Writing an Effective Title

Abstract

Every aspect of scientific writing has been examined, but the title is the least studied component of manuscripts (Goodman et al. 2001, Soler 2007) even though some describe the title as the most important element (Garg 2017). When scientists are scanning literature to decide what to read, the title is often the only thing they look at (Stapleton et al. 1995). Useful guidelines for titles are often difficult to locate. The Journal of Wildlife Management (JWM) has been published since 1937, but guidelines for titles were not provided to authors until they appeared in the ninth issue: “The title should be concise and descriptive preferably not more than 10 words, as an aid in bibliography” (Storer 1945:back matter). The current guidelines for authors are similar: “Titles should not exceed 10 words unless doing so forces awkward construction. Do not use scientific names in the title except for organisms that have easy to confuse common names, or lack them altogether” (Cox et al. 2019:30–31). Merrill and Knipps (2014) reviewed JWM titles and provided more guidance to authors creating titles, but are JWM guidelines about titles current with the available literature? The purpose of this editorial is to provide insight into the creation of good titles for manuscripts. Titles can convey different things including the topic, study design (Grant 2013), methods, results (Goodman et al. 2001), and conclusions (Katz 2009), and should attract attention and inform referees, editors, and other readers that the manuscript provides new knowledge (Spector 1994, Stapleton et al. 1995, Grant 2013, Merrill and Knipps 2014, Garg 2017). Titles should be straightforward, clear, and adequately describe the contents of the manuscript (Stapleton et al. 1995). Authors should always check with the journal where they are submitting the manuscript for guidelines on titles (Stapleton et al. 1995, Sharp 2002). Short titles are recommended by many (Spector 1994, Stapleton et al. 1995, Katz 2009, Subotic and Mukherjee 2014, Cox et al. 2019); however, the relationship between title length and citations is not unanimous among previous investigations. Subotic and Mukherjee (2014) reported that shorter titles (~10.4 words) were cited more than longer titles but that impact factor of the journal had a more pronounced effect. Jacques and Sebire (2010) and Habibzadeh and Yadollahie (2010) reported citations were correlated with longer titles. Rostami et al. (2014) reported that there was no correlation between title length and citation rate for >300 titles in 2007. Titles should include key words. Words in titles are used in indexing, an important part of being able to successfully locate manuscripts (Soler 2007, Merrill and Knipps 2014). Some claim that readers scan titles quickly and are drawn to the beginning and end of the title, so key words should be placed in those 2 locations (Spector 1994, Yassa 2014) to make the important words stand out (Stapleton et al. 1995). Authors can improve search engine optimization by including well-considered key words in the title and repeating them in other sections of the manuscript (abstract, key word fields, subheadings, figure and table captions; Krausman et al. 2016). Rostami et al. (2014) reported that the use of different words in the key words and the title is related to higher citation rates. Authors should decide on the type of title for their manuscript. Jamali and Nikzad (2011) classified titles as declarative (i.e., indicates results of the work), descriptive (i.e., states the topic but not results), and interrogative (i.e., asks a question in the title). They also reported that declarative titles were cited less than descriptive titles. Paiva et al. (2012) categorized title types as those that included methods and those that included results and reported that results-based titles are cited more than methods-based titles. Many references suggest that authors avoid placing locations in titles. Titles that reference specific geographical regions or specific study sites are not cited as much as papers with broader titles (Jacques and Sebire 2010, Paiva et al. 2012, Fox and Burns 2015). Others suggest that authors avoid split titles (i.e., titles with colons or semi-colons; Day 1994, Sharp 2002, Soler 2007, Paiva et al. 2012) because both parts do not relay new information, the second part is often dropped during indexing (Sharp 2002), and they were not cited as much as those that were not split (Hartley 2007). Other researchers suggests that manuscripts with split titles have higher citation rates than manuscripts that do not (Spector 1994, Jacques and Sebire 2010, Rostami et al. 2014). Most JWM articles involve a study species and authors need to consider whether they will include the common name in the title. Fox and Burns (2015) reported that papers in Functional Ecology that included genus or species in the title were cited less often than those that did not. In contrast, the common name of the study species is likely to be a key word for the article's discoverability and including it in the title will increase search engine optimization (Krausman et al. 2016). Merrill and Knipps (2014) examined 960 JWM titles (volumes 73–77) and reported that 96% were descriptive with a mean word count of 11.5. Methods were mentioned 4% of the time and locations were stated in 35% of the titles. In more recent volumes, these data have only changed slightly. We examined 514 articles from JWM volumes 78–81; 83% were descriptive and the mean word count was 11.2. Methods were mentioned in 19%, results in 15%, and locations in 30% of all manuscript titles. Additionally, we looked at the use of split titles. In our data set, 15% used split titles. We further assessed whether title characteristics were associated with number of citations. We calculated number of citations for each article published in volumes 78–81 (as of Apr 2020). We used a log-linear regression with a Poisson distribution for the response variable (number of citations) because it was skewed count data. We accounted for time since publication by including it as a predictor variable in each analysis because older manuscripts have had more time to accumulate citations. As expected, time since publication predicted number of citations in all analyses (all P < 0.001). After accounting for time since publication, we did not find a relationship between number of citations and title word count (P = 0.552), or whether results (P = 0.739) or location (P = 0.526) were mentioned in the title. Titles that mentioned methods (P < 0.001) and split titles (P = 0.032) had a greater number of citations than those that did not. For a paper published on 1 January 2014, the predicted citations for a paper with methods in the title was 12.8, whereas papers without methods in the title were predicted to have 11 citations. This is likely because many papers with methods in the title are not species-specific and can apply to a wide range of taxa. For a paper published on 1 January 2014, having a split title increased the predicted citations from 11 to 12. We conducted additional analyses to investigate whether including a common name in the title was related to citations. We first compared citation rate of titles with common names to those without (no name or higher taxonomic group) and titles that mentioned the common name of the genus or species were cited less than those that did not (P < 0.001). This could indicate that authors should avoid presenting the name of their study species in the title by substituting more general terms such as carnivore, passerine, or amphibian. To investigate the benefit of this tactic, we looked at single-species papers only and tested if mentioning the common name in the title was related to citations. There was no difference in citations between single-species papers with a common name in the title and those without (P = 0.153). Instead, it seems the difference in citations between those with common names and those without is influenced more by the applicability of the paper to a more general audience rather than a decision to keep the common name out of the title. Manuscripts that focused on multiple species or no species (e.g., analysis papers) were cited more than single-species papers (P < 0.001). The number of predicted citations for a paper published on 1 January 2014 was 10.6 for a single-species paper and 15 for a multi-species paper or a paper that did not have a study species. Based on these data, it is time to provide updated suggestions for titles in JWM articles. Authors should be able to exceed the 10-word limit if beneficial to their manuscript (e.g., ≤15 words). Carefully consider key words that readers interested in your work would likely use during searches and include them in the title (especially novel methods). Also, the use of colons and semi-colons in split titles should not be discouraged as long as both parts of the title relay new information. These minor but important changes may improve the search engine optimization of JWM articles without negatively affecting citation rates. Be as thoughtful with your titles as you are with the rest of your research. Avoid jargon (in titles and in writing). Avoid titles that are designated with numerals (e.g., Nesting habitats of birds: Part I). Avoid the use of scientific names in titles. Avoid using implicit words in titles (e.g., a study of …, the effect of …; Stapleton et al. 1995, Grant 2013, Merrill and Knipps 2014). Citation rates vary by journal, impact factor of the journal, sample size, methods, the significance and availability of the journal, publication type, subject, length of title, and even gender of authors (Jacques and Sebire 2010). Even with all these variables, a well-written title can lead to increased citations for manuscripts (Jacques and Sebire 2010). The value of the manuscript to wildlife management will continue to be the other important components of manuscripts: creativity and novelty, an appropriate design, rigor in analysis, and the quality of the presentation (Merrill and Knipps 2014, Krausman 2020). But a well-crafted title could increase the likelihood that your work will be discovered. Discussions with K. L. Monteith were the impetus for this editorial. We appreciate the helpful comments on earlier drafts of this editorial by J. A. Bissonette, R. T. Bowyer, M. E. Bucci, J. W. Cain III, and A. C. S. Knipps. Many thanks.

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