Titles that get your research noticed

It is early morning, and with fresh coffee in hand, you decide to look for articles related to your research. You choose your favorite database, enter some keywords, and click 'search'. What do you see? Page after page of titles!

In the example above, I searched for PD-L1 (a type of protein) and breast cancer. Even limiting my search for the last 5 years, there are still 1,748 articles! Which ones would you choose? Most likely, the ones that have a clear and descriptive title.

Your readers are facing the same dilemma. So it is essential that you write an effective title that really gets their attention and increases the chances they click on your title to read the abstract. I'd like to give you some advice as to what is an effective title.

First, let's consider what your title should contain:

• Your title should clearly state what's important about your study; your main accomplishment. That is what the reader wants to know.
• Your title should contain keywords. This not only improves indexing in academic databases, but also gets the reader's attention. If I am searching for PD-L1 and breast cancer, then those titles with those keywords would get my attention first. If a title did not contain those keywords, I would likely assume it was a false match.
• Your title should be short. I would recommend less than 15 words if possible. In the natural sciences, titles should be closer to 10 words. In social sciences and clinical research, however, they are often 15-20 words as they need to be more descriptive and/or contain the study design. Simply, shorter titles are faster to read, which means you are communicating your main accomplishment with your potential reader more effectively. No one wants to read a title that is 4 or 5 lines long!

Next, let's consider what your title should avoid:

• Avoid clever titles. Clever titles are only clever for the author...they are confusing to everyone else! Consider the title, "Charming Penguins Strike Back". Yes, this is a real title...you can find it here: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0370-2693(01)00700-6. Do you have any idea what this study is about? Of course not. I am sure the authors were very proud of themselves for coming up with that title, but it is not helpful to anyone else. No one has time to click on every title to read that abstract to figure out what the study is about.
• Avoid vague titles. These are titles written like, "An investigation of..." or "An evaluation of..." Yes, you are publishing a research article! Everyone knows that you are investigating or evaluating something. Readers want to know what was being investigated or evaluated. Please be more specific.
• Be careful with abbreviations and acronyms. This will depend on your target audience, however. If you feel that your research will mostly be read by specialists in your research area, then you will likely publish in a specialized journal. But that also means that most of your readers will be familiar with commonly used abbreviations and acronyms related to that topic. However, if you feel your research will have broader interest across different research areas or disciplines, then you will likely publish in a broad-focused journal. This also means that many of your target readers are not familiar with those abbreviations and acronyms. So if you used them in your title, many of your potential readers would not understand the title. So, a general rule of thumb: commonly used abbreviations and acronyms are usually okay for specialized journals, but spell out the terms when publishing in broad-focused journals.
• Lastly, you do not need to write 'new' or 'novel' in your title. As you likely already know, novelty is a key criterion for publication. Readers already know that what you did is new...that's why it is getting published! Terms like 'new' or 'novel' are fine in the abstract or main text when you want to differentiate what you did in your study compared with what is already known. But in your title, you are only discussing what you did, so this comparative term is not necessary.

Hopefully, all of this makes sense. But while this tells us what makes a good title, it doesn't tell us how to write a good title. And I always like to share practical strategies...so let me share a useful one for writing effective titles.

Again, we always need to keep our readers in mind. What do they want to know? They have three key questions:

• What are you investigating? This is your variable.
• What are you measuring? This is your outcome.
• From where are these measurements taken? This is your sample.

Every good title for hypothesis-driven research should contain these three factors. Let's consider the following example from life sciences:

• What is being investigated? Mitochondrial complex I activity, so this is the variable.
• What is being measured? Neuroinflammation, so this is the outcome.
• From where are these measurements taken? Microglia, so this is the sample.

So, all we have to do is put these three factors together to make a clear and concise title. But there is something else evident from this title; the effect. What effect does mitochondrial complex I activity have on neuroinflammation? It sustains it. This is called a declarative title because it declares the effect that was seen, and in life sciences, this is often done with an active verb ('sustains' in this case).

Let's now look at an example from physical sciences:

• What is being investigated? Liquid-liquid phase separation, so this is the variable.
• What is being measured? Tactoid formation, so this is the outcome.
• From where are the measurements taken? Supramolecular polymers, so this is the sample.

This is also a declarative title as we clearly see the effect as well ('form').

Let's now explore an example from social sciences:

• What is being investigated? Mental representations of music, so this is the variable.
• What is being measured? Commonality and variation, so these are the outcomes.
• From where are the measurements taken? 15 countries, so this is the sample.

In this case, however, is it clear what effect was seen? No. This is a non-declarative title because it does not state the effect. Non-declarative titles are more common in social sciences and clinical research as there is often more variability in the results compared with laboratory-based research. You will also notice that this title is a bit longer because it includes the study design that was used as well (as I mentioned above).

Let's now look at our final example from clinical research:

Hopefully, now this exercise is getting easy!

• What is being investigated? Self-help mobile messaging intervention, so this is the variable.
• What is being measured? Depression, so this is the outcome.
• From where are these measurements taken? Older adults in resource-limited settings, so this is the sample.

Similar to the social science example above, this is also a non-declarative title and also states the study design as well.

As you can see, regardless of the field, as long as you clearly indicate the variable, the outcome, and the sample, you have an effective title for your readers. In some cases, the sample is self-evident, so it may not need to be included.

I hinted above that this strategy works well for hypothesis-driven research. What about exploratory research? In these cases, usually just two of the three factors are necessary; e.g., the variable and the sample (and you are exploring potential outcomes), or the outcome and sample (and you are exploring potential variables).

Now that you have the tools necessary for writing a clear, effective, and concise title...I am looking forward to seeing yours in your next paper! Good luck!