◆ Does it define exactlythe central research question which
you have answered? Does it avoid drawing attention to any
gaps or deficiencies in your research?
◆ Does your title’s vocabulary include the main theoretical
concepts or innovations or themes that run through your
research, which are used in the chapter texts and do an
important job of work there? Does it signal your line of
argument in a reasonably substantive way? Are the words
used ones that you will want to talk about and explain at
length, in your oral exam?
◆ Does the title make clear the empirical referents of your
research, and the necessary limitations you have set for its
scope and approach?
Before answering ‘Yes, of course’ to all these questions, think
laterally about how the thesis will really look to readers seeing
it for the first time, and what your research has fundamentally
achieved. Choose title words that capture these aspects in an
effective way. You should also ask explicitly how your project,
your discipline and the wider intellectual world have changed
since the original working title was firmed up in your first year.
Is the current title going to have the same fashionable conno-
tations it once did? Is it going to stand up in future? Remember
your title will be an important element of selling your work to
potential university employers. Appointment committees often
short-list people for interview on the basis of quite sparse infor-
mation in the papers in front of them. So during your early
career years, the thesis title you choose will largely define what
kind of intellectual species you are seen as.
These issues are not easy to think through on your own. It
may be hard for you to be self-critical about an inherited title
that you have lived with for a long time. But this is the last-
chance saloon, so you should set aside a whole session with
your supervisor to brainstorm about the full range of possible
title wordings and how they might be interpreted by outside
audiences. Construct an ‘alternatives’ sheet containing all the
feasible key terms and their combinations, paying particular
attention to placing material before and after any colon in the
title. Do not just look at your established title in isolation. If
you compare what you already have only with a blank slate, the
202 ◆AUTHORING A PHD