Definite article in the headlines containing ‘of’ [closed]

I’d like to know if we should keep an initial 'THE' in the titles of scientific papers, articles or finale papers of students, if they contain 'of'?

For instance:

The concept of truth in the work by Dostoyevsky.

Should we keep the initial 'the' or leave it out like we do in newspapers titles? Or we should keep it because of OF?

Thanks in advance.

Solution 1:

It's not clear to me exactly what your title is supposed to convey, but I assume you mean:

Dostoyevsky wrote some books, and this article looks at the concept of "truth" in them.

In English we would normally call Dostoyevsky's books "the works of Dostoyevsky" (although "the work of Dostoyevsky" can be used too). Because you are referring to specific things you always use the definite article.

"The work by Dostoyevsky would mean one work, i.e. a single book.

The presence of 'of' in 'concept of truth' makes no difference. 'Concept of truth' is a noun phrase, and any noun phrase could be substituted without changing the grammar. For example "Female characters in the works of Dostoyevsky" or "Political ideas in the works of Dostoyevsky".

EDIT: The question appears to be asking about the initial "the".

The first thing to note is that titles are not the same as headlines. Headlines are often space-constrained, and it is common to omit short words that are not needed for understanding, even if that violates the rules of grammar. But titles of articles are not space-constrained (at least not to the point where omitting short words make a difference). Titles are usually grammatically correct noun phrases, and in this case the initial "the" is necessary.

(You can often tell if a title is grammatically correct by imaging the words "This article is about..." at the front of it, and checking that the result makes a grammatically correct sentence. The word "the" would definitely be necessary in such a sentence.)