Hey Gm, I know to put brackets ( ) around the title of a song, but what about for an essay? For instance the title of the essay is My Life Story. I am guessing no, it should not be bracketed. Am I right?
Bien merci mon ami. T

There is definitely no need for brackets around a title. I'm not sure about brackets for a song title either. Where did that come from?

Some use quotation marks for song titles or the names of ships etc., but brackets...

There is a lesson on parenthesis here, which explains when to use brackets (or dashes or commas). There is a lesson on quotation marks here, which explains when to use quotation marks with names (see Point 3 towards the bottom on the page).