When you start to think about the title of your paper or final project, there are three title styles to choose from: nominal, compound and full-sentence. Some universities recommend their humanities students to use the compound style. Some guides recommend not using the full-sentence title, which may be more suited to research papers in science (see below). If your institution lets you choose, select the style that best suits your purposes.
Nominal titles generally consist of noun or verb phrases and are probably the easiest to write well because their aim is simply to describe the main theme of the study.
Compound titles comprise two phrases joined by a colon. Never use a full stop to join them. The first phrase can contain a general description of the subject, which the second phrase explains in more detail.
Or you can reverse the order so that the first phrase ‘drops’ the reader in the middle of the subject while the second phrase pulls back and contextualizes.
This alternative order can help you develop a sense of authorial voice. In it, the first phrase can name an important concept in the paper.
It can give special emphasis to quoted material, which is then tied to but perhaps not entirely explained by the second phrase.
Or it can combine with the second phrase to comment on your overall proposal.
Whichever order you choose, make sure the two phrases are each doing something different. If they are not, the effect is strange.
To solve this, decide where your priorities lie and edit accordingly, possibly changing style.
Alternatively, keep all the details but make it shorter.
Finally, after nominal and compound titles, there are full-sentence titles. As explained above, these are more common in science papers, for example when a writer wants the title to contain a mention of results.
Full-sentence titles are less common in humanities papers, which generally deal with questions for which there are no definitive answers, let alone results, and where the evidence as such is textual (written documents, films, paintings, scores, etc.). But if your title makes it clear that you know this convention and you are using it consciously for a particular effect, it may offer possibilities. The following are titles of a study on the works of musician-actor John Lurie, a commentary on a book by art historian Patricia Emison and an analysis of the uses of violence in the theatre and in popular culture, respectively.
Nominal titles generally consist of noun or verb phrases and are probably the easiest to write well because their aim is simply to describe the main theme of the study.
 | White Temporality and the Underground Railroad in African-American Poetry of the 1950s Homo Mensura in Plato’s Theaetetus to Examine the Relativity of Literary Criticism Following Hamish Fulton’s Solo Walking Works in Valencia and Portugal |
Compound titles comprise two phrases joined by a colon. Never use a full stop to join them. The first phrase can contain a general description of the subject, which the second phrase explains in more detail.
| The Filmscore in John Zorn’s Filmworks: A Musician’s Attempt to Work outside the Jazz-Frame |
Or you can reverse the order so that the first phrase ‘drops’ the reader in the middle of the subject while the second phrase pulls back and contextualizes.
| Attempting to Work outside the Jazz-Frame: The Filmscore in John Zorn’s Filmworks |
This alternative order can help you develop a sense of authorial voice. In it, the first phrase can name an important concept in the paper.
| The Space Love Fills: An Examination of Beauty in Agnes Martin’s Life and Works |
It can give special emphasis to quoted material, which is then tied to but perhaps not entirely explained by the second phrase.
| “I am leaving because I am bored”: George Sanders and the Aesthetics of Hollywood Suicide “I could not love thee (Dear) so much, Lov’d I not Honour more”: The Literate Gumshoe in Robert B. Parker’s Crime Fiction |
Or it can combine with the second phrase to comment on your overall proposal.
| Why We Cannot Negate Marjorie Perloff’s Postmodernism and the impasse of lyric: A Critical Reading of Poetry Criticism |
Whichever order you choose, make sure the two phrases are each doing something different. If they are not, the effect is strange.
 | Jordi Savall’s Adaptation of The Song of the Sibyl for a Solo Female Voice: The Arrangement of the Song for Montserrat Figueras |
To solve this, decide where your priorities lie and edit accordingly, possibly changing style.
| Jordi Savall’s Adaptation of The Song of the Sibyl for Montserrat Figueras Jordi Savall’s Adaptation of The Song of the Sibyl for a Solo Female Voice |
Alternatively, keep all the details but make it shorter.
| Jordi Savall’s Adaptation of The Song of the Sibyl for a Solo Female Voice Featuring Montserrat Figueras |
Finally, after nominal and compound titles, there are full-sentence titles. As explained above, these are more common in science papers, for example when a writer wants the title to contain a mention of results.
| Anaphylaxis is More Common with Rocuronium and Succinylcholine than with Atracurium (Reddy et al., Anesthesiology, January 2015, Vol. 122, 39–45 ) |
Full-sentence titles are less common in humanities papers, which generally deal with questions for which there are no definitive answers, let alone results, and where the evidence as such is textual (written documents, films, paintings, scores, etc.). But if your title makes it clear that you know this convention and you are using it consciously for a particular effect, it may offer possibilities. The following are titles of a study on the works of musician-actor John Lurie, a commentary on a book by art historian Patricia Emison and an analysis of the uses of violence in the theatre and in popular culture, respectively.
| Fishing with John Is Not as Exciting as Watching His Movies The Old-Style Art Historians are the Smug Frat Brothers of the Academy My Brother Dave Saw Calixto Bieito’s Macbeth at the Teatre Romea but All I Got Was this Bloody T-Shirt |
Universitat de Barcelona. Serveis Lingüístics
Darrera actualització: 2-9-2022
Recommended citation:
«Title styles» [en línia]. A: Llibre d’estil de la Universitat de Barcelona. Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona. Serveis Lingüístics. <https://www.ub.edu/llibre-estil/criteri.php?id=3430> [consulta: 30 abril 2024].
