Jan 18 2009
A Rose by Any Other Name? Identifying a Title
As I explained in my previous post, you need to gather as much information as you can before you ask for permission to use someone else’s material in your work. The easiest information to find is the complete title of the material you are using.
Unfortunately, this simple step is often overlooked. Let’s say you’re a college professor writing a history textbook, and your textbook uses articles focused around specific topics. (A common procedure for textbook writers.) You’ve submitted your manuscript to your publisher and your publisher has sent the files on to a permissions editor. This particular chapter focuses on postwar activities and you are using an article titled “The Postwar Movement: Lessons from Bosnia.” You identify the article as being written by Cynthia Cockburn.
Research by the permissions editor reveals that the article is really titled “The Postwar Moment: Lessons from Bosnia Herzegovina” and is from “Bosnia The Postwar Movement: Lessons from Bosnia Herzegovina” by Cynthia Cockburn in WOMEN & ENVIRONMENTS, Spring 2003. Since you are paying for editorial services by the hour, you could have saved yourself money by correctly identifying the article yourself and not having the permissions editor track down the correct information.
By now you’re probably asking, “What difference does it make?” It might not matter to you, but don’t you think Cynthia Cockburn wants her article properly identified? And even if Cockburn doesn’t care, the publisher, in this case Women & Environments International Magazine, does care, and wants the article properly identified in the credits.
Other common errors include misspellings or style changes. Did you write “…the Politics of Exclusion” instead of “…the Politics of Inclusion?” (”Beyond the Politics of Inclusion: Violence Against Women of Color and Human Rights” by Andrea Smith) Maybe you wrote “Dating Prehistoric Ruins by Tree-Rings” instead of “Dating Prehistoric Ruins by Tree-Rings.”
Or perhaps you picked up the title from a magazine article without realizing that the magazine, with the author’s permission, had shortened the title. For example, in July/August 1995, MS Magazine ran an article titled “A Way Out” by Rita Henley Jensen. But the complete title, which you will be required to use, is “The System Provided a Way Out for Rita.” You may not know about changes like this before you request permission to use an article, but a requirement for permission is that you make the correction before your work is published.
As Shakespeare had Romeo proclaim, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” but in permissions work the wrong title will stink.
© 2009 Anne Wallingford. All Rights Reserved.
