Academic Legal Writing - Eugene Volokh [139]
4. If you want to make the title witty, consider that only after you've made it descriptive
If you have a witty play on words that you'd like to include in the title, the time to consider it is now—after you've come up with a descriptive title.
I try to avoid witty titles in my own work, but I concede that a little wit can make the article seem more appealing, can put the reader in a good mood, and can help the reader remember the article later. I still remember an article title I saw in the early 1990s, “One Hundred Years of Privacy”; this both communicated the article's essence (a look back on the privacy tort a century after Warren and Brandeis first proposed it), and humorously alluded to the novel “One Hundred Years of Solitude.”
Another article was called “A RFRA Runs Through It,” echoing the title of the movie “A River Runs Through It.” People who are familiar with religious freedom law know that RFRA is the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, commonly pronounced “riff-rah,” not that different from “river.” The article's thesis was that after the enactment of the federal RFRA, the entire U.S. Code should be read as if RFRA had amended each statute, and changed the policy balance struck by the drafters of each statute—hence RFRA runs through the entire Code, so the joke is apt. Plus the article was published in a symposium conducted by the Montana Law Review, and the movie was set in Montana. Cute.
But be careful. First, amateur comedians notoriously overestimate how funny their jokes are.
Second, with some topics (abortion, the death penalty, and the like), some readers will find any humor to be jarring. For instance, “Creole and Unusual Punishment: A Tenth Anniversary Examination of Louisiana's Capital Rape Statute”—a real title—contains a pun that's amusing in the abstract; but, when applied to the death penalty, the joke might alienate more readers than it amuses. It's hard to know for sure, but you should at least consider the risk.
Third, even an amusing gag distracts the reader from your main point. To be effective, the joke must be interesting and memorable enough that its value overcomes the distraction.
Fourth, some writers find a joke so appealing that they use it even when it doesn't quite capture the point they are trying to make, or when it is surplus that doesn't add anything valuable. Better use serious words that mean exactly what you need to say, no more and no less, than a joke that means something slightly different, or that takes up words that could be used for something substantive. Humorous subtitles are common offenders here: They often add nothing besides the joke, and the joke's place can often be effectively taken by a subtitle that actually communicates something useful about the piece.
So reread the title on several occasions to make sure that the gag really works, and ask friends whether they agree. If you're in doubt, err on the side of having a purely substantive title.
5. Edit the title especially carefully
Edit the title even more carefully than you edit the rest of your work. Clarity, proper word choice, and liveliness are especially important in a title, both to make people more interested in reading the piece, and to set the right tone for their reading—if the title sounds clunky or abstract, people will expect the rest of the article to be the same.
Thus, for instance, “Considering the Advantages and Disadvantages of Prohibitions on Concealable Firearms” isn't as good as “The Costs and Benefits of Handgun Prohibition.” The “considering the” is surplus; “costs and benefits” is shorter and simpler-sounding than “advantages and disadvantages”; and “handgun prohibition” cuts out an unnecessary prepositional phrase,