Hi.
I'm Karen McKee, retired scientist and author with another video about scientific writing.
Did you know that there is a group of Swedish scientists who have a running bet as to who
can publish the most papers before retirement with titles containing Bob Dylan quotes.
The paper that kicked off the contest was this one published in Nature Medicine in 1997.
Nitric oxide and inflammation: the answer is blowing in the wind
More papers with Dylan-inspired titles followed.
Are catchy titles like this a good idea?
In this video, I'll address this question and talk more broadly about what goes into
a good title for a scientific paper.
Successful authors put a lot of thought into writing their titles.
This is because the title of a paper is the single most important factor determining how
many people will find and eventually read that paper.
If a title doesn't sound interesting or relevant, people will pass the paper by.
On the other hand, a title that is thoughtfully crafted will attract readers.
A good title will also help convince a journal editor that the paper is worth considering.
But how do you come up with an effective and compelling title?
Well, there are a number of dos and don'ts when writing your title.
One admonition is to avoid unnecessary phrases such as "a study of" or "an investigation
of".
Such phrases, which are more common in older papers, usually do nothing more than add to
the length of the title.
Today, journals usually limit the number of words or characters used in a title, so it
makes sense to omit unnecessary words.
You also want to avoid jargon, acronyms, and abbreviations in the title because only a
handful of experts will understand what these mean, as in this hypothetical example.
Although a few experts will understand that the acronym ADH stands for the enzyme alcohol
dehydrogenase, many potential readers will not.
Another mistake is to write a title that is too broad and does not convey what the paper
found.
For example, a title that just states the broad topic of the research:
Response of coastal wetlands to sea-level rise
Is this a study about all coastal wetlands?
In all geographic locations?
Unless it's a review paper, probably not.
More importantly, this hypothetical title does not reveal what the study found.
Here is a title from one of my published papers:
Someone reading just the title knows that we specifically studied mangroves, a type
of coastal wetland, and conducted the work in the Caribbean Region.
The title also explains the key finding of the paper, which is that these mangroves adjust
their soil elevations in relation to sea level through biological, rather than just physical,
processes.
In other words, our findings were novel and of interest to others.
But what biological processes?
Exactly where does this adjustment take place?
You have to read the paper to find out.
That's what you want to do with your title.
Capture the reader's attention and provoke them to read your paper.
Another point that some experts mention is that you should avoid the use of question
marks, colons and hyphens in a title.
In general, it is better to state a clear finding instead of posing a question.
And use of colons or hyphens often means the title is too long.
However, such punctuation marks may not always be problematic.
One of my most highly cited papers has a question mark and a hyphen in the title.
Use of a question mark might be appropriate, for example, if your study's findings provided
evidence for a mechanism but could not demonstrate it conclusively.
In this study, we had strong but circumstantial evidence for the role of drought in causing
dieback of salt marshes.
The question mark acknowledges that we did not find the smoking gun, but did identify
a strong suspect.
But if you have a clear outcome, go with a declarative statement that conveys your key
finding.
Another common admonition is to avoid overly long titles with too much detail.
Some studies have shown that papers with short titles receive more citations than ones with
longer titles.
Papers with shorter titles may be easier to read and understand and, hence, attract more
readers.
It's also possible that authors of highly cited papers tend to craft more concise titles
or publish in journals restricting title length.
My recommendation is that you should not be aiming for a title with a specific word count,
but one that best fits your paper and that contains important keywords.
The reason you want to pay attention to keywords in titling your paper is because search engines
use the words in a document's title to assign its ranking in a search.
For example, here is the working title of a review paper I coauthored:
"The relative role of mangrove vegetation in maintenance of soil elevations within the
intertidal habitat"
Unless this is your field, it's unlikely that this title will convince you to download and
read this paper.
More importantly, that title lacks an important key phrase, which is sea level rise.
Here is the final title of our paper:
"How mangrove forests adjust to rising sea level"
This title is more attractive and shorter than the original and contains several search
terms that people are likely to use to find information on the topic of our paper.
OK.
Let's return to the topic of catchy titles and if they are a good idea.
Apparently, there are hundreds of scientific papers with allusions to song lyrics and literature.
Besides Dylan, Shakespeare, Lewis Carroll, and Star Trek are favorite sources of inspiration,
according to this study.
While catchy titles may sound clever or amusing, they probably shouldn't be used for a typical
scientific paper.
You've already heard the reasons why.
One reason is that not everyone will get the Bob Dylan quote or other saying you might
use in the title.
Another reason is that the extra words add to the title length.
The catchy title may not clearly convey the key finding of the paper
And finally, the catchy title often includes words that will not help readers find your
paper in an online search.
In the end, your goal in crafting a title for your paper is to condense your paper into
a single, brief statement that sends a clear message and simultaneously attracts readers.
To see how to distill your message down to a single sentence that can be used as a title,
see the video mentioned in the description.
Also, I've included some references to articles about titles of scientific articles at the
end of this video and in the description below the video.
I hope you find this information useful when you are writing your next scientific paper.
And don't forget to like my video if you found this helpful.