As the authors' say: "We should not overstate the point of this paper". Joshua Deahl & Bernard A. Eskandari in, "Before & After the Colon", 10 Green Bag 2d. 7 (Autumn 2006), divert us with a statistical analysis on the incidence of colons in law review article/note titles. Their chief finding is that use of titular colons by authors is imitative and thus indicative of less authorial originality, and that comparing elite vs. non-elite journals, and articles vs. notes, it's statistically the lesser piece of scholarship that's more likely to have a colon in its title!
Posted by doyle at December 20, 2006 8:53 AM