The Trend toward more Attractive and Informative Titles: <i>American Psychologist</i> 1946–2010

Whissell, Cynthia

doi:10.2466/17.28.pr0.110.2.427-444

Cited by 21 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 37 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Soler (2011 ) demonstrated that titles in psychology review articles were shorter than those in psychology research papers: a similar diff erence was predicted for this study. Previous results for American Psychologist ( Whissell, 2012 ) led to the prediction that association journals would employ many punctuation marks, especially in titles of reports, book reviews, award announcements, and obituaries.…”

Section: Predictionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For Dictionary of Aff ect measures, future research could pursue diff erences in word abstraction over time, especially with respect to review articles whose title words became increasingly abstract. In contrast, titles from American Psychologist and Psychological Reports, an association and a research journal, become more concrete over roughly the same time span ( Whissell, 2004( Whissell, , 2012.…”

Section: Conclusion and Future Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Titles in Highly Ranked Multidisciplinary Psychology Journals 1966–2011: More Words and Punctuation Marks Allow for the Communication of More Information

Whissell

2013

Psychol Rep

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Titles of articles in seven highly ranked multidisciplinary psychology journals for every fifth year between 1966 and 2011 (inclusive) were studied in terms of title length, word length, punctuation density, and word pleasantness, activation, and concreteness (assessed by the Dictionary of Affect in Language). Titles grew longer (by three words) and were more frequently punctuated (by one colon or comma for every other article) between 1966 and 2011. This may reflect the increasing complexity of psychology and satisfy readers' requirements for more specific information. There were significant differences among journals (e.g., titles in the Annual Review of Psychology were scored by the Dictionary of Affect as the most pleasant, and those in Psychological Bulletin as the least pleasant) and among categories of journals (e.g., titles in review journals employed longer words than those in research or association journals). Differences were stable across time and were employed to successfully categorize titles from a validation sample.

show abstract

Section: Predictionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Conclusion and Future Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Titles in Highly Ranked Multidisciplinary Psychology Journals 1966–2011: More Words and Punctuation Marks Allow for the Communication of More Information

Whissell

2013

Psychol Rep

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Titles represent attempts to abstract the sense of an article in order to inform and attract potential readers [7,8,9]. When writers use a certain class of title words more or less frequently, their preferences reflect the status of the approach described by the words.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…When writers use a certain class of title words more or less frequently, their preferences reflect the status of the approach described by the words. For example, in a study of American Psychologist titles, Whissell [9] reported that words from the root “behav” were used three times as often as words from the root “cogni” in early titles (1946–1955: 7 per 10,000 title words versus 2) and twice as often in titles from an intermediate period (1979–1988: 43 per 10,000 title words versus 22). In recent years both types of words were used less often but not at different rates (2001–2010: 11 and 12 per 10,000 title words).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The Search for Cognitive Terminology: An Analysis of Comparative Psychology Journal Titles

Whissell

Abramson

Barber

2013

Behavioral Sciences

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This research examines the employment of cognitive or mentalist words in the titles of articles from three comparative psychology journals (Journal of Comparative Psychology, International Journal of Comparative Psychology, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes; 8,572 titles, >100,000 words). The Dictionary of Affect in Language, coupled with a word search of titles, was employed to demonstrate cognitive creep. The use of cognitive terminology increased over time (1940–2010) and the increase was especially notable in comparison to the use of behavioral words, highlighting a progressively cognitivist approach to comparative research. Problems associated with the use of cognitive terminology in this domain include a lack of operationalization and a lack of portability. There were stylistic differences among journals including an increased use of words rated as pleasant and concrete across years for Journal of Comparative Psychology, and a greater use of emotionally unpleasant and concrete words in Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes.

show abstract

The relationship between manuscript title structure and success: editorial decisions and citation performance for an ecological journal

Fox

Burns

2015

Ecology and Evolution

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A poorly chosen article title may make a paper difficult to discover or discourage readership when discovered, reducing an article's impact. Yet, it is unclear how the structure of a manuscript's title influences readership and impact. We used manuscript tracking data for all manuscripts submitted to the journal Functional Ecology from 2004 to 2013 and citation data for papers published in this journal from 1987 to 2011 to examine how title features changed and whether a manuscript's title structure was predictive of success during the manuscript review process and/or impact (citation) after publication. Titles of manuscripts submitted to Functional Ecology became marginally longer (after controlling for other variables), broader in focus (less frequent inclusion of genus and species names), and included more humor and subtitles over the period of the study. Papers with subtitles were less likely to be rejected by editors both pre- and post-peer review, although both effects were small and the presence of subtitles in published papers was not predictive of citations. Papers with specific names of study organisms in their titles fared poorly during editorial (but not peer) review and, if published, were less well cited than papers whose titles did not include specific names. Papers with intermediate length titles were more successful during editorial review, although the effect was small and title word count was not predictive of citations. No features of titles were predictive of reviewer willingness to review papers or the length of time a paper was in peer review. We conclude that titles have changed in structure over time, but features of title structure have only small or no relationship with success during editorial review and post-publication impact. The title feature that was most predictive of manuscript success: papers whose titles emphasize broader conceptual or comparative issues fare better both pre- and post-publication than do papers with organism-specific titles.

show abstract

The Trend toward more Attractive and Informative Titles: American Psychologist 1946–2010

Cited by 21 publications

References 37 publications

Titles in Highly Ranked Multidisciplinary Psychology Journals 1966–2011: More Words and Punctuation Marks Allow for the Communication of More Information

Titles in Highly Ranked Multidisciplinary Psychology Journals 1966–2011: More Words and Punctuation Marks Allow for the Communication of More Information

The Search for Cognitive Terminology: An Analysis of Comparative Psychology Journal Titles

The relationship between manuscript title structure and success: editorial decisions and citation performance for an ecological journal

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About