My undergrad college in the US was very writing-intensive: for every seminar you were in, you met one-on-one with the professor every other week and worked on a ‘conference paper’ related to the subject of the class, but not specifically tied to a particular unit. Even for the normal class papers, you were generally given a single broad topic, and the thesis itself was up to you.

For the Master’s I’m doing in the UK right now, it’s very different. Your paper topics must be pulled directly from a list of narrow questions. But that’s not even the part that bothers me. My US papers all had interesting titles, like “Privates and Patriots: Interpretations of the Battle of Concord,” and “For Love of Country? Britain, France, and the Multiethnic Imperial Army.”

When I tried to write an interesting title in the UK that pretty clearly reflected the chosen question, “Is there an Anglo-American Special Relationship? If so, why?” I came up with “Forged in Battle, Sealed with Blood: Whither the Special Relationship?” I got points taken off. Apparently I need to just repeat the question so that the intellectual powers of the professor aren’t overly taxed.

/rant