Abstract
A poorly chosen article title may make a paper difficult to discover or discourage readership when discovered, reducing an article's impact. Yet, it is unclear how the structure of a manuscript's title influences readership and impact. We used manuscript tracking data for all manuscripts submitted to the journal Functional Ecology from 2004 to 2013 and citation data for papers published in this journal from 1987 to 2011 to examine how title features changed and whether a manuscript's title structure was predictive of success during the manuscript review process and/or impact (citation) after publication. Titles of manuscripts submitted to Functional Ecology became marginally longer (after controlling for other variables), broader in focus (less frequent inclusion of genus and species names), and included more humor and subtitles over the period of the study. Papers with subtitles were less likely to be rejected by editors both pre- and post-peer review, although both effects were small and the presence of subtitles in published papers was not predictive of citations. Papers with specific names of study organisms in their titles fared poorly during editorial (but not peer) review and, if published, were less well cited than papers whose titles did not include specific names. Papers with intermediate length titles were more successful during editorial review, although the effect was small and title word count was not predictive of citations. No features of titles were predictive of reviewer willingness to review papers or the length of time a paper was in peer review. We conclude that titles have changed in structure over time, but features of title structure have only small or no relationship with success during editorial review and post-publication impact. The title feature that was most predictive of manuscript success: papers whose titles emphasize broader conceptual or comparative issues fare better both pre- and post-publication than do papers with organism-specific titles.
Highlights
Most published scientific papers have a title, and this title is the first part of the paper that prospective readers encounter
Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Submissions of papers for consideration for publication in Functional Ecology increased substantially from 2004 (425 submissions) to 2013 (937 submissions), a total increase of 120% and an average increase of 9.2% per year over the time period included in the peer-review aspect of this study (Fig. 1)
Summary
Most published scientific papers have a title, and this title is the first part of the paper that prospective readers encounter. The title gives readers a summary of the content of the manuscript, provides keywords and index terms in electronic databases (making an article findable; Rodrıguez and Moreiro 1996; Beel and Gipp 2009), and motivates (or not) prospective readers to read an article (Diener 1984; Ball 2009). A poorly chosen title can make a paper hard to discover or ignored when discovered, either of which will substantially reduce its impact on the scientific community. A manuscript’s title is the first point of contact between a paper and prospective peer reviewers. Titles of scientific papers have been changing in structure over time. Whether and how the structure of a manuscript’s title affect readership and impact of a paper remain unclear.
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