Titles of articles (and books too, but that's a different topic) have an outsized importance in a writer's life.

They (1) stimulate reader interest or not and (2) create an expectation of the contents. A good title provokes interest and conveys the argument; a bad one bores and misleads about the topic. An excellent title remains understandable and interesting years after publication. An ideal one also attracts search-engine hits.

Problem is, while authors theoretically enjoy full control of the content of their articles (even if that's not always entirely the case in practice), titles belong to editors. Proofs are returned to authors minus titles. The author typically discovers the title on reading the published article, right along with the general public.

This can lead to authorial anguish. "No one will read it" and "That's not what I meant" are common and legitimate responses. A misguided title can make trouble for an author, as happened almost simultaneously in late 1990 to both Bernard Lewis and me.

For an example how a title can evolve to mean roughly the opposite of what the author intends, note my recent experience. I titled an article "A Conservative in the Age of Trump," hoping with this concisely to convey my unease at Trump's presidency and also to provoke interest in what I had to say. I submitted the article with this title and then used it on my website.

The Philadelphia Inquirer used this title in its print edition, to my delight.

The Inquirer's website went with the wordier and more obscure "A conservative on the eve of Trump's presidency."

Other publications used titles that bleached out my unease, such as "Trump's good qualities can carry the day" in WorldNews. At least "can" implied my equivocation.

But the Boston Herald's "Optimism prevails as Trump steps in right direction" portrayed me as an enthusiast for Trump, which obviously I am not.

Comments:

(1) Knowing how titles are chosen, the savvy reader should blame them on editors, not the author.

(2) I routinely re-title my articles when I post them at DanielPipes.org, so I am responsible for what appears there.

(3) For self-evident reasons, I not sending this analysis out to an editor but am posting it only on my website.

(4) Writers and editors resemble lions and hyenas; they are permanent, deadly enemies.

January 21, 2016 addendum: This is a good place to add some favorite quotes about writers:

• "Read over your compositions, and where you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out." – Samuel Johnson.
• "A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people." – Thomas Mann.

And about editors:

• "Editing is the same as quarreling with writers." – Harold Ross.
• "An editor is one who separates the wheat from the chaff and prints the chaff." – Adlai Stevenson.
• "No passion in the world is equal to the passion to alter someone else's draft." – H. G. Wells.