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6/21/2011Your essential ‘how-to’ guide to choosing article titlesblogs.lse.ac.uk /impactofsocialsciences/2011/06/21/your-essential-%e2%80%98how-to%e2%80%99-guide-to-choosing-article-titles/One of the key tasks for an article author who wants to be cited is to quickly persuade people to click on thetitle of their piece and learn more from the abstract or book outline, and then from there to persuade them todownload the whole article. Here we present a simple ‘how-to’ guide to choosing article titles.At each stage there will be an ‘attrition’ loss of people searching through:not finding the title of the piece in their searches at all;not recognizing the title of a piece as relevant for their needs;not clicking through from the title to learn more from the abstract or book outline;not recognizing from the abstract or book outline that the piece is relevant for their needs.Even when a piece is found and downloaded or read in full, the next stageinvolves the reading academic in deciding to cite the piece or not. Oftenthis decision may be a completely separate one, made perhaps weeks ormonths (or even years) after the person involved first read the piece. Sohere the key determinants of whether an article or book is now cited areusually:whether the potential citer remembers the existence of the piece ornot;how much the person remembers of the key ‘take-away’ points thatthey found valuable in the piece when they first read it, which mayoften be its ‘bottom-line’ conclusions, or alternatively only one or twospecific points or pieces of data within the text;whether they can find the piece again easily on their often voluminousPDF library on their PC or on their crowded book shelves;whether they can quickly re-access the argument or details of the piece so as to accurately cite orcharacterize it when citing.Many academics do things that effectively ensure that the title of their work makes it hard to find initially in literaturereviews and very hard to cite later on. It is therefore useful to consider here some specific examples of socialscience article titles and what can go wrong with the, shown the below.Is your title: Example (and comment)A full 'narrative title' that clearly summarizes thesubstance of what the article argues or whathas been found out? (Very good)'New public management is dead: Long live digital eragovernance' - the whole argument of the paper in 10 wordsAn ambiguous title but with at least somenarrative or substantive hints about your line ofargument or findings? (OK)Modernist art: the gay dimension' -probably highlights themesabout homosexuality, but might deny them instead1/2A title that perhaps contains some cues as tothe authors argument, but where youd need toread the piece first to understand these hints?(Poor)'One for All: the logic of group conflict' - actually this is a booktitle about solidarity pressures in ethnic groups, (and notAlexander Dumas' 'The Three Musketeers' which it apparentlyreferences)An overly general title that could lead to multipleconclusions or lines of argument? (Poor).'The Economic Institutions of Capitalism' - probably related toorganizational /institutional aspects of economicsIs your title: Example (and comment)Copyright © The Author (or The Authors) - Unless otherwise stated, this work is licensed under a CreativeCommons Attribution Unported 3.0 License.2/2

Your essential ‘how-to’ guide to choosing article titles

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