Table 1 - uploaded by James Moody
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Source publication
Recent reflections on the state of publications in sociology (Becker, 2003) suggest that article titles are getting longer.
I test this hypothesis with data from ASR since inception and a wider sample of papers from Sociological Abstracts between 1963 and 1999. My results indicate a rapid and widespread increase in title length. Further analyses su...
Context in source publication
Context 1
... have other disciplinary changes affected title length? Table 1 summarizes the effects of coauthorship, specialty discipline, 3 and the number of tables in a paper (a proxy for quantitative methods) on title length, using papers indexed in Sociological Abstracts since the mid 1960s. Papers on Health, Social Welfare, and Family have the longest titles, while papers in Marxist / Radical sociology, the sociology of science / knowledge and theory tend to have the shortest titles. ...
Citations
... Capturing that sort of tonality is exceedingly difficult, but we can get some hints with the broad bibliometric features of the works. Figure 7 provides a simple example: the number of words in the title of the article (see Moody 2006). ...
The 100th anniversary of Social Forces provides a rich opportunity to reflect on the history of the journal and changes to sociology as a whole. Using a series of formal text-analytic methods, we describe the shifting intellectual landscape of Social Forces publications. We uncover a wide diversity of topics that shift over time reflecting the breadth of interests engaging sociologists as Social Forces grew into one of the discipline’s premier journals. In addition to shifts in content, we examine changes in sociological work during this century. We find that articles have generally become more interdisciplinary, while being produced by larger, more gender inclusive and globalized teams. We examine both the most cited papers in Social Forces as well as factors associated with greater recognition. The overall story implied by these explorations suggests a vibrant journal that has shaped the way that sociology has worked over the last 100 years.
... Several studies have documented the variability in title characteristics and how they affect an article's readership (20). Previous studies have examined titles' length and syntactic structures (21)(22)(23)(24), the use of question marks and semicolons (25), the prevalence of generic expressions (12), and the inclusion of country names (11). Our focus is on exploring the propensity to include geographical references in titles across geographies and subdisciplines of the social sciences. ...
Significance
Contemporary social sciences aim to be diverse and inclusive, but traces of the historical dominance of Western European and North American academic institutions persist in scientific practices. One such practice is the phrasing of article titles. Our analysis shows that articles studying the global North are systematically less likely to mention the name of the country they study in their title compared to articles on the global South. This constitutes, potentially, an unwarranted claim on universality and may lead to lesser recognition of global South studies. Social and behavioral scientists must reflect on the phrasing of their article titles to avoid reproducing harmful relations of intellectual domination which limit inclusivity and constitute a barrier to the generalizability of scientific knowledge.
... More information available in longer titles may account for a higher number of hits and citations. Indeed, research has shown that titles have been increasing in length over time (Hallock & Dillner, 2016;Moody, 2006;Whissell, 2012). Additionally, using a colon in a title is a way to convey more information about a study, and the use of colons in titles has also been investigated (Dillon, 1982;Hartley, 2007aHartley, , 2007bJamali & Nikzad, 2011;Lewison & Hartley, 2005;Whissell, 2012). ...
The title of an article is the first chance at catching a reader’s attention. We set to develop a list of title attributes that lead to attractive titles in psychology papers, which could then be used to help instruct undergraduate students on how to write good titles for their papers and projects. Currently, research into successful elements that comprise an effective title is generally limited to publication metrics (the number of hits and citations an article has). Here, we created and administered a survey to 99 undergraduate students to rate the effectiveness of titles of psychology papers that varied in length, use of colons, acronyms, clichés, being results-oriented, and phrased the title as a question. We then reworded these titles as the opposite choice (e.g., we made a longer title shorter or took the colon out of a title without changing the meaning or length). We found that participants significantly preferred long over short titles, titles containing colons over the absence of a colon, and titles phrased as questions. We hope our results aid in the instruction of writing in the discipline, and that undergraduate psychology students and authors alike can develop more effective and attractive titles to attract attention from scholars and invite broader audiences to read their work.
... Is it important to adhere to this 12-word maximum, or is it appropriate to deviate from the suggested limit? Title lengths have been increasing in several disciples, including psychology and sociology (Moody, 2006;Whissell, 2012). Our results are consistent and show that title length has been steadily increasing for over a hundred years. ...
The publication manual for the American Psychological Association (APA) suggests that title lengths do not exceed 12 words, yet journals do not prevent longer titles. Here, we examined title lengths in APA journals to see how many exceeded the APA's suggested limit. First, we conducted a systematic analysis of 235 articles in the current issues of 23 APA journals. A total of 52% of titles were more than 12 words long. Second, we examined articles from APA journals that were at least 50 years old to examine whether title lengths have changed over time. Our results suggested that the average title lengths have indeed increased with time. One of 2 courses should be taken. Perhaps science is becoming more complex that longer titles are needed in order to convey the primary message to the reader. If this is the case, then the APA's word limit should be increased. On the other hand, however, maybe editor and reviewers should try to enforce the current word limit to force writers to be succinct. Either way, editors should make their preferences clear so that the trend for longer titles does not continue unchecked. (PsycINFO Database Record
... For older articles we also referred to the main text, as their titles were shorter and therefore often not informative. Confirming existing observations on title length(Becker 2003;Moody 2006), we found that the average word length of titles almost doubled from about 6-7 words in the first half of the twentieth century to about 11-12 words in the 2000s. This finding should make one skeptical about the quality of bibliometric analyses based on key-word searches in titles only. ...
... Journal article titles have been getting longer over the past half century, for example in sociology 14 . ...
On reading the title of an article the reader can sometimes wonder what the author is trying to say, as the title seems so far removed from the research covered in the article. Do such authors forget that many readers of health and medical journals browse the list of contents (in a paper or electronic format) and use titles to select the article that attracts attention? Academic authors are often not clear enough in the titles of their articles, and hence may not attract as large a readership as possible. Any author would want their article to be read and cited, and to stand out in a crowded Table of Contents or a list of papers found in a search on electronic databases. Any article competes with an enormous volume of work and somehow it must stand out amongst all these millions of papers published globally. Our take-home message is that you must select the words in the title in such a way that it attracts attention otherwise your article will not get the visibility and citations it deserves.
Введение. Будучи одним из самых значимых элементов структурной организации эмпирической статьи, её заголовок имеет свои структурные, функциональные и стилистические особенности. Заголовок должен точно отражать суть исследования, оставаясь лаконичным и понятным для читателя. Формулирование заголовков является одним из самых сложных этапов написания научной статьи и, к сожалению, авторам не всегда удается добиться его эффективного прочтения. Отсюда необходимым является изучение стратегий конструирования заголовка научной статьи.Цель. Проанализировать структурные особенности заголовков научных статей и описать лучшие практики его конструирования.Материалы и методы. На основании анализа заголовков статей из российских журналов по пищевой и перерабатывающей промышленности за 2019–2022 год были выявлены наиболее распространенные стратегии формулирования заголовков научных статей у российских авторов.Результаты. Представлен анализ характеристик заголовков. Описаны стратегии формулирования заголовков. Проанализирован чек-лист и этапы формулирования заголовка. Даны комментарии относительно типичных недочетов при формулировании заголовка.Выводы. Материал данной редакционной статьи поможет авторам оптимизировать стратегии формулирования заголовков научных статей и будет способствовать их продвижению в наукометрических базах данных и повышению их цитируемости.
In an effort to de-silo the Business and Management Education (BME) field, this paper employs text mining and analysis techniques to derive information about the location of the intellectual focus of interest in economic education scholarship. We examine the abstracts of articles published in the leading economic education journal using digital humanities tools, finding evidence of a sustained volume of scholarship devoted to Instruction but also substantial change in the volume of Research, Content, and Features scholarship over time. Finally, we document frequency and patterns of keywords, and identify scholarly gaps offering potential opportunities for cross-collaboration within the BME field.
