Titles
Economist Jeff Ely argues that short titles for academic papers signal seminal works, whereas longer, more complex titles are associated with derivative works. From this, he advises:
First, find the simplest title not yet taken for your papers. One word titles are the best. Second, before you get started on a paper, think about the title. If you can’t come up with a short title for it then its probably not worth writing.
The absolute worst thing you can do with your title is to insert a colon into it. (quiet down beavis!) As in, Torture: A Model of Dynamic Commitment Problems. Or Kludged: Asymptotically Inefficient Evolution. In the first case you have just ruined a seminal-signaling one-word title by adding spurious specificity. In the second, you just took an intriguing one-world title and turned it into a yawner.
Sounds about right.
via Tyler Cowen
Worst is the (fortunately rare) double colon, which usually occurs when the journal allows a title and a full subtitle. There is no way to make that look good in a citation.