Does this title bug (Hemiptera) you? How to write a title that increases your citations

Murphy, John M.; Vidal, Mayra C.; Hallagan, Claudia J.; Broder, E. Dale; Barnes, E. E.; Lowell, Eva S. Horna; Wilson, Jacob D.

doi:10.1111/een.12740

Cited by 10 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…Despite the widespread availability of clear and firm advice on constructing "good" titles, the most striking pattern we document is simply that few easily measured attributes of titles seem to have strong associations with citation rates. This is broadly consistent with the literature (e.g., Costello et al 2019, Murphy et al 2019review: Heard 2021).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

“…As a result, that analysis may well have drawn precisely the wrong conclusion. The same issue applies to analyses by Subotic and Mukherjee (2014) and Murphy et al (2019), both of which found no effect of humour on total citation but, again, did not correct for paper importance. Advice to avoid humour in paper titles (e.g., Thomson and Kamler 2013:85, Mack 2018:47, Belcher 2019:288) is thus not well founded in evidence – at least, not if the concern is citation impact.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…Subotic and Mukherjee (2014) attempted to replicate Sagi and Yechiam's result (again for psychology papers), but instead found a positive effect of humour on downloads but no effect on citations. Finally, Murphy et al (2019) found no significant effect of title humour on citation rate for ecology and entomology papers. Two other studies have examined related attributes of titles: categorized papers as primary research articles, review articles, and "other", with that last category including less standard forms such as "forum review" articles (Oikos) and "journal club" articles (Trends in Ecology and Evolution).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 82%

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If this title is funny, will you cite me? Citation impacts of humour and other features of article titles in ecology and evolution

Heard

Cull

White

2022

Preprint

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Titles of scientific papers pay a key role in their discovery, and "good" titles engage and recruit readers. A particularly interesting aspect of title construction is the use of humour, but little is known about whether funny titles boost or limit readership and citation of papers. We used a panel of volunteer scorers to assess title humour for 2,439 papers in ecology and evolution, and measured associations between humour scores and subsequent citation (both self-citation and citation by others). Papers with funnier titles were cited less often, but this appears to result from a confound with paper importance. Self-citation data suggest that authors give funnier titles to papers they consider less important. After correction for this confound, papers with funny titles have significantly higher citation rates, suggesting that humour recruits readers. We also examined associations between citation rates and several other features of titles. Inclusion of acronyms and taxonomic names was associated with lower citation rates, while assertive-statement phrasing and presence of colons, question marks, and political regions were associated with somewhat higher citation rates. Title length had no effect on citation. Our results suggest that scientists can use creativity with titles without having their work condemned to obscurity.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 82%

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If this title is funny, will you cite me? Citation impacts of humour and other features of article titles in ecology and evolution

Heard

Cull

White

2022

Preprint

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“…The verbiage of titles can influence the number and type of people consuming a piece of communication material (e.g., Murphy et al 2019 ). We tested whether key phrases in the titles of our recorded webinars influenced the number viewers and the length of views on YouTube.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lessons From a 10-yr Invasive Species Webinar Program: Emerald Ash Borer University

Barnes

Usborne

Stone³

et al. 2021

Environmental Entomology

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Information about invasive species needs to be spread rapidly across a wide geographic area following an invasion. However, in-person events can be time-consuming and costly for the participants, organizers, and presenters. Online programming like webinars can bridge this gap, but there is limited published data on how best to run these programs. We report on a 10-yr webinar program, Emerald Ash Borer University, and offer suggestions for improving their effectiveness as a communication tool. Webinar participants viewed the webinars positively and undertook recommended management actions. In addition, most of our survey respondents extended the reach of this program by widely sharing the information from the webinars. Posting the webinars on popular streaming platforms greatly extended their reach long after the live viewing event. Despite their longevity, viewers of recorded videos watched them differently than those viewing live events. We suggest modifying the format of future webinar presentations to accommodate these differences to improve information transfer.

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“…The success of a scientific publication varies owing to a range of factors, often acting synergistically in driving its impact. Apart from the scientific content of the article itself, which ideally should be the only predictor of its impact, factors that correlate to the number of citations that an article accumulates over time include its accessibility 1,2 , the stylistic characteristics of its title [3][4][5] and abstract 6 , the number of authors 7 , and its availability as a preprint 8 . Furthermore, it is understood that the quality of a scientific publication should be related to the quality of the science it cites, but quantitative evidence for this remains sparse 7,[9][10][11] .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scientometric correlates of high-quality reference lists in ecological papers

Mammola

Martínez

Fontaneto

et al. 2020

Preprint

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It is said that the quality of a scientific publication is as good as the science it cites, but the properties of high-quality reference lists have never been numerically quantified. We examined seven numerical characteristics of reference lists of 50,878 primary research articles published in 17 ecological journals between 1997 and 2017. Over this 20-years period, there have been significant changes in reference lists' properties. On average, more recent ecological papers have longer reference lists, cite more high Impact Factor papers, and fewer non-journal publications. Furthermore, we show that highly cited papers across the ecology literature have longer reference lists, cite more recent and impactful papers, and account for more self-citations. Conversely, the proportion of 'classic' papers and non-journal publications cited, as well as the temporal range of the reference list, have no significant influence on articles' citations. From this analysis, we distill a recipe for crafting impactful reference lists.

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Does this title bug (Hemiptera) you? How to write a title that increases your citations

Cited by 10 publications

References 21 publications

If this title is funny, will you cite me? Citation impacts of humour and other features of article titles in ecology and evolution

If this title is funny, will you cite me? Citation impacts of humour and other features of article titles in ecology and evolution

Lessons From a 10-yr Invasive Species Webinar Program: Emerald Ash Borer University

Scientometric correlates of high-quality reference lists in ecological papers

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