Background to the Chosen Dance Genre - Title Approval Service

Whether you are preparing an assignment for FDI or an essay for the CDE, you may find it helpful to get some guidance about your title before you start.

Suggested titles can be submitted to the Education & Training Department in writing at any time and you will receive written constructive advice as to how your title could be improved. Please don’t phone with your title as we need time to consider it and formulate a response in writing, so just send it in by post, fax or email.

Advice is individual to the title itself; however, during the last year there has been one particular piece of advice that has been given out more than any other:

Candidates should select a person, company, aspect of style or historical period, as stated in the syllabus, and construct a title which questions the influence of their chosen subject on the development of their genre.

Often titles are submitted to the title approval service where a subject has been selected but it is not questioning its influence on the genre. For example, a title such as ‘The choreography of Jerome Robbins’would need to be altered to say something along the lines of: ‘In what ways has the choreography of Jerome Robbins influenced the development of Modern Theatre as we know it today?

Please note; approval of a title is not official as it is given as guidance. It is therefore not a guarantee that the assignment or essay will be successful when marked. It is, after all, the content of the assignment or essay that is really important; however, a good title will help you along the way to producing a better piece of work.

Further Help and Advice

If you would like further help with your assignment or essay, please remember we have the following support mechanisms in place;

•Full details of the unit requirements, i.e. how to structure the assignment or essay, the mark scheme, example bibliographies and referencing, and a suggested reading list, can be found in the specific qualification syllabus. To order a copy via email, click here

•Approved Dance Centres and Distance Learning Tutors are available to help you

•Regular information articles are published in DANCE magazine as well as on the training pages of this website

•Please also remember, members can book to use the ISTD Library at HQ on Mondays and Thursdays from 10.30am to 3.30pm for your research needs

What you have said:

“"I see now that my title was more suitable for an article than an essay."”

“"Thank you for your feedback on my titles, it has been extremely useful."

“"Thank you for preventing me writing an essay on an unsuitable subject."