The Art of Crafting SOP Titles

Authors often spend considerable time crafting book titles. It’s a tricky challenge: how to create a title that is captivating, conveys the essence of the book, and yet isn’t too long. While SOPs aren’t books, SOP authors face a similar challenge.

What’s the first thing users notice in an SOP?

The title, of course. It deserves special care to ensure it is purposeful, clear, and concise. Users often search for SOPs using keywords, so including relevant terms in the title is critical.

Consider the following three potential SOP titles:

EMS (Environmental Monitoring System) Alarms
How to Handle EMS (Environmental Monitoring System) Alarms
Responding to GMP Alarms from EMS (Environmental Monitoring System)

Which one is the most purposeful, clear, and concise?

Option 1 is too broad.
Option 2 is slightly better, but not so precise.
Option 3 is specific, action-oriented, and to the point.

Crafting effective titles

To craft an effective SOP title:

Include relevant “keywords.”
Start with an action-oriented word (verb+ing, for example: releasing, calibrating, testing).
Minimize non-essential words (e.g., a, an, and, etc., how, of, the, there, to).
Make it purposeful, clear, and concise.
Avoid very long titles.

To produce high-quality SOPs, every detail matters—even the few words in the title.

Titles are not only important; they are everything in some cases. A title is a promise.

WILLIAM ZINSSER