The paper writing journey: Coming up with a killer title for your paper ...
Titles are key: Did you know that article titles with LESS WORDS tend to get more citations? This article contains 3 short videos, 2 webinar recordings + graphics and examples of good and bad titles
The paper writing journey: Coming up with a killer title for your paper
We see lots of long and complex article titles in our editing work. Titles that are hard to understand outside of a very very specific subfield. You want to get published in international high Impact Factor journals where the READERSHIP IS GENERAL. Thus: Your article title needs to be eye-catching, interesting, and alluring.
Above all, a good title should contain the fewest possible words that adequately describe the contents of your article. What the article does in the least number of words.
Top, high impact factor journals are general in scope. Think: Nature, Science. Articles are read by researchers across the spectrum.
You need a title that is interesting, captures the reader’s attention, and can be understood by anyone with an interested in your field.
A great first step here is to first think about the MESSAGING of the research article you plan to write:
Before you start to write: Message, Audience and Structure
Key Top Tip for Article Writing: There are three things you need to know – to have in place – before you start to write anything. (1) You need to know your key message (the ‘take home message’, as we say in English), (2) You need to know who your target audience are (which journal have you selected for your paper), and (3) You need to know what structure you will follow in your writing. The last of the three depends on your target journal.
Irrespective of overall paper structure, however, it’s very important to note at this stage that all academic papers – those that are to be published in peer reviewed journals – have a basic shape. This is very important (perhaps the most important thing to learn from any of these articles): an academic paper consists of two parts: the title, abstract, and keywords (1) and the rest of the paper (2).
Why is this distinction between sections so important? Well, how many times have you read the whole of an academic paper you’ve downloaded? Not often. Most people, almost always, just read the title and abstract of papers before moving on; a very small proportion of overall downloads will take the time to read the whole of any academic paper. These sections, the title and abstract, are also the parts that editors (and reviewers) will use to make initial decisions about papers; whether to send them out for review, or not. Remember than 90% of submissions to high profile, leading international journals are rejected without review: that’s 9 out of 10 submissions passing across an editors desk that do not make it out for review. One of our key objectives as authors is to get our papers out for review. We must, if they are to have a chance of being eventually accepted. So, we need to come up with killer titles and abstracts to ensure that we have the best chance of this actually happening.
Obviously, our other main goal as academic writers (other than ensuring our work has the highest possible chance of being sent out for peer review by editors) is to structure our writing in such a way to allure people and make sure that they will want to read our work from top-to-bottom. We want people to read more than just the titles and abstracts of our work and develop a reputation for effective English writing.
What about a killer title? What should be included in an effective title? We’ve collated data from across academia industry and talked to all five of the major publishing companies who control the market: what do you they think makes a good, effective title for an academic paper? There are several points: a good, effective academic paper title should be:
Above all, a good title should contain the fewest possible words that adequately describe the contents of your article. What the article does in the least number of words. Keep it short (Figure below).
Don’t give away the main result of your work, but rather pose a question that readers will find interesting. You want to keep the main result, the ‘take home message’ for a little later, so as to get people reading from top-to-bottom, as we’ve discussed.
We know that effective academic article titles:
-Identify the main issue of the paper
-Begin with the subject of the paper
-Are accurate, unambiguous, specific, and complete
-Do not contain unusual abbreviations that readers will not know
Remember that you want your paper to appear in a journal with a general readership, if possible: these are the high profile, high impact, international outlets that are read by general scientists and people with an interest in your field. Not necessarily specialists. Top, high impact factor journals are general in scope. You need a title that is interesting, captures the reader’s attention, and can be understood by anyone with an interested in your field.
Easy enough to say, but how can you do this? Especially in English?
Here are some tips and tricks. Effective English writing means short sentences, and the same is true for titles. Keep them short, as we’ve discussed. Examples of effective titles from recent articles I’ve edited tend to share two characteristics: they contain a verb and they are broken with a colon into two parts. These are two good tricks. Another is to pose the title of your article as a question.
So, what about this example:
Changes in land use across China in the New Millennium: Looking to the future
This is an example of a title from a recent paper we edited. It’s interesting. When you read it you are brought into the study and perhaps want to read more. This, actually edited, title is also good because it includes a verb ‘looking’ and is divided here by a colon, as discussed above. Verbs are good because these are action words and keep readers interested why breaking the flow of the title is an effective way to generate interest in a reader. See what you think. It’s definitely better than the first version that the authors submitted:
The fantastic potential of land use change in China
This title, I think you’ll agree, is much less captivating and it also contains a word that for a native English speaker sounds strange appearing in a technical piece of writing: Fantastic. This is quite an informal word and also a little hyperbolic: Over the top. Another rule to follow for effective English writing is: Always be believable and try not to be too ‘over the top’ and informal with your word choices. Use that synonym checker there in word and go for the most formal versions possible. You can always flag words that you are unsure of and come back to them later, or ask a native speaker to help out.
Another way to work this might be to pose the research presented in this paper as a question:
How has land use changed in China since the 1990s? A novel numerical analysis
This example takes the question format for a title and then augments it by telling the reader what sort of thing they can expect to read about in the paper (‘A numerical analysis’). It’s yet another approach you can try to get your titles alluring, captivating, and attractive: Entice your readers. Put yourself in their place: What would you like to read about? How can you sell your work in an attractive way so people think ‘wow: that looks like a really interesting paper. I’m going to read more’. Our goal is to be one of those very small handful of papers that get sent out for peer review and that people read all the way to the end!
Here are some other examples of titles taken from the Altimetric list of ‘most downloaded in 2018’. Here are three from the top ten, all downloaded more than 5,000 times.
Alcohol use and burden for 195 countries and territories, 1990–2016: A systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016
Association between physical exercise and mental health in 1·2 million individuals in the USA between 2011 and 2015: A cross-sectional study
Dietary carbohydrate intake and mortality: A prospective cohort study and meta-analysis
Comparative efficacy and acceptability of 21 antidepressant drugs for the acute treatment of adults with major depressive disorder: A systematic review and network meta-analysis
Although these papers are all medical in theme, they nevertheless do sound interesting. And that’s the point. Note the colon use writing tip we’ve talked about above: These paper titles all pose a question, an issue that is being addressed. Then comes the colon. And then the reader is told what to expect. ‘A systematic analysis’. ‘A cross-sectional study’. ‘A prospective cohort study’. ‘A systematic review’. Why not see if you can apply some of these tips to your next paper? Try to write an attractive and alluring title that will make people want to read your work. Have a look at the kinds of titles in some of the leading international journals that we all want to get our work published in. 99% of publishing an academic paper is packaging and selling: Marketing your work to editors and readers in other words.
It takes work to come up with an effective title. You might be working as part of a team of authors and so expect to spend time debating this issue: Which title would be best? Write down all of the suggestions from team members and then, over time, settle on one that clearly communicates your message, depending on your chosen target journal. Paper writing is often an extremely collaborative effort but it’s also important to have designated a ‘lead author’ before you start; this person can make decisions when there is disagreement and decide on issues such as which title you will eventually use for submission. But expect to edit. Edit. And then edit again.