as part as possible by adding adjectives.
3. Put the number “3” at the front
Consider this title:
- Critical concepts for teaching bioethics
Sounds kind of boring and academic, but what if you put a number in front of it:
- Three critical concepts for teaching bioethics
Now your prospective audience member is thinking “I better know what those three critical concepts are”. Even if they’re an expert in teaching bioethics they’ll want to find out the three concepts a fellow expert considers critical.
4. Provoke Curiosity
If you’re revealing new research in your presentation make the most of it. People want to hear what’s new.
- New classroom research reveals the bioethics teaching methodology that gets the best results
If you’re a teacher of bioethics how could you resist going to that session?
That title works because of the curiosity that it evokes. You can exploit the natural attraction power of curiosity even if you don’t have cutting-edge research to reveal. For example:
- The #1 strategy for teaching bioethics in the classroom
5. Evoke Concern
This type of presentation title makes people want to to come to your presentation to check that they’re not making big mistakes. It’s a powerful strategy. For example:
- The common mistakes bioethics teachers make
- The flaws in current bioethics teaching methodology
or take some ownership with this version:
- The mistakes I’ve made teaching bioethics and how you can learn from them
6. Mix and Match Presentation Titles
You can use elements from these different types of title and mix them up. For example, many titles can be improved by adding the number 3. For example:
- The common mistakes bioethics teachers make
Becomes:
- The three common mistakes bioethics teachers make
