Sex!...

In my freshman year of college, these signs started appearing around campus. Some were tacked to the bulletin board in the building that housed the cafeteria, while others littered the quad in the social sciences division. A few even graced the dorms.

They said more than that, of course, but that's what caught my eye, and as the weeks wore on, they only got more creative and shocking. And though I vowed after reading the first one (you know, the one about killing dogs), that I would never read what this person had to say, eventually curiosity got the best of me.

Of course, as everyone realized, the large, bold, shocking tags at the tops of the signs were to draw people in, to make them curious, to make them just have to read what was on those signs. They were, effectively, the titles of the signs.

I agree that titles have to be catchy, although I certainly would never threaten to kill anyone's dog ever, not even in jest. Part of your responsibility as a writer is to entice your reader to read your work, so you should consider the titling of your review as one of the most important phases of the review writing process. A title can make or break a review.

There are a number of ways to come up with a good title. Catchy phrases make good titles, reworded sayings and wordplays.

Sometimes it helps to go back and re-read your review. Often, something will pop out at you. I remember agonizing over a title once for a short piece of fiction that I'd written way back in high school. The story was about the death of a young woman, and how her friends coped with her death. The story had come easily. It was the title that I struggled with for weeks. Everything seemed cheesy or cheap, or somehow melodramatic, which was the last thing I wanted, so it remained title-less for the longest time. Finally, I re-read the story for the umpteenth time, and a single phrase popped out at me. Immediately, the story was titled "Rivers on the Glass".

The funny thing about it, was that, in the end, everyone loved my story title. Each person I talked to took a different meaning from it after having read the story. So sometimes your title is there along, just waiting to be discovered amongst the lines of your review.

Play with your words. A title doesn't have to be serious. Invent a word if you wish. Rhyme. Apply alliteration.

Share a secret with your reader, or allude to it. For example, I titled a review on the college admissions process: What Your Guidance Counselor Doesn't Want Me To Tell You. This implies, and hopefully rightfully, that you're going to share information that the reader in question will need, and may not find elsewhere.

If you feel strongly one way or another about a product, make it evident in your title, especially if your point of view sets it apart from the rest of the reviews in a particular category. If you're the one person that hated Santana's Supernatural make that evident in your title. Sometimes people are searching for an opinion that opposes the majority. Don't make them have to look past your title to know that yours is the one!

Basically, appeal to your readers. Look at the tone of your review and use it as a leaping-off point. Is your review playful? Don't be afraid to be playful in your title -- or poetic, or conversational. Forget formality. Feel your way through your title. It may make the difference in the number of hits your review gets.

Oh, and for those of you who are wondering. The writer of the signs from my college days turned out to be a young man (who ended up married to my once best friend) who was looking for a ride home for spring break. Did he get the ride? I really can't remember. Would I have given him a ride? Definitely not -- at least not at the time. (After all, we hypothesized that he might be some kind of sicko) But did his "titles" do the trick? They certainly did. I can personally assure you that just about every person on campus read those signs. I'm also happy to say that he never did, nor never would kill anyone's dog.