Some years ago, I wrote an article about bibliography and paratext – for a librarianship journal, The Library Review. Taking a marketing term, I discussed ways of trying to make bibliographic citation more ‘sexy’, ie, appealing to students.
Oh, how I regretted that article title. Too late, I feared no-one would take it seriously. All the advice says that an article title should say what it means, directly.
After all, if we’re going to be very ‘meta’ about it, what attracted you to this blog post? I said it was about article titles, and here I am, writing about them. It does what it says on the can, to use a colloquial expression. If you were looking for advice about entitling your article, you might conceivably have thought you’d arrived at the right place.
So, why hadn’t I just entitled that earlier article,
‘Getting undergraduates interested in library-based teaching: bibliographic citation and historical paratext’
But I didn’t. Library Review Vol. 64 Iss 1/2 pp. 154 – 161 is there for all to see, with that cringeworthy article title:-
‘Sexy’ bibliography (and revealing paratext)
I learned my lesson. Titles have to be plain and meaningful, so that everyone knows exactly what they’re about. No messing. Otherwise, the danger is that people looking for conventionally sexy and revealing material might stumble across my pedagogical peregrinations and feel cheated. Whilst pedagogues might not even find my article. (Which would be a shame.)
Today, however, my line manager was digging about in Pure, our institutional repository. And – well, I’m a bit stunned to find that my poor little article got far and away the most views. Over 8,700 views, to be precise!
If you’re interested in pedagogy, and specifically, in librarians teaching, then I commend it to you. It’s not a bad article. You can access it here.
However, if you’re expecting a sultry-looking librarian in an off-the shoulder chiffon number, then I’m afraid you are going to be bitterly, bitterly disappointed! I reveal only my experimentation in making bibliographic citation and historical paratext interesting to music undergraduates!
AI generated image by Kalpesh Ajugia from Pixabay
Karen McAulay, Musicologist 