Is this title punctuated properly?

“The Most Obstinate Passive Resistance:” Racialization of Muslim Filipinos in United States Colonial Discourse, 1898-1913

I am editing a scholarly paper for a friend and he insists on using a quote in his title - and a colon. Personally, I want to put the quotation marks INside the punctuation/colon, but I know that is NOT the trend now. Actually, I want to re-write the whole thing as:

Racialization of Muslim Filipinos in United States Colonial Discourse, 1898-1913

With the quote opening the paper like this:

The Most Obstinate Passive Resistance
- Father Pio Pi

Demonstrating the first example of that "discourse" to which the title refers.

However, he's wedded to his idea of using the quote in the title (and, according to his professor - without a footnote! - to my surprise - so, what, no footnotes in titles - that makes sense - I guess). I showed him my idea (as above) and he rejected it emphatically. So, the best I can do for him is punctuate his title properly.

Please help and thank you ahead of time!

P.S. The word "racialization" keeps popping up in the spell checks (this one and Word's). However, he assures me that it was used/coined by a famous historian, so it's in - no need to comment on that issue, unless you have some light to shed on the matter, of course.

I found myself agreeing with you, so I decided to look it up and see... this is the way they have that exact heading punctuated on another site...

"'The Most Obstinate Passive Resistance':Racialization of Muslim Filipinos in United States Colonial Discourse, 1898-1813"



Now whether this is right, I'm not sure but I saw it on and H-diplo website (I'm going to pretend like not only do I know what H-diplo is, but that I trust their judgement as far as grammar is concerned lol)

Good luck and hope I've been of some help.

Ps.
If you feel better, Google "The most obstinate passive resistance" and it will take you to the site I was talking about.

Leslie

Good answer above!

Personally, I would prefer your version and also with the italics as you have indicated. I am no expert on grammar, but I have written a lot of papers.

The way that you would like to write it draws much more attention to what it concerns rather than beginning it with "The Most Obstinate Passive Resistance." Titling as such says nothing about the article. The way that you would like to write it, does say something about what the article will contain.

In my opinion, "The Most Obstinate Passive Resistance" should be a subtitle.

That is my opinon, anyway.

"Racialization" is a legitimate, accepted word, by the way.

To my first responder - H-diplo is a "Diplomatic History" thread - found out by googling - and thanks for the tip on googling the title - will do that and see why/where it was sited/quoted before!

I guess the real question is, are we even supposed to use quotes in a title?

Grammar resources include:
Guide to Grammar and Writing
Grammar Slammer--English Grammar Resource