Using “Titles Я Us!” as a metaphor, I explore the case that when academics choose titles for their texts, they also reveal something about who they are. First, I briefly discuss the theory of titles—“titology”—as paratexts and pre-texts. Second, I identify several categories of title. Third, I analyze five recently published articles as mini-case studies and question whether they reveal anything useful about writer stance and writer voice. Finally, I conclude that titles are not only thresholds into what academics write but also into what and who they are.
CrosbyH. (1976). Titles, A Treatise On . . .College Composition and Communication, 27, 387-391.
7.
DelamontS. (2007, September5-8). Arguments against auto-ethnography. Paper presented at the British Educational Research Annual Conference, Institute of Education, University of London, England.
8.
DerridaJ. (1992). Before the Law. In AttridgeD. (Ed.), Acts of literature (pp. 181-220). London, UK: Routledge.
9.
GenetteG. (1988). Structure and functions of the title in literature. Critical Inquiry, 14, 708-720.
10.
GenetteG. (1997). Paratexts: Thresholds of interpretation (LewinJ., Trans.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
11.
GuttormH. (2012). Becoming-(a)-paper, or an article undone: (Post-) knowing and writing (again), nomadic and so Messy. Qualitative Inquiry, 18, 595-605.
12.
HartleyJ. (2008a, February28). Colonic information. Times Higher Education, p. 26.
13.
HartleyJ. (2008b). Private email, 30June2008.
14.
LevinH. (1977). The title as a literary genre. Modern Language Review, 72, xxiii-xxxxv.
15.
MillsC. W. (2000). The sociological imagination. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. (Original work published 1959)
16.
PearsonR. (2005). Voltaire almighty—A life in pursuit of freedom. London, England: Bloomsbury.
17.
RichardsP. (1986). Risk. In BeckerH. (Ed.), Writing for social scientists (pp. 108-120). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
18.
RichardsonL. (2000). Writing: A method of inquiry. In DenzinN.LincolnY. (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed., pp. 923-948), Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
19.
SwordH. (2012, September6). Narrative trust, Times Higher Education, pp. 37-41.
