When should 之 be used as a particle?
之 is the wenyan equivalent of Mandarin 的.  Here are some examples from a Classical Chinese textbook:

鄰人之父 &gt;    鄰居的老人       ‘an old man who lived next door’
衛國之法   &gt;  衛國的法律       ‘the laws of Wei’
仁義 之 道  &gt;  仁義的 道理      ‘the doctrine of benevolence and righteousness’

Because parts of speech in wenyan are quite flexible, using 之 to link two terms can have the effect of nominalizing the second one, like this:

王來      ‘the king comes’  &gt;&gt;   王之來    ‘the king’s coming/the arrival of the king’

之 has other meanings in wenyan, too.  The most important of these is probably its use as a third person pronoun he/she/it.
In formal written Mandarin, 之 can appear in either of these functions.  It would be interesting to hear from a native speaker about usage here.  I consulted a book called ‘A Learners’ Handbook of Modern Chinese Written Expressions’ by Yu Feng (Chinese U. of Hong Kong Press).  He suggests a couple of uses:

In idioms like 之後, 之中  etc.  For example:


美國總統的中東之行     ‘the US President’s Middle East visit’

Notice both ‘de’ and ‘zhi’ occur in this phrase – clearly you can’t simply replace the one with the other to achieve a formal style.

In a pattern ‘2-character noun + 之 + 1-character adjective’.  This also creates a noun phrase, i.e. nominalizes like in the ‘king’s coming’ example.


品種之多  ‘a large quantity' [of goods at an exhibition]

There are also some set expressions with this pattern that you might use in writing, like 十天之內  ‘within ten days’.

As a third person pronoun, according to Yu Feng mainly in idioms:


等閑視之     ‘regard it as unimportant’
受之有愧     ‘to feel shame in accepting it’

So, if you encounter 之 in titles like in the example you gave, I would read it as meaning 的 but also as indicating some sort of formal/classical/literary/archaic quality.  Personally I would avoid using it except in set phrases.  Unless you do a lot of formal writing at an advanced level, in which case it wouldn’t hurt to go to the source and learn a bit of wenyan!