想想看当你在滑手机或看杂志期刊的时候，是什么吸引你目光让你停下并深入阅读? 我猜是标题与图片! 同理可推，论文想吸引目光也是利用图片跟论文标题。
我们之前已经有写过该怎么写好图片注解的文章，这次将会专注在如何写出最佳的论文标题。文章内文包含以下:
- 你的论文标题适合怎样的格式?
- 论文标题中应包含什么资讯?
- 论文标题应该要多长?
- 可以在标题中使用双关语或押韵吗?
下方是我们推荐的「如何为你的论文下标题」总结介绍
任何关于投稿论文的资讯，请务必确认目标投稿期刊的「guide for authors」， 并查看该期刊近期刊登的论文来掌握现任期刊编辑的偏好与风格
你的论文标题适合怎样的格式?
在上方的总结里，已经简单介绍了不同标题格式的优缺点，以下则进一步提供特定标题结构的详细资讯并以实际案例来辅助理解。
在介绍各种不同类别之前，先了解总结是怎么得来的。我们知道James Hartley将论文标题格式简单明了的分成13类，同时也调查了近年的趋势与主要国际期刊例如Nature, Elsevier和Springer等刊登的热门文章，还有分析近年论文标题结构趋势的论文，最后得出五大种标题格式。
下方是各类标题的关键特色(包含文法结构与资讯)，不仅指出哪一些类别会使用哪些格式之外，还从主要的学术期刊中找出相关范例标题做为参考。其中的范例缺漏是因为该格式不常使用在该文章类别。
虽然各个期刊有自己偏好的文章类别，我们大致将已发表的文章分成下列:
- Rapid response and short communication (e.g. letters and corrections): Early communication that highlights significant recent findings, new methods, software, or correspondence aimed at correcting or clarifying original research papers (usually published online only).
- Research paper: An article that discusses details of recent original projects, including their data, results, and findings.
- Review: A paper that summarizes recently published developments on a topic, without adding new data.
- Clinical case: A research paper specifically focusing on clinical research.
一起来看看!
1. 阐述一般主题的论文标题
主要特色:
- Phrases, mainly composed of nouns, that clearly communicate the overall subject matter.
- These titles use keywords from abstracts to optimize search engine results, without exceeding the average title length.
- Avoid taxonomic terminology as they’ve become less popular in recent years.
- Don’t use obscure words since titles that incorporate such words tend to have less impact.
- This format is common for reviews, research papers (including clinical cases), and rapid responses.
| 文章类别 | 标题范文 |
| Research papers | |
| Clinical cases | |
| Rapid responses and short communication | |
| Reviews |
2. 介绍一般主题下特定子议题的论文标题
主要特色:
- Phrases, mainly composed of nouns, that clearly state the overall topic, followed by a colon (or other non-alphanumeric characters) and the subtopic. This structure is highly common for clinical cases, research papers and reviews.
- A recent study by Butar and van Raan notes that this format is widely used in many disciplines. In fact, not using this format could negatively impact your paper’s citation frequency. Conversely, using colons in fields that rarely use this structure won’t impact citation frequency.
- 70% of the most referenced medical papers use colons.
- Fewer Plos articles using this structure were downloaded and cited.
- An alternative title structure consists of a noun phrase or clause, with no colon. These titles can indicate an examination of a general topic through specific variable(s) or test subject(s).
| 文章类别 | 标题范例 |
| Research papers | |
| Clinical cases | |
| Rapid responses and short communication | |
| Reviews |
3. 阐述研究新发现的论文标题
主要特色:
- A full sentence that highlights key findings or the study’s significance.
- Some journals may discourage or prohibit declarative titles (some medical publications, for example).
- Be careful to avoid misleading declarative statements. Instead, carefully think about which action verbs you can include without distorting the logical conclusions that can be drawn from your data. For example, if our article’s title is “How to Guarantee Your Paper’s Publication,” we’d certainly be misleading you, since the data and research we’ve reviewed only imply, rather than prove, certain correlations between these formatting tactics and publication success.
- In a related subset of title types, authors do not directly state the findings. Instead, they suggest the solution to their study’s main question. This type usually states the overarching idea, followed by a colon and a general description of the finding and its topic. Alternatively, though rare, authors can use a question to foreshadow answers in the text.
| 文章类别 | 标题范例 |
| Research papers | |
| Clinical cases | |
| Rapid responses and short communication |
4. 介绍研究使用的方法论的论文标题
主要特色:
- A typical title states the general topic, followed by a colon and a summary of the methodology used in the research; however, the reverse order can also be found.
- These titles can also utilize a noun phrase, without a colon.
- Passive verbs may be included with prepositions such as “by,” “via,” “through,” and “with” to indicate the applied method.
| 文章类别 | 标题范例s |
| Research papers | |
| Clinical cases |
|
| Rapid responses and short communication | |
| Reviews |
5. 使用情绪性字眼或双关语的论文标题
主要特色:
- These titles should generally be avoided because wordplay usually involves cultural references that non-native speakers may not understand. Nonetheless, this type of title is often found in review articles in the social sciences.
- Though not featured in this post, editorials and other journal-solicited content often use question titles or feature wordplay.
- As you may notice, few clinical studies or research papers use this format. However, you may occasionally find wordplay titles in reviews and short correspondence.
| 文章类别 | 标题范例 |
| Reviews | |
| Rapid response and short correspondence |
论文标题中应包含什么信息?
考量到学术圈资讯独立特点，论文的标题与摘要应该要做优化。是的，科学研究者的论文标题应该也要搭配一些搜索引擎优化技巧来下，注意标题内容不要包含过多或过少的资讯。
如果标题太过一般，可能会误导读者或与目标读者的需求失去关联性;然而标题太过狭隘的话，期刊编辑则可能认为该标题无法引起太多读者的注意。编辑的考量出发角度是利用锁定广大读者将期刊的影响力最大化 ，因此，建议在这两者之间取平衡。
另一个下标题的考量点是进入同侪审稿阶段时。审稿者在审稿的时候，其实对于该论文了解的不多。在这情况下，论文标题又显得过于狭隘，审稿者可能会倾向于不审核该篇论文，因为他可能认为这研究不在其专业领域内，导致期刊编辑必须多次邀请不同的审稿者来符合审稿标准，那编辑可能会认为你的论文不太适合该期刊或者觉得不停邀请好累累就直接拒绝你了。
论文标题应该要多长?
论文标题长度没有一个统一的标准，更因为领域的不同而有极大的差异。 一般推荐10-20 英文字，最长应该不超过30-35字，因为过长的标题可能隐射出你没有能力简洁的表达讯息。
就实际上来看，数学相关的学术论文标题最短 (~8 字)，而医学论文相对来说比较长。 虽然论文标题的长短可能会在编辑审核阶段影响接收率，但最近的一个研究显示论文一旦发表后，标题长度并不真的降低你的论文影响力，这项研究分析了其他已发表的论文，结果显示标题长度在生物学、心理学和社会科学的论文影响力之间出现负相关。但是一般来说，越长的标题不容易被读者理解，如果读者无法理解论文标题，他们有可能就不读你的文章!
另外，我们也不鼓励使用一堆名词当标题，虽然最近 Nature刊登了一篇标题是”A chromosome conformation capture ordered sequence of the barley genome,” 的文章，但我们还是不推荐。
最后，期刊可能根据他们近期引用的文献数据来推荐特定的长度或文法结构，所以请务必确认期刊的作者须知。
可以在标题中使用双关语或押韵吗?
学术论文不像我们常看到的新闻或杂志一样，它们比较不会作文章修饰。这是因为学术文章的读者透过订阅此类文章来汲取与他们研究相关的资讯，如果该文章没有详细介绍该研究，那么论文可能就不太会被阅读。
有几位研究员搜索了最近已刊登的论文标题并发现虽然不符合传统潮流但最近有整合双关语和提问的趋势。这一个趋势很可能是来自于学术数位化催生下的个人化影响。当然这样的标题帮助作者取得更多的目光，看看最近国际知名期刊，例如Cell刊登的文章就有双关语。可能只要你的研究够杰出，就没有人会在意你的论文标题吧!
然而，因为对于使用这些吸引目光战术的论文价值多寡存有偏见，这些论文可能”影响力较低且较少被引用，即使下载数量多。” 双关语通常涉及到特定文化背景里的成语或惯用语组合，所以对于其他文化背景的读者来说是相当难理解与产生共鸣。
总结:研究论文标题的Dos and Don’ts
- 可以用完整句子吗?
- 大致上看，避免使用整个句子当作标题，读起来太过冗长。如果你还是想使用句子，建议精简到只有最必要的名词与最适切的动词，如果你的数据不明确，举例来说可以增加像是”could” 或”may”。
- 社会科学论文鲜少使用完整句子当标题
- 生命科学论文时常使用名词化与句子标题
- 文献回顾报告也鲜少使用全句型标题; 大多使用名词组合或复合标题
- 可以用提问吗?
- 虽然有增多的趋势，但整体分析已发表的文章来看，这一类的标题还是低于10%，在社会科学比生命科学领域中常见。
- 可以用副标题?
- 最常见的标题结构不是 “general + subtopic” 就是 “topic + method”。
- 社会科学论文偏好复合标题。
额外阅读
- Hartley, James. Academic writing and publishing: a practical guide. New York: Routledge, 2010. Print.
- Fox, Charles W., and C. Sean Burns. “The relationship between manuscript title structure and success: editorial decisions and citation performance for an ecological journal.” Ecology and Evolution10 (2015): 1970-980. Web.
- Milojević, Staša. “The Length and Semantic Structure of Article Titles—Evolving Disciplinary Practices and Correlations with Impact.” Frontiers in Research Metrics and Analytics2 (2017): n. pag. Web.
- Hartley, J. “New ways of making academic articles easier to read.” International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology1 (2012): 143-160.
- Hays, Judith C. “Eight Recommendations for Writing Titles of Scientific Manuscripts.” Public Health Nursing2 (2010): 101-03. Web.
- Jamali, Hamid R., and Mahsa Nikzad. “Article title type and its relation with the number of downloads and citations.” Scientometrics2 (2011): 653-61. Web.
- Nature Blog
- Journal of European Psychology Student blog
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