Are Shorter Article Titles More Attractive for Citations? Cross-sectional Study of 22 Scientific Journals

Habibzadeh, Farrokh; Yadollahie, Mahboobeh

doi:10.3325/cmj.2010.51.165

Cited by 89 publications

(76 citation statements)

References 5 publications

(1 reference statement)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…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]. Applied linguists, in contrast, have logically looked at various surface structures besides length in the interest of informing ERPP and ESP instructors, who must teach forms (Table 2).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…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.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…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].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…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).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

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

Kerans¹,

Murray²,

Sabaté

2016

Publications

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract:Reporting guidelines for clinical research designs emerged in the mid-1990s and have influenced various aspects of research articles, including titles, which have also been subject to changing uses with the growth of electronic database searching and efforts to reduce bias in literature searches. We aimed (1) to learn more about titles in clinical medicine today and (2) to develop an efficient, reliable way to study titles over time and on the fly-for quick application by authors, manuscript editors, translators and instructors. We compared content and form in titles from two general medical journals-the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) and the British Medical Journal-and two anesthesiology journals (the European Journal of Anaesthesiology and Anesthesiology); we also analyzed the inter-rater reliability of our coding. Significant content differences were found in the frequencies of mentions of methods, results (between general and subspecialty titles), and geographic setting; phrasing differences were found in the prevalence of full-sentence and compound titles (and their punctuation). NEJM titles were significantly shorter, and this journal differed consistently on several features. We conclude that authors must learn to efficiently survey titles for form and content patterns when preparing manuscripts to submit to unfamiliar journals or on resubmitting to a new journal after rejection.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

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

Kerans¹,

Murray²,

Sabaté

2016

Publications

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In a study on more than 9000 article from 22 different journals, authors conclude that articles in journals with higher impact factors tend to have large word counts in title and get more citations. [5] In later study, authors have chosen more variables from titles of 423 Articles divide into two separate results-describing and methods-describing titles groups. With different statistical analysis as well as logistic regression they have shown that titles with less characters would bring more citations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Mohebbi¹,

Douzandegan²

2017

JSCIRES

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

There is a common idea, that title variables like article title length would influence article citations. The aim of the present study was to investigating possible relationship between size of article title and number of article citations by minimizing scientometric variable biases. A dataset containing ~100,000 virological literatures was obtained from Web of Science InCite TM database from 1997 to 2016. Variables, Title size (TWC), Year (YoP), Source (JS), and Publisher were selected. In addition number of times article is cited 'Time Cited' (TC) was retrieved from Web of Science InCite TM . Linear regression analysis was performed between variables and TC using R for a possible prediction model for TC. Result has shown a robust standard error corrected linear regression with only 30.6% power of predictability. Furthermore, it was found that TC, YoP, and JS have meaningful potential in the linear model. Moreover, TC is negatively correlated with YoP, JS, and positively with TWC. As a result, size of article title, years passed since publication and the journal in which article accepted are good but not sufficient predictor of article citations. In addition, article is a multi-characteristic subject and other predictors can be supposed. However, we think that finding an efficient statistical linear predication model for TC, by increase of articles citation, is overwhelming.

show abstract

Factors associating with or predicting more cited or higher quality journal articles: An Annual Review of Information Science and Technology (ARIST) paper

Kousha

Thelwall

2023

Asso for Info Science & Tech

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Identifying factors that associate with more cited or higher quality research may be useful to improve science or to support research evaluation. This article reviews evidence for the existence of such factors in article text and metadata. It also reviews studies attempting to estimate article quality or predict long‐term citation counts using statistical regression or machine learning for journal articles or conference papers. Although the primary focus is on document‐level evidence, the related task of estimating the average quality scores of entire departments from bibliometric information is also considered. The review lists a huge range of factors that associate with higher quality or more cited research in some contexts (fields, years, journals) but the strength and direction of association often depends on the set of papers examined, with little systematic pattern and rarely any cause‐and‐effect evidence. The strongest patterns found include the near universal usefulness of journal citation rates, author numbers, reference properties, and international collaboration in predicting (or associating with) higher citation counts, and the greater usefulness of citation‐related information for predicting article quality in the medical, health and physical sciences than in engineering, social sciences, arts, and humanities.

show abstract

Are Shorter Article Titles More Attractive for Citations? Cross-sectional Study of 22 Scientific Journals

Cited by 89 publications

References 5 publications

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

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

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

Factors associating with or predicting more cited or higher quality journal articles: An Annual Review of Information Science and Technology (ARIST) paper

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About