I’ll Read That!: What Title Elements Attract Readers to an Article?

Abstract

The title of an article is the first chance at catching a reader’s attention. We set to develop a list of title attributes that lead to attractive titles in psychology papers, which could then be used to help instruct undergraduate students on how to write good titles for their papers and projects. Currently, research into successful elements that comprise an effective title is generally limited to publication metrics (the number of hits and citations an article has). Here, we created and administered a survey to 99 undergraduate students to rate the effectiveness of titles of psychology papers that varied in length, use of colons, acronyms, clichés, being results-oriented, and phrased the title as a question. We then reworded these titles as the opposite choice (e.g., we made a longer title shorter or took the colon out of a title without changing the meaning or length). We found that participants significantly preferred long over short titles, titles containing colons over the absence of a colon, and titles phrased as questions. We hope our results aid in the instruction of writing in the discipline, and that undergraduate psychology students and authors alike can develop more effective and attractive titles to attract attention from scholars and invite broader audiences to read their work.

Keywords

article titles effective titles colon title length publication metrics writing style

A goal of any author should be to reach as many potentially interested readers as possible. Analyses of factors that predict the number of citations a scientific paper will receive identify three main categories of factors (Judge et al., 2007; Tahamtan et al., 2016): article, author, and journal. Authors generally have little control over journal-related factors, assuming they publish in the best journal they can. Authors also have little control over author-related factors when they submit a manuscript, including the number of authors on a manuscript, reputation, gender, and academic rank. Conversely, authors do have control over paper-related factors, that is, how the paper is constructed. One specific paper-related factor, and one that governs a potential reader’s decision to delve into an article more deeply, is the title. The title of an academic article is the first point of contact with a potential reader (e.g., Rostami et al., 2014) and thus a crucial tool used to attract readers to specific lines of research.

Specifically, Rostami et al. (2014) and Nair and Gibbert (2016) found that certain attributes in the title can predict the number of eventual citations a paper gets. Many factors have been related to the number of article downloads or the number of citations an article will get. Namely, researchers have investigated title length, the use of colons, the use of acronyms (Jacques & Sebire, 2010), question marks (Ball, 2009; Haggan, 2004; Hyland, 2002), the use of humor (Michel, 2017), clichés (N. W. Goodman, 2005; N. Goodman 2012), and conveying results versus methods in terms of title success (R. A. Goodman et al., 2001; Paiva et al., 2012).

According to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA, 2010), a title should be a descriptive, yet concise, summation of the main topic and any investigative findings. When titles are written in this fashion, readers have a chance to eliminate articles with irrelevant or insufficient information. The APA manual has guidelines such as keeping the title under 13 words, avoiding abbreviations, and avoiding superfluous words to direct authors in composing an effective title for their research. Further, in “Writing for Psychology,” Mitchell et al. (2012) echo these guidelines and further state that titles should include both the dependent and independent variables. Yet what do we use to inform good title-writing in the classroom, and what specific guidelines do we use to get students into good writing habits early in their psychology careers?

Studies have found that longer title length and citation rate are positively correlated (Habibzadeh & Yadollahie, 2010; Jacques & Sebire, 2010). More information available in longer titles may account for a higher number of hits and citations. Indeed, research has shown that titles have been increasing in length over time (Hallock & Dillner, 2016; Moody, 2006; Whissell, 2012). Additionally, using a colon in a title is a way to convey more information about a study, and the use of colons in titles has also been investigated (Dillon, 1982; Hartley, 2007a, 2007b; Jamali & Nikzad, 2011; Lewison & Hartley, 2005; Whissell, 2012). Using a colon in a title or increasing word count are methods for authors to convey more information about a study than would be allowed if following the APA’s (2010) 12-word maximum guideline.

Besides length and use of colons in the title, the APA manual and other authors inform writers to avoid acronyms or abbreviations in titles to limit reader confusion (APA, 2010; Debakey & Debakey, 1983; Gastel & Day, 2016). However, Jacques and Sebire (2010) revealed that articles with acronyms in the title were actually cited more often. The authors suggest that acronyms may be more easily recognized than the full name and used as a search term.

Phrasing the title as a question has significantly increased in life science, medicine, and physics journals (Ball, 2009). However, current research on the success of interrogative phrasing is divided. Some researchers propose that titles phrased in this way attract and engage prospective audiences to read and find out the answer to the title’s question (Haggan, 2004; Hyland, 2002). Yet a study by Paiva et al. (2012) found that phrasing a title as a question was related to lower citation numbers.

Paiva et al. (2012) also found that titles sharing results versus methodology were cited more often. Atkin (2002) argues in favor of dramatic results-oriented titles to attract a larger audience. Titles including results let readers know exactly what the article is about and quickly rule out irrelevant research. Interestingly, Atkin (2002) considers eye-catching clichés as an option for the dramatic element of a results-oriented title. However, for many authors, clichés are highly discouraged to prevent miscommunication, confusion, and even annoyance (Debakey & Debakey, 1983; Gastel & Day, 2016; N. W. Goodman, 2005; N. Goodman 2012).

There are two major shortcomings in the existing body of research that the current study hopes to address. First, studies on effective components used published journal articles and analyzed the title elements found in highly cited articles (Jacques & Sebire, 2010; Jamali & Nikzab, 2011; Paiva et al., 2012; Subotic & Mukherjee, 2014) rather than studies evaluating the efficacy of various elements with real human participants. Indeed, only a few studies involved participants in determining a title’s overall success and attractiveness (Hartley, 2007b; Schwartz, 1995). This paucity of research is striking considering existing APA guidelines for constructing a title. Second, studies typically focus on a single discipline. For example, Schwartz (1995) examined an Information Science journal, Paiva et al. (2012) examined biology journals, and Ball (2009) examined physics, medicine, and life science journals. Few papers have examined psychology journals, and any single result may be discipline-specific and may not be applicable to another field.

Here, we compiled a list of title attributes based on the extant literature across disciplines. We wanted to test the efficacy of as many of these title elements in psychology papers as possible. For each feature, we provided participants with a survey of title sets composed of alternate title choices of a single psychological article. For each title set, we provided contrasting forms of a single title, for example, long versus short, acronym versus full name, results-oriented versus methods-oriented. We then examined the results of our participant-based study in relation to the current research available and hope the information will prove useful to instructors of Introduction to Psychology and Research Methods courses that require students to write papers.

Method

Participants

Undergraduates (N = 99, 32 males and 67 females) of Purdue University Northwest were recruited from both lower- and upper-level psychology courses to participate. Participants included 16 first-year, 13 sophomores, 26 juniors, and 43 senior students (N = 98, one participant chose not to answer). All participants were given the same survey, which they completed individually.

Materials

Our survey was designed and given to participants to record their preferences of different title types. The participants were asked to pick between two versions of a title describing the same project. Surveys were printed and given to participants to complete by hand.

We designed each survey set by finding articles in the journal, Psychological Review, that matched the title types we wanted to test. For one choice in each set, we found original titles in the journal that were phrased as a question, results-oriented, contained colons, acronyms (familiar and unfamiliar), clichés, and varied in length. For length, short titles were three to eight words long, medium titles were 8–12 words, and long were 13–18 words. For the alternate choice in each set, we manipulated the titles to be opposite versions, for example, the longer title was reworded to be shorter, the title containing a colon was reworded to eliminate the colon, the interrogative title was reworded as a declarative title. We also chose to find published article titles within the same journal that contrasted with the first choices mentioned above and reworded them as well as a means to check for any influence our rewording may have caused. See Table 1 for a list of sample title pairs used for each condition.

Table 1.

Examples of Paired Titles Used in This Experiment for the Conditions Listed in the Left Column.

Statement vs. question	Statement: Humans have two systems to track beliefs and belief-like states	Question: Do humans have two systems to track beliefs and belief-like states?
Unfamiliar acronym vs. no acronym	Is exotic-becomes-erotic (EBE) theory supported by the evidence? Is it androcentric?	Is EBE supported by the evidence? Is it androcentric?
Familiar acronym vs. no acronym	Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), a disturbance of security motivation	OCD a disturbance of security motivation
Medium vs. long length	Neural dynamics of grouping and segmentation explain properties of visual crowding	Neural dynamics of grouping and segmentation in cortical neural circuits explain properties of visual crowding
Short vs. long length	Compound generalization in learning explained by dimensional generalization	Explaining compound generalization in associative and causal learning through rational principles of dimensional generalization
Short vs. medium length	Depicting as a method of communication	Visual, auditory, tactile, and proprioceptive depicting as underexamined methods of communication
Cliché vs. no cliché	Will a black cat cross its own path? “Superstitious” behavior in animals	“Superstitious” behavior in animals
Results-oriented vs. methods-oriented	Surprisingly rational: probability theory plus noise explains biases in judgment	Surprisingly rational: empirical and quantitative approaches to probability theory and noise in judgment bias
Colon vs. no colon	Retrieving information from memory: spreading-activation theories versus compound-cue theories	Spreading-activation theories versus compound-cue theories on retrieving information from memory

Procedure

Participants took the survey and indicated which version of the title they were “most likely select to look at while browsing a journal database.” It took about 5 min for students to complete the survey. Afterward, participants were informed that they were completing a survey intending to measure title type preferences. This protocol was approved by the Purdue University institutional review board.

Results

A χ² test for goodness of fit was performed on each of the 18 pairs of titles, and a conservative αlevel of .01 was used to reduce the probability of a Type I error. For titles varying in length, long titles were preferred over short titles in both conditions; χ²(2, n = 98) = 25.51, p < .001, and χ²(2, n = 99) = 12.37, p < .001. However, when short- and medium-length titles were paired together, one group revealed a preference for the short title, χ²(2, n = 99) = 9.71, p < .01, while the other pair showed no differences, p > .05. Further, when medium and long titles were paired, one pair revealed a significant preference for the medium-length title, χ²(2, n = 99) = 20.45, p < .001, while the other pair revealed no preference, p > .05.

A title with a colon was significantly preferred over one without a colon in both cases, χ²(2, n = 99) = 30.55, p < .001, and χ²(2, n = 99) = 7.36, p < .01.

There was no preference in titles that used a familiar acronym versus one that used a version that spelled out that acronym, p > .01 for each case. However, when unfamiliar acronyms were used compared to when the acronym was spelled out, the spelled-out version was significantly preferred in both cases, χ²(2, n = 98) = 34.32, p < .001, and χ²(2, n = 99) = 40.01, p < .001.

In the two pairs that tested preferences for a title worded as a statement or as a question, the title worded as a question was preferred in both cases, χ²(2, n = 99) = 16.98, p < .001, and χ²(2, n = 99) = 8.49, p < .01.

No preferences were present to either set of titles that tested a cliché versus noncliché version of the same title, p > .05. Further, no preferences were present to titles that stressed methodology over results or vice versa, p > .05 (see Figure 1).

Figure 1.

For each matched pair, the proportion of participants who preferred each type are presented. Note. Further, the average of each of the two versions of each condition is presented here. A 50% preference indicates chance levels, while the dotted lines in the figures represent the threshold for significance at p = .01. Thus, any pair above this line is significantly different (top panel), and pairs below this line are not significant (bottom panel).

Discussion

The majority of previous work into the effectiveness of the components of article titles is based on publication metrics, the number of views, and citations of published works (e.g., Jacques & Sebire, 2010; Jamali & Nikzab, 2011; Paiva et al., 2012). We used 99 undergraduate participants to test their preferences of titles that contained various elements like ones that used colons versus ones that did not; ones that were short, medium, or long in length; and titles that were phrased as a declarative statement or as a question. Results indicated that participants significantly preferred titles that were longer, ones that contained colons, ones that phrased the title as a question, and titles that spelled out acronyms to unfamiliar terms. Additionally, we found that students had no preference for results- versus methods-oriented titles or ones that used clichés versus ones that did not.

Our results are generally in accordance with past studies. The use of colons is a method used that allows authors to present more information in a more organized and aesthetically pleasing way. Dillon (1982) conducted an investigational study in which journals were reviewed for the presence of a colon and ultimately proposed the Dillon hypothesis: Titles containing colons represent work of higher scholarship and complexity. When people are going through journal databases, they are seeking articles that contain enough information that can be used as support and can lead them to other articles for additional support. In addition, Jacques and Sebire (2010) found that titles with colons were cited more often, suggesting that people tend to find, read, and use articles that contain them.

It is possible that there is a difference between undergraduate preferences and graduate student or professor preferences. This difference may explain differences in our findings and the results based on the numbers of views and citations that other articles typically use. For example, Paiva et al. (2012) found that article titles that describe results, but not methods, resulted in greater views and more citations. One would expect that more senior researchers would be specifically attracted to result-based titles. Yet although we failed to find that undergraduate students preferred titles focusing on results, we did not find that our participants disliked titles focusing on results: They were just not preferred over other phrasing.

Additionally, participants preferred the longer, more informative version of a title in our study. Although short titles can get right to the point and avoid reader confusion (Paiva et al., 2012), longer titles allow for more expression of the article’s contents. While the APA suggests limiting titles to 12 words, research has shown that title length has been steadily increasing and often go over that limit, particularly in psychological journals (Hallock & Dillner, 2016; Lewison & Hartley, 2005; Whissell, 2012). Our study, in conjunction with past studies, suggests that longer titles are preferred and cover more material than short and to-the-point titles. Although longer titles were preferred over their shorter counterparts, statistical differences between short and medium, as well as between medium and long titles, were absent. It is possible that more subtle differences in title length do not matter greatly, whereas differences between a short and lengthier title yield a more tangible difference in the content able to be conveyed by the titles.

Jacques and Sebire (2010) found that a journal’s most cited articles were more likely to contain an acronym over the journal’s least cited articles. However, our study found that undergraduate students preferred titles that contain the full name when selecting articles to read, at least when those acronyms are unfamiliar. Again, this may come down to a difference between experts in the field and undergraduate students. Like the undergraduates in our sample, it is possible that more senior researchers also prefer acronyms they are familiar with, but clearly, they are familiar with more acronyms. Thus, they may be inclined to both use acronyms and use them as search terms in databases.

Lastly, we failed to find a difference between titles that used or did not use clichés. This was not surprising given the mixed results on the use of clichés reported in the literature. Although Atkin (2002) found they could be effective, other authors found they are ineffective (Debakey & Debakey, 1983; Gastel & Day, 2016; N. W. Goodman, 2005; N. Goodman, 2012). Our results failed to find them either particularly effective or counterproductive to the general aesthetics of a title.

Our study is not without shortcomings. Our sample size was moderate (N = 99) but only represented a group of undergraduate psychology students at a single institution. In addition, our rewording of titles may have changed the effectiveness (perhaps appearing to be more or less effective) of the original titles, confounding results. These shortcomings aside, this is one of a few studies regarding title preference that involved participants directly. Instead of concentrating on citations, we focused on what initially draws a reader into the title of a psychology article rather than what they choose to cite later on. It is also possible that undergraduate students have different preferences than the more senior individuals who are researching the field to include published works in their own publications.

It is important to take note of undergraduate title preferences as it is important for an article to also get exposure to the undergraduate population. Further, the use of positive title attributes uncovered here (long titles, titles that use a colon, titles ending in question marks, and titles with acronyms spelled out) can and should be presented to undergraduate psychology classes so they can begin making more effective and attractive titles themselves. It does not take a lot of class time in a Research Methods class for professors to present a list of favored title components to students so they can begin constructing their own effective titles.

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Dr. James Hartley for valuable feedback on drafts and general advice on the article. We also thank the anonymous reviewers whose comments greatly improved this article, including, ironically, the title.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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