Title of an article, a book, thesis, a project, biography, newspaper article, a conference, a workshop or a seminar is very important part because it condenses the content of the writing or the event in a few words and captures readers’ attention. A good title on its own introduces the topic to the fullest extent in a concise manner.
Title of a researched article can be either descriptive, declarative or a question. It plays important role in both marketing and visibility of an article. Visibility creates a positive impact on the number of citations and downloads of the article. Users go by the title as the main source of information. One recent research conducted in the area of library science showed that differences exist between articles with different types of titles in terms of downloads and citations, especially articles with question mark titles tend to get downloaded more but get cited less than the others. Articles with longer titles get downloaded somewhat lesser than the articles with shorter titles. Titles with colon mark tend to be longer and receive fewer downloads and citations.
A suitably titled article contains few words; the few words adequately describe the contents and purpose of the article/book/project/thesis. The title is without doubt the part of a paper that is read the most, and it is usually read first. Therefore authors must engage readers with an interesting title. They hook target audience because they convey about the plot and quality of the content.
Scan, scroll, dismiss, scan, scroll, dismiss, scan …click! This is what happens on Internet. This is what we all do today. In our inbox, on social media and on blogs, we scan through headlines, dismissing most and clicking a few. For getting clicked the title has to be catchy, more than anything else. Our work is judged instantly and ruthlessly by the short set of words used in titles. Adman David Ogilvy used to say “on the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar”. For publishing papers in journals some writers do not spend much time on the titles of their manuscripts. But, some authors consider the title to be the most important part of their written work. In addition to catching the eye of potential readers, the title is the first chance to make a good impression on reviewers and journal editors.
Here are some suggestions for choosing the best title for your document:
i) keep the title short
ii) let the title consist of key words
iii) don’t ask questions as titles, instead provide answers
iv) do not exaggerate your work with superlative words
v) avoid abbreviations and jargon.
Writing a good title is a difficult task; most writers get stuck and end up giving irrational titles. Most often, titles are written at the end of the writing process, so the first step in creating a great title is to complete an article. Even if the content is good, many good articles get lost in journals, Internet and repositories. It is always better to take help of some seasoned writers/your friends/mentor etc. And, it is advisable to write three or four options for a title. Take a feedback of few friends, see which title grabs their attention, and select that title.
