Title has to show what we're going to read after...without high expectatives

In academic writing the title should be as simple, clear and precise as possible. It must say what the article is about and can include findings [your results] and what you have done [a RCT measuring this or that]. If you consider a specific journal, it might be a good idea to check through a few titles and see how they are structured and worded. Most important point: make sure you cover the key search terms, so that search engines will pick you up and researchers will not overlook it.

In academic write ups, the title should be short, precise, catchy and straight to the point.

Dear Jose, Michael and Onyegu I agree with you. The title should give a definite and concise indication of what is to come. I would like to emphasize that first impressions are strong impressions... What about question in title?

Hello Petr, I would not use a question in a title, but as far as I am concerned they can be ok. The problem is that they can make it difficult to get all the info I want included into the title.

I think that question should be very powerful in a title... but only sometimes...

I usually work with a title-abstract duo:

Title: Short, catchy but without vulgarizing the theme. Indicates, even if only vaguely, the gap in knowledge that you want to fill with the study.

Abstract: First line should be written in a way that it could be read as a continuation of the title. Explication of the gap in knowledge while maintaining the formal criteriums of an abstract. Last line ends with a strong conclusion.

My objective is, naturally, to make people read my work. I do not know if it actually works or not, but i like to believe that i've done everything i could for it. :)

Very nice addition Janos. Regards

Dear colleague, I try to summarize our discussion related to titles of scientific articles:

THE TITLE SHOULD:

1. … be simple, clear, precise, catchy, informative, specific…

2. … indicate, even if only vaguely, the gap in knowledge that you want to fill with the study...

I think, very fruitful discussion. Regards

thanks for your summary Petr

There is no black and white responses to this question. The best thing to do is to think of strategies to come up with the title.In addition to the suggestions offered by other colleagues, one should also considered the gray zones. Under that lense, one may conceivably look for subtitle writing strategies, keeping in mind that eventually the title may be negotiated with the gatekeepers (i.e. editors, readers) One useful strategy to log in to the free stuff journal sites offer and use the RSSs to peruse the many titles the journal's papers have. While reading gain awareness of the FORM in which titles are written (i.e. one liner, main and subtitle separated by colon,etc.). Then, one may want to make a note of what is admisible and what is it not for that journal. Then write your first title (draft of a title) and leave it there for a second look later. Then, evaluate readability, clarity, etc, for the audience who are to reading the piece. In the end, it is very likely that the title end up in the negotiation table with the gatekeepers. But if the title looks clean, your piece may be cruising along to getting published. I would then think of strategies to write a good title rather rules.

Although it will still depend on the nature of your study, the participants, the methodology, and even the liking of your advisers, Grobler (2003) suggests the following format which is somehow the "common" format we see in most of empirical researches:

Main Theme/Research Topic: Design + Population + Geographical Area

For example

Maternal Confidence in Infant Care: Evaluation of a nurse-led program for Filipino primiparous mothers

Mother's Role Before and Now: Discourse analysis of diaries written by German grandmothers

The best title for an article is the one that will make people attracted and intrigued to know more about it and eventually read it. Their is really no one rule as it very much depend on the subject of the article.The author will be the best judge of that.

It is difficult to set well defined criteria for but as well as some points cover it will be better

- the shorter the better, but dont cut from the meaning

-covering study question, type, population ,time and place

- the reader can understand clearly

remember. the first thing scholar read is the title. So as long as the title attractive the reader will go through the whole paper.

:)

Very inspirative reading exactly on this topic is summarized by professionals from Wiley or Elsevier

http://authorservices.wiley.com/bauthor/seo.asp

http://www.elsevier.com/connect/get-found-optimize-your-research-articles-for-search-engines

This title should contain the main keywords embodying the message you want to communicate.