Advice for Drafting a Publication Title
3 things to consider when its time to give your research manuscript a name
Just like a parent might give a lot of thought to naming their newborn baby, a researcher should do likewise when choosing a title for their publication before sending it off into the world of PubMed and Google Scholar. When that time comes, here are three pieces of advice that might be useful.
Tip 1 | Choose the right type of title
All publication titles found in the vast annals of academic literature generally share certain characteristics. Some people have sorted types of publication titles into three categories (Braticevic, 2020; Kumar, 2021) or as many as 13 (Hartley, 2008). But I find grouping titles into the following five categories to be most useful, with allowance for some possible overlap between them:
Choose a type of title that is most appropriate for the nature of the manuscript. A descriptive title might be best for exploratory work and basic science. A declarative/conclusive title is more appropriate for findings that are key in establishing new paradigms. Introductory titles can also be useful for introducing new concepts, particularly when gathered from several studies in a review. Interrogative titles are often used to pique curiosity in review articles and commentaries more often than for reporting original research. Humor or wordplay in the title is usually reserved for the occasional commentary, often from more seasoned researchers whose work will still be respected even if their puns are bad.
Some studies have found that declarative/conclusive titles received more attention than descriptive or interrogative titles (Braticevic, 2020; Girolamo, 2017; Paiva, 2012). However, at least one other study found that descriptive titles were more highly cited and downloaded than declarative titles (Jamali, 2011). All of these studies had small sample sizes, and it seems there are too many other confounding variables to definitively say whether one type of title vs. another will get more views, downloads, citations, or media attention. So it is best to just go with what seems most appropriate in your field.
Tip 2 | Accurately balance the general and specific
It is the job of the title to capture the attention of anyone who might be interested in your work. Those people are often sorting through several other titles on PubMed and other databases, and they may pass over a publication if the title is too general or too specific. So drafting a title that covers the gamut to some degree can be helpful in casting a wider net. The title should also distinguish your work from what has been published previously, so it may not hurt to do a quick PubMed search of the title you plan on using, to see where it will fall in the context of what else is out there.
As a side note in regards to not being too specific, publications that include a name of a country in the title tend to be cited less than publications with no country in the title (Braticevic, 2020; Paiva, 2012). And so if geography is not particularly the focus of your study, you should consider saving that information for the abstract.
Tip 3 | “Use minimalism to achieve clarity”
Is there any correlation between how long a title is and how much it gets picked up by readers? A surprising number of analyses have tried to answer this question with mixed results (Braticevic, 2020; Habibzadeh, 2010; Jacques, 2010; Paiva, 2012).
Perhaps the most extensive analysis was in the work of Letchford, et al. in 2015. They pulled title data on the 20,000 most highly cited publications each year from 2007 to 2013. In all years, there was a distribution that showed more citations for shorter titles and fewer citations for longer titles. However, this relationship was diminished when controlling for the prestige of the journal. It could be possible that more prestigious journals have shorter title requirements, or that more impactful results are easier to describe with fewer words. In any case, some effort on the part of the author to be concise can reduce the effort required by many readers to grasp the message. “Use minimalism to achieve clarity” as author Cormac McArthur might advise (Savage, 2019), especially in this age of information overload. Also remember, most database search algorithms aren’t restricted to the title alone, so it is ok if some details and keywords fall to the abstract.
In Summary..
There is not a strong consensus in the research on what characteristics of a title will draw the most attention, and this probably because there are too many confounding factors. In any case, when the draft of your manuscript is complete and you take a final look at your working title, make adjustments as needed to be sure that it accurately captures the most salient aspects of your work in the context of your field, and does so without excessive jargon or elaboration.
References:
Njire Braticevic M, Babic I, Abramovic I, Jokic A, Horvat M. Title does matter: a cross-sectional study of 30 journals in the Medical Laboratory Technology category. Biochem Med (Zagreb). 2020 Feb 15;30(1):010708. PMID: 32063731
Di Girolamo N, Reynders RM. Health care articles with simple and declarative titles were more likely to be in the Altmetric Top 100. J Clin Epidemiol. 2017 May;85:32–36. PMID: 28039032
Habibzadeh F, Yadollahie M. Are shorter article titles more attractive for citations? Cross-sectional study of 22 scientific journals. Croat Med J. 2010 Apr;51(2):165–70. PMID: 20401960
Hartley J. Academic writing and publishing — A practical handbook. 2008. ISBN 9780203927984. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203927984
Jacques TS, Sebire NJ. The impact of article titles on citation hits: an analysis of general and specialist medical journals. JRSM Short Rep. 2010 Jun 30;1(1):2. PMID: 21103094
Jamali H, Nikzad M. Article title type and its relation with the number of downloads and citations. Scientometrics. 2011; 88, 653–661. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-011-0412-z
Kumar A. Uneasy is the journey of publication that wears an inappropriate title. J Indian Soc Periodontol. 2021 Nov-Dec;25(6):459–460. PMID: 34898909
Letchford A, Moat HS, Preis T. The advantage of short paper titles. R Soc Open Sci. 2015 Aug 26;2(8):150266. PMID: 26361556
Paiva CE, Lima JP, Paiva BS. Articles with short titles describing the results are cited more often. Clinics (Sao Paulo). 2012;67(5):509–13. PMID: 22666797
Savage V, Yeh P. Novelist Cormac McCarthy’s tips on how to write a great science paper. Nature. 2019 Oct;574(7778):441–442. PMID: 31611681
Robert Lawrence is a science editor at Baylor College of Medicine. You can find his published work at www.robertlawrencephd.com
