Crafting a title for a research paper

CRAFTING A TITLE FOR
A RESEARCH PAPER
Hosam Eldeen Elsadig Gasmalla
Histology and Embryology Department
Faculty of Medicine
Ondokuz Mayıs University
Samsun - Turkey
7th of January 2020

WHY THIS PRESENTATION IS IMPORTANT?
Title is first thing to be seen It
may:
Attract
Distract
207-Jan-2020Hosam Eldeen Elsadig Gasmalla

“The title of a paper
is like the front door
to a house”
3
(Bahadoran et al., 2019)

“The title is the single
most important line of
a publication”
5
(Langford, 2019)

“For every person who reads the whole
paper, about 500 people only read the
title, indicating that the majority of the
papers are read by title alone”
6
“An average researcher has to scan
through roughly 1142 titles per
year” (Mabe, 2002)

“Those who read titles not always
read abstracts”
7
(Hong, 2014)
“More than half of all published
articles are never cited by any other
paper” (Jacques, 2010)

FUNCTIONS OF THE TITLE
• Indicates the content.
• Targets reader's attraction.
• Makes finding the article easy
and accessible through the
internet.

9
Functionally Descriptive
Declarative
Question
Morphologically Nominal
Compound
Full sentence
TYPES OF TITLES
Bavdekar, S.B., 2016

•Describes the subject of the
paper but does not reveal
the conclusions
Descriptive
•Presents the main
conclusions or the actual
message of the study
Declarative
• It is in a form of questionQuestion
10

• The effect of diclofenac sodium
on the development of
hippocampus
Descriptive
• Diclofenac sodium diminishes the
differentiation of pyramidal cell in
the developing hippocampus
Declarative
• Does diclofenac sodium affect
the development of
hippocampus?
Question

ABOUT QUESTION-TYPE TITLES
“articles with question-type titles
are downloaded more but cited less
compared to articles with
descriptive or declarative titles”
12
(Jamali, 2011)

“Declarative titles are both
downloaded and cited less than
descriptive titles”
13
ABOUT DECLARATIVE TITLES
(Jamali, 2011)

•The best form of titlesDescriptive
•Some journals do not accept
declarative titles (e.g. New
England Journal of Medicine)
Declarative
• Appropriate
• for a review article
Question

15
Functionally Descriptive
Declarative
Question
Morphologically Nominal
Compound
Full sentence
TYPES OF TITLES
Bavdekar, S.B., 2016

•Short phrase include
the theme
Nominal
•Two phrasesCompound
• It is less ambiguous than a
nominal or compound title
Full
sentence

• Relationship of interns’
working hours to medical
errors
Nominal
Short phrase includes
the theme
17

• Relationship of interns’ working
hours to medical errors: a moral
• dilemma
Compound
a) With theme
• Analysis of Serum 10 Years Prior to 1st
Diagnosis of Hepatitis C Related
• Hepatocellular Carcinoma: A Case-
Control Study
Compound
b) With
methodology
18

• Activation of Aryl Hydrocarbon
Receptor (AhR) by Tranilast, an Anti-
allergy Drug, Promotes miR-302
Expression and Cell Reprogramming.
Full sentence

INTERESTING FACT
“Title characteristics have
more impact on the number
of downloads than number of
citations”
20
(Jamali, 2011)

INTERESTING FACT
“Titles containing a question mark,
containing a reference to a specific
geographical region, and that used a
colon or a hyphen were associated with
a lower number of citations”
21
(Paiva, 2012)

ANOTHER INTERESTING
FACT
“Articles with results-describing
titles were cited more often than
those with methods-describing
titles”
22
(Paiva, 2012)

SHORT OR LONG TITLES?
“Some scientific journals impose a
maximum limit on the number of words or
characters in titles (9-10); however, such
editorial guidelines are not based on
scientific data”
23
(Paiva, 2012)

SHORT MAY BE?
“Short-titled
articles had higher
viewing and
citation rates than
those with longer
titles”
24
(Paiva, 2012) (Jamali, 2011)
“Articles with
longer titles are
downloaded
slightly less than
the articles with
shorter titles”

LONG?
“Longer titles seem to
be associated with
higher citation rates.
This association is
more pronounced for
journals with high
impact factors”
“There was a strong
association between
increasing title length and
citation rate, with the
highest-scoring articles
having more than twice as
many words in the title
than the lowest-cited
articles”
25
(Habibzadeh, 2010) (Jacques, 2010)

26
• During your work.
• Changeable many times.
Working Title
• By the end of the writing process.
Final Title
When Can I Write The Title?

MINING FOR TITLES
• From your research paper:
• A sentence.
• An ideas.
• Questions those are answered by your
research paper.
• The conclusion.
27

“SPICED” mining
• Setting
• Population
• Intervention
• Condition
• End-point
• Design
28
(Dewan, 2016)

29

A GOOD TITLE IS:
Functionally:
• Relevant.
• Informative.
• Descriptive.
• Specific.
• Simple.
• Differentiating the paper
from others.
Morphologically:
• With capitalized
nouns.
• Built up of 12 to 15
words.

TIPS
• Use keywords from your paper.
• Words at the beginning of the title make
the most impact:
• Put an important word first in the title (e.g.
independent or dependent variables).

TIPS
• Avoid using:
• Abbreviations.
• Catchy phrase.
• Fun or informal language.
• Grammatical flaws.
32

TIPS
USING ADJECTIVES
• e.g. performance
• e.g. improved, enhanced
Qualitative
• e.g. metabolic rate, number of cells
• e.g. increased, decreasedQuantitative

COMPONENTS OF THE TITLE IN
HYPOTHESIS-TESTING PAPERS
1.The independent variable (X)
2.Dependent variable (Y)
3.The study subjects (i.e. animal,
population) or materials (i.e. culture
media, cell line, tissue) (Z)
“the effect of X on Y in Z”

TAKE-HOME MESSAGE
Concise
Informative
35
A good title is balanced

REFERENCES:
BAHADORAN, Z., MIRMIRAN, P., KASHFI, K. & GHASEMI, A. 2019. The Principles of Biomedical Scientific Writing: Title.
International Journal of Endocrinology and Metabolism, 17, e98326.
Bavdekar, S.B., 2016. Formulating the right title for a research. Journal of the Association of Physicians of India, 64,
p.53.
Budgell, B., 2008. Writing a biomedical research paper: a guide to structure and style. Springer Science & Business
Media.
Dewan, P. and Gupta, P., 2016. Writing the title, abstract and introduction: Looks matter!. Indian pediatrics, 53(3),
pp.235-241.
Habibzadeh, F. and Yadollahie, M., 2010. Are shorter article titles more attractive for citations? Crosssectional study of
22 scientific journals. Croatian medical journal, 51(2), pp.165-170.
Hamilton, D.P., 1991. Who's uncited now?. Science, 251(4989), pp.25-26.
Hong, S.T., 2014. Ten tips for authors of scientific articles. Journal of Korean medical science, 29(8), pp.1035-1037.
Jacques, T.S. and Sebire, N.J., 2010. The impact of article titles on citation hits: an analysis of general and specialist
medical journals. JRSM short reports, 1(1), pp.1-5.
Jamali, H.R. and Nikzad, M., 2011. Article title type and its relation with the number of downloads and citations.
Scientometrics, 88(2), pp.653-661.
Langford, C.A. and Pearce, P.F., 2019. Increasing visibility for your work: The importance of a well-written title.
Mabe, M.A. and Amin, M., 2002, June. Dr Jekyll and Dr Hyde: author-reader asymmetries in scholarly publishing. In
Aslib Proceedings (Vol. 54, No. 3, pp. 149-157). MCB UP Ltd.
Paiva, C.E., Lima, J.P.D.S.N. and Paiva, B.S.R., 2012. Articles with short titles describing the results are cited more often.
Clinics, 67(5), pp.509-513.
36

Thanks
Hosam Eldeen Elsadig Gasmalla
3707-Jan-2020

Crafting a title for a research paper

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