I have decided that my title "Why is Alexander the Great known as 'great'?" is not good enough to be the title I use for my EPQ, I already stated the disadvantages of this title in a previous post but basically I believe it is too narrow as it only really gives me room to find reasons for why Alexander of Macedon was known as 'great' and not whether he should be which I feel will be a more interesting field to look in and will allow me to develop a more sophisticated argument than this simple 'why' question would.
I drafted some revised titles such as:
By looking at all the advantages and disadvantages of all my ideas for titles I tried to come up with one that encompassed all of the positives and as few as possible of the negatives, therefore I have revised my title to become:
"To what extent does Alexander III of Macedon deserve his epithet of 'great'?"
The strengths of using this as a title is that it provides me with an argument before I even begin my dissertation, this is shown by how it begins 'to what extent', this means it is not a leading question as it does not assume that Alexander is 'great'. Furthermore it is a specific question in that it specifies which Alexander and what his epithet was without being too specific in topic which gives me many different avenues to go down to attempt an answer to this question. However a weakness of this title could be that it may not be immediately obvious to everyone that it means Alexander the Great because he is very rarely known as Alexander III of Macedon, however as I specify the epithet it shouldn't make it too hard for people to work out and therefore remains a fairly clear title.
I drafted some revised titles such as:
- "How 'great' was Alexander?" which is an improvement as it is much more concise and allows for a greater depth of analysis as it is not just a simple 'why' question and allows me to reach a judgement however it is a leading question, this means there is no leeway in the idea that Alexander may not have been great. The question implies he was great and just asks by how much, this could therefore pose problems if I later decide he wasn't great as I would have to disagree with my title
- "Did Alexander deserve his epithet?" this improves on the flaws of the above question however it doesn't specify which Alexander, nor his epithet which makes the title a bit vague
By looking at all the advantages and disadvantages of all my ideas for titles I tried to come up with one that encompassed all of the positives and as few as possible of the negatives, therefore I have revised my title to become:
"To what extent does Alexander III of Macedon deserve his epithet of 'great'?"
The strengths of using this as a title is that it provides me with an argument before I even begin my dissertation, this is shown by how it begins 'to what extent', this means it is not a leading question as it does not assume that Alexander is 'great'. Furthermore it is a specific question in that it specifies which Alexander and what his epithet was without being too specific in topic which gives me many different avenues to go down to attempt an answer to this question. However a weakness of this title could be that it may not be immediately obvious to everyone that it means Alexander the Great because he is very rarely known as Alexander III of Macedon, however as I specify the epithet it shouldn't make it too hard for people to work out and therefore remains a fairly clear title.