Articles with short titles describing the results are cited more often

Abstract

OBJECTIVE:The aim of this study was to evaluate some features of article titles from open access journals and to assess the possible impact of these titles on predicting the number of article views and citations.METHODS:Research articles (n = 423, published in October 2008) from all Public Library of Science (PLoS) journals and from 12 Biomed Central (BMC) journals were evaluated. Publication metrics (views and citations) were analyzed in December 2011. The titles were classified according to their contents, namely methods-describing titles and results-describing titles. The number of title characters, title typology, the use of a question mark, reference to a specific geographical region, and the use of a colon or a hyphen separating different ideas within a sentence were analyzed to identify predictors of views and citations. A logistic regression model was used to identify independent title characteristics that could predict citation rates.RESULTS:Short-titled articles had higher viewing and citation rates than those with longer titles. Titles containing a question mark, containing a reference to a specific geographical region, and that used a colon or a hyphen were associated with a lower number of citations. Articles with results-describing titles were cited more often than those with methods-describing titles. After multivariate analysis, only a low number of characters and title typology remained as predictors of the number of citations.CONCLUSIONS:Some features of article titles can help predict the number of article views and citation counts. Short titles presenting results or conclusions were independently associated with higher citation counts. The findings presented here could be used by authors, reviewers, and editors to maximize the impact of articles in the scientific community.

Linear Regression Analysis of Title Word Count and Article Time Cited using R

“…With different statistical analysis as well as logistic regression they have shown that titles with less characters would bring more citations. [12] Results similar to those of Paiva et al were obtained in a study of seven journals from PloS publication. It was found that though each journal had different scope short titles had more downloads and citations.…”

“…[4] Packages used were : lmtest, rms, Hmisc, and ggplot2 was used for diagnosing the heteroscedasticity of the regression model, correct standard errors, correlation, and drawing scatter plot. [6], [7], [8][9][10][11][12][13] …”

Content and Phrasing in Titles of Original Research and Review Articles in 2015: Range of Practice in Four Clinical Journals

“…This group is particularly concerned with whether research design is included or not (Table 1). Some have also looked at other content and phrasing features potentially associated with citing, notably length [14][15][16]. Their findings for that question have been contradictory ( [14,15] vs. [16]), suggesting a need for continued research.…”

“…Some have also looked at other content and phrasing features potentially associated with citing, notably length [14][15][16]. Their findings for that question have been contradictory ( [14,15] vs. [16]), suggesting a need for continued research. It is possible that discrepancies like this stem from how they compiled their title corpora, especially the decision to mix journals publishing clinical research with others focusing on bench research [15,16].…”

“…Editor-physicians who do research into publication practices are also users of information from published articles and have mainly focused on title content [10,[12][13][14][15][16] rather than detailed language features. This group is particularly concerned with whether research design is included or not (Table 1).…”