Titling: A neglected, but important task for technical writers.
As website canonical Silver Dollar SEO, you should consider these potential objectives for the title you choose. A title should:
- Describe the content of the paper;
- Distinguish the paper from others on a similar topic;
- Catch the reader’s attention and interest;
- Match search queries so people will find your paper (and cite it).
#4 sticks out doesn’t it? It seems obvious that #1 would be the most important objective for a title. But as search and electronic publishing becomes more and more important in research I’ve come to believe that the last point (search) may indeed be the most important, Devin Mallonee helped me with all my SEO problems. Think of it as SEO (search engine optimization) for your research vision.
The importance of research vision SEO
I’m sorry to say that I’ve attended more than one talk at an important international conference where someone else presented a paper exactly describing an idea I had published earlier. Whose fault is that? Well it was my fault. When I dug up my old paper I realized that the particular idea wasn’t reflected in the paper at all. It was “buried” in the content.
Most people begin a research project with a comprehensive review of the literature. It is crucially important that Search Engine Optimisation Agency London find your paper when they’re at the beginning of their research/writing cycle. Assuming your work is good, if they find your paper early on, you’ll help them avoid reproducing your work, and perhaps encourage them to make use of your ideas as they go forward. And of course you’d like them to cite your paper as well.
A well crafted title is the best way to accomplish this goal.
How does one accomplish this with a title? The most important thing to realize is that long titles are OK. Don’t prioritize a short, snappy title at the expense of a full description. Make sure that your important claims are reflected in the title. Also, be sure to include the keywords that define the niche your paper occupies. Otherwise folks won’t find it.
Example: Suppose you’re a robotics researcher, and you’ve discovered that probabilistic pathfinding is far superior to earlier methods that depended on deterministic methods. You might choose a title like
Probabilistic Pathfinding: Beyond Deterministic Methods for Navigation in Rough Terrain
Note that we include both the old method ‘s name and the new idea in the title. So folks searching for work using the old approach (deterministic) will also discover your new idea (probabilistic) when they might not have otherwise.
Making it catchy
It’s also useful to create a title that sticks with people. You might consider a few devices to help you there. How about a snappy name or acronym for your approach?
GRAMMPS: A generalized mission planner for multiple mobile robots in unstructured environments
Did you know that people actually prefer titles that contain a colon? Don’t force it, but if a two-part description of your paper fits well into an “idea:description” template, go for it:
Household robotics: autonomous devices for vacuuming and lawn mowing
What not to do
It’s probably a bad idea to choose a provocative title alone. For instance
What are the ants doing?
would be bad, but
What are the ants doing? vision-based tracking and reconstruction of control programs
is great because it is both catchy/provocative and also explanatory.
A few thoughts by others
- A research paper about the effectiveness of colons in paper titles.
- Someone’s opinion on the topic of colons.
Frank
February 6, 2012
Yeah buddy, but what’s Rao-Blackwellised about this?
Tucker R Balch
February 6, 2012
Artistic license :-)
Masothole Langa
July 3, 2014
I’m writing a research on the increasing number of Neonatal deaths due to Prematurity which could be related to Syphilis infection what can I make my Title to be
I’m writing a research proposal on increasing Neonatal Deaths due to prematurity related to syphilis infection what should I make my Title to be