How to create your title, types and structure of the common titles, criteria for constructing a good title

1. The title
Professor Tarek Tawfik Amin
Epidemiology
ResearcherID: E-6189-2012
Tarek Tawfik Amin
Professor of Epidemiology
Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University, Egypt
email: amin55@myway.com
orcid.org/0000-0003-2502-110X
Scopus ID: Author ID: 23007746000

2. Functions: Titles as content sign posts
At the final stage: The title selected forms
important part of your communication
• with your readers,
• the editor and referees and
• with the members of your discipline.

3. Good title
• Clearly identify the field of research,
• Indicate the ‘‘story’’ the results tell,
• Raise questions about the research
in the mind of the reader.

4. • Look at the following titles and list the information about the research
and its results you can deduce from the titles.
• What questions might you, as a reader, expect to answer by reading the
article?
- Title A: Glargine Insulin Use Versus Continuous Regular Insulin in
Diabetic Surgical Non-critically Ill Patients Receiving Parenteral
Nutrition: Randomized Controlled Study.
• Information:
• Questions:
- Title B: Routine ureteric stenting before cytoreductive surgery plus
hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy in managing peritoneal
carcinomatosis from gynecologic malignancies: a single-center
experience.
• Information:
• Questions:
- Title C: Ultrasound and intrauterine adhesions: a novel structured
approach to diagnosis and management.
• Information:
• Questions:

5. Title: Writing strategies
• Strategy 1: Provide as much relevant
information as possible, but be concise
• Strategy 2: Use keywords prominently
• Strategy 3: Choose strategically: noun phrase,
statement, or question?
• Strategy 4: Avoid ambiguity in noun phrases

6. Strategy 1: Provide as much relevant information as
possible, but be concise.
• The purpose of a title is to attract busy
readers in your particular target audience, so
that they will want to access and read the
whole document.
• The more revealing title is, the more easily
potential readers judge how relevant your
paper is to their interests.

7. Strategy 2: Use keywords prominently
• Words (keywords) capture the attention of
readers.
• Ensure that your title is picked up efficiently
by the literature-scanning services.
• Place the most important word(s) in your
title in the position of power: the beginning

8. Examples:
- Effects of Acetaminophen on cytochrome c redox cycling in
lipid peroxidation.
- Acetaminophen inhibits cytochrome c redox cycling
induced lipid peroxidation.
Use a colon (:) or a dash (–) to separate the first, keyword-
containing part of the title from a second, explanatory section.
Effective examples:
- Physical activity and cancer prevention: awareness and
meeting the recommendations among adult Saudis.
- Mobile teledermatology--patient satisfaction, diagnostic
and management concordance, and factors affecting
patient refusal to participate in Saudi Arabia.

9. Strategy 3: Choose strategically: noun phrase,
statement, or question?
• The traditional way to write titles and headings is
as a noun phrase: a number of words clustered
around one important ‘‘head’’ noun.
Examples:
• Management of infection and risk of Zika virus.
• Pattern of refractive errors among primary school children.
• Pattern of Psychiatric disorders in older patients attending an Arab
tertiary facility.
• Diversity and invasibility of southern Appalachian plant communities
• Food expenditure patterns in urban and rural Indonesia.
• Evidence of involvement of proteinaceous toxins in human illnesses

10. Tips
• Several of these titles are very effective:
brief, informative, and with keywords
placed near the front, but not explicit
enough.
• Rewriting this title as a statement could
overcome these difficulties.
(A statement is a sentence with a subject and
a verb, and give more explicit information
about the results of the study.)

11. Title into statement
- Access to care for children and young
people diagnosed with localized
scleroderma or juvenile SSc in the UK.
- FoxM1 and its association with matrix
metalloproteinases (MMP) signaling pathway
in papillary thyroid carcinoma.

12. 1- Statement titles are only suitable for papers
that address a specific question and present a
non-complex answer, a good option to replace titles
that begin with vague terms such as ‘‘The effects
of...’’. For example:
• Effects of added calcium on salinity tolerance of
tomato
• Calcium addition improves salinity tolerance of tomato

13. 2- When there is no simple answer to be
presented, it can be effective to write a title as
a question, e.g.:
• How do public health safeguards in
Indian patent law affect pharmaceutical
patenting in practice?
3- Check whether the journal has specific
conventions or recommendations about the
form of titles before you decide which form to
use.

14. • it can be useful to develop a list of possible
titles as you draft your manuscripts, and
choose the most effective one for the target
audience and the paper’s key message right
at the end of the writing process.

15. Strategy 4: Avoid ambiguity in noun phrases
• String of nouns and adjectives together, problems of
ambiguity: more than one possible meaning.
Examples.
1- The noun phrase germination conditions = conditions for germination
2- Application rate only mean the rate of application. (no Ambiguity)
3- Enzymatic activity suppression =either suppression of enzymatic activity or
suppression by enzymatic activity and is therefore ambiguous.
• Restrict these noun phrases to a maximum of three words, If
they grow longer, rewrite them by inserting the prepositions
that clarify the meaning (e.g. of, by, for).
soybean seedling growth suppression / suppression of soybean
seedling growth

16. • Generation of a monoclonal antibody
that recognizes the amino-terminal
decapeptide of the B-subunit of
Escherichia coli heat-labile enterotoxin.
A new probe for studying toxin assembly
intermediates.

17. • N.B. When nouns are used as adjectives in
extended noun phrases, they are always
used in the singular.
• food for dogs ! dog food

18. • Is the title a noun phrase, a sentence, or a
question?
• How many words are used in the title?
• What is the first idea in the title?
• Why do you think this idea has been placed
first?
Evaluating a title

19. • Acetylation of prostaglandin H2 synthases by
aspirin is inhibited by redox cycling of the
peroxidase.
• Increasing the elution of vancomycin from high-
dose antibiotic-loaded bone cement: a novel
preparation technique.
• The effects of different mixing speeds on the
elution and strength of high-dose antibiotic-
loaded bone cement created with the hand-
mixed technique.