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Agroforestry Systems
An International Journal incorporating
Agroforestry Forum
ISSN 0167-4366
Volume 88
Number 2
Agroforest Syst (2014) 88:383-384
DOI 10.1007/s10457-013-9667-0
Using “agroforestry” in the title: serving
potential readers better by increasing the
chances of being found by search engines
Hongtao Hao, Catherine Grimaldi &
Christian Walter

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3. Using ‘‘agroforestry’’ in the title: serving potential readers
better by increasing the chances of being found by search
engines
Hongtao Hao • Catherine Grimaldi •
Christian Walter
Received: 22 October 2013 / Accepted: 20 December 2013 / Published online: 27 December 2013
Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014
Chances are that you are reading this article on a
screen rather than in your library’s bound copy of the
journal (the good old days). If so, you most likely
found this article with an internet-based search engine
such as the Web of Knowledge (ISI), Springer Link or
Google Scholar.
The way one searches for scientific and academic
references has changed with the development of
technology. Fewer people visit the library to browse
individual journals. Even you wanted to do so, your
library may have stopped subscribing to paper copies
of your favorite journals. In other cases, some journals
(e.g., Plant and Soil) now offer only an electronic
version. Increasingly, libraries purchase electronic
access to journal packages. Consequently, the journal
of Agroforestry Systems should adapt to this practice
to serve potential readers better.
We used the Web of Knowledge to search for and
analyse all papers published in Agroforestry Systems
from 2003 to 2012 (Table 1). We discovered that
many papers published in Agroforestry Systems cannot
be found by searching for the word ‘‘agroforestry’’ in
the title or topic in the Web of Knowledge. Of the 798
papers published by the journal during this period,
surprisingly only 188 (24 %) included agroforestry in
their titles. This is a pity, because readers who are
interested in agroforestry and search only for agrofor-
estry in the title may not see the remaining 76 % of the
papers. In 2007, only 6 out of 61 papers published
(10 %) used agroforestry in the title. From 2007 to
2012, the percentage increased from 10 to 30 %,
which is a good sign that should be encouraged.
Even when we search by topic (include title,
abstract, keywords, keyword plus in Web of Knowl-
edge), still 344 papers (43 % of published in Agro-
forestry Systems from 2003 to 2012) are invisible.
Because all papers in Agroforestry Systems deal with
agroforestry in some way, we have verified them
during the reference research on this subject and have
checked each issue for papers that interest us. But for
those rely only on search engines to find papers
dealing with agroforestry, future authors could make
efforts to increase the chances of finding papers.
Although the number of times a paper is cited is not
always the best indicator of its quality and influence, it
might partly indicate that the number of people who
have read it. When searching by title, the average
number of citations is 6.0 for papers without agrofor-
estry in title, and 8.2 for those with it, a 35 % increase.
When searching by topic, the average number of
citations is 5.4 for papers without agroforestry as a
topic, and 7.5 for papers with it, a 38 % increase. It is
unlikely that this increase is just a coincidence.
Adding agroforestry in the title or topic does increase
H. Hao (&) Á C. Grimaldi
INRA, UMR1069, Soil Agro and hydroSystem,
35000 Rennes, France
e-mail: hongtao.hao@rennes.inra.fr
H. Hao Á C. Walter
Agrocampus Rennes, UMR1069, Soil Agro and
hydroSystem, 35000 Rennes, France
123
Agroforest Syst (2014) 88:383–384
DOI 10.1007/s10457-013-9667-0
Author's personal copy

4. the chance of a paper being found and thus its chance
of being read and cited.
(It might benefit the journal too: because in theory
the impact factor (IF) might increase by up to 35 % if
its papers were cited 35 % more.)
To conclude, we strongly encourage including
agroforestry in the title or keywords of all future
papers published in Agroforestry Systems. We empha-
size using agroforestry in the title rather than in the
keyword, because when a search returns hundreds
papers in the Web of Knowledge, one usually reads
each title in less than several seconds to decide
whether to reject it or to continue read its abstract.
These several seconds do count.
For example, instead of ‘‘…in a silvopastoral
system’’, authors can write ‘‘…in a silvopastoral
Agroforestry system’’ in the title. Papers that use
precise terms such as ‘‘alley cropping’’, ‘‘hedgerow’’,
‘‘silvopastoral system’’, ‘‘shelter belt’’ or ‘‘tree-based
intercropping’’ are useful. But by the simple addition
of agroforestry to the title or keyword makes the paper
easier to find in Web of Knowledge, thus serving
potential readers better.
Acknowledgments We thank the support from La Fondation
de France.
Table 1 Analysis of papers published in Agroforestry Systems from 2003 to 2012 (search engine: Web of Knowledge where
searching by topic include words in the title, abstract, keywords, and keywords plus)
Year Articles
published
agroforestry
in title
agroforestry
NOT in title
agroforestry
as topic
agroforestry
NOT as topic
2003 76 9 (12 %) 67 34 (45 %) 42
2004 64 28 (44 %) 36 45 (70 %) 19
2005 78 19 (24 %) 59 44 (56 %) 34
2006 70 9 (13 %) 61 35 (50 %) 35
2007 61 6 (10 %) 55 24 (39 %) 37
2008 70 13 (19 %) 57 42 (60 %) 28
2009 86 21 (24 %) 65 53 (62 %) 33
2010 96 25 (26 %) 71 53 (55 %) 43
2011 82 24 (29 %) 58 51 (62 %) 31
2012 115 34 (30 %) 81 73 (63 %) 42
Total 798 188 (24 %) 610 454 (57 %) 344
Average number
of citations per paper
6.6 8.2 6.0 7.5 5.4
384 Agroforest Syst (2014) 88:383–384
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