Oh, yay! On a hunch I had as I was falling asleep, I checked one of my Lit textbooks to see if it had a glossary of literary terms. It did! So, I'll just use that. But, as I was doing that, I glanced at the introduction to students, because it was titled "Connecting with Literature," which is kind of the essence of part of my argument in my thesis. This little intro quoted Nabokov's introduction to his book, "Good Readers and Good Writers," which gives me some quotes to use to say what I wanted to say with some evidence! AND the book it's from is at the school's library, so I can see the whole article and decide what to use.

Oh, this is so exciting! I love it when everything comes together! Actually, this might be what helps me come up with my title!

IORelatedN, I saw one of my profs from this semester last week. We were talking about the thesis (this is my Women and Religion prof, and she is just fascinated by my topic), and she told me that she has never seen any student, undergraduate or graduate, as excited about her work as I am. That made me feel really good, actually. Or, it just proves how crazy I am :).

Timelies all!

Facebook told me you weren't feeling the best...

Also, how much do I love this statement? SO much! Feel better Fay, and Jars, that was quite the dream!

By golly! I think I may have a title I like! And I came up with it all by myself:

The Essence of Literature: A Case Study in Oral History

What do we think?

The Essence of Literature: A Case Study in Oral History

What do we think?

I have not commented on this before, but some of the others, I was not really sure what they meant exactly. This clearly tells me that you are examining the literary nature of oral history (as opposed to its historiographical value), by examining one set of oral history. Not knowing precisely what your thesis is, from this title, I sort of expect it to evaluate oral history as literature in a similar fashion to high school students being exposed to, say, great diarists like Pepys and Boswell - in other words, exposing it as a subset of Capital-L Literature to an audience that was naive about it its place in Literature.

If that is what you meant to say, then the title gets the job done in a way that some of the less straightforward, but more superficially exciting titles will not.

Wow. I just used up my brain power reserve. IOW, gronk.

but some of the others, I was not really sure what they meant exactly.

Yeah, that was one of my parents' issues.

This clearly tells me that you are examining the literary nature of oral history (as opposed to its historiographical value), by examining one set of oral history.

This is *exactly* what I am doing.

in other words, exposing it as a subset of Capital-L Literature to an audience that was naive about it its place in Literature.

Pretty much it! Though, at a much higher level than high school :).

If that is what you meant to say, then the title gets the job done in a way that some of the less straightforward, but more superficially exciting titles will not.

Oh, good! Waiting to hear back from my parents and thesis adviser on it, but I'm feeling good about this title. If anyone has small tweak suggestions, I'm still quite open to them.

The Essence of Literature: A Case Study in Oral History

vw, I like this one the best out of all the titles you've posted.

And ION completely, PMS sucks like a giant sucking thing. I want to curl up and go back to bed. Unfortunately, I'm already at work.

I'm suddenly seized with the wish that I'd named my thesis "Quotation Marks Around the Title" rather than It's All a Big Lie. Neither one would tell you what it was about, but the first is a better meta commentary.

While I agree with what WindSparrow's saying, I find myself wondering, "What about the essence of literature?" How would you feel about being more sentence-y than noun-phrase-y?

Always keeping in mind, of course, that your thesis will end up shelved with a bunch of things entitled, Ethnohistory of the Hagiography of Warsaw's converts to Christianity in the late 1840s: One Muslim's Perspective and Expression of T-3578321 in One-Celled Prokaryotes Living on Mudfish in the Hollow Behind a Dallas Subdivision. Yours will make more sense no matter what!

How would you feel about being more sentence-y than noun-phrase-y?

Do you have a suggestion? :)

Always keeping in mind, of course, that your thesis will end up shelved with a bunch of things entitled, Ethnohistory of the Hagiography of Warsaw's converts to Christianity in the late 1840s: One Muslim's Perspective and Expression of T-3578321 in One-Celled Prokaryotes Living on Mudfish in the Hollow Behind a Dallas Subdivision. Yours will make more sense no matter what!

So true! Though, from what I can tell, it will not be shelved. It's going to be stuffed in some files (in the English department and honors department). The only way this will get out there is if I push to have it published, which I probably will be working on this summer. I've gotten great encouragement to do so from people on both sides of the argument (Lit and Oral History).

Em, do you mean something like, "Literary Essence as it Relates to Oral History"?

No, I guess I was thinking more like, "This is the Essence of Literature," but now that I think of it that doesn't convey any more information than yours. Never mind. I'm not very good at the title game.