Seven Seconds or Less: Buzzwordy Titles in the Era of MOFs and Tinder

In the digital age, perhaps the single most critical item in any scientific paper is the title. There is near-universal agreement that the title is your article’s “first impression,” and as the old adage goes, you only get one. Traditionally speaking, this first impression arises from a table of contents listing, or a citation within another paper. Indeed, if your article is cited by others, typically the title is the only actual content that appears in a reference along with authors and journal information—one can’t determine whether the paper is relevant from the DOI! More recently, authors must position their article titles among the barrage of information feeds a contemporary academic is subjected. Manually looking at journal websites? Typically, you encounter titles, authors, and graphical abstracts in a long listing of articles “Online Now.” Searching for topics via Google Scholar or Scopus? Again, a listing of titles (sorted by your preference of most recent or most cited, of course). Why did I put MOFs in the title of this editorial? Of interest, we track the link usage in much of our marketing materials, and articles with MOFs (aka metal-organic frameworks) in the title drive more traffic and article downloads. This is clearly due to the recent prevalence of and interest in MOF-oriented works—but maybe this editorial will get a few more clicks and reads as well. I’m hoping more people read this work if I namedrop “MOFs.” Did I trick you? Admittedly, the inclusion of Tinder is non-research-related clickbait (we’ll get to that). The point is the title is an attempt to gain the reader’s attention. The title should tell your audience whether they want to spend more time with your paper. In that respect, the title is like a dating profile picture—a succinct representation that (unfortunately) others will judge at face value, as there are plenty of other options. I recently came across a blogpost that stated Tinder (a popular dating app) users swipe right (or left) in seven seconds or less. Seven seconds! Seven seconds is all it takes to decide whether the profile is attractive. How much time do you expect an academic to consider your paper among an ocean of papers? How can one ensure authors find your work among your peers’? A good title. While there are some general types of title “categories” in the literature, there are basically four subsets: (1) what you investigated (descriptive), (2) what you found (declarative), (3) how you did it (method), and (4) other. By far, (1) and (2) are the most utilized in the physical sciences. These types simply communicate the general topic and/or findings in a concise manner. The most common examples are descriptive “what you investigated” titles. For example, a general subject-focused title could be “Machine Learning Optimization of Unobtainium” but that doesn’t give me much detail about the article. A more detailed title could be “Machine Learning Optimization of Unobtainium for Transport Properties in Planar-Heterojunction Solar Cells.” There is a balance between generality and informative, as general titles tend to be more attractive to the larger audience but can be too broad to convey the works’ focus. The level of specificity in the title depends on the intended audience and significance of the findings—typically, more impactful studies can get away with high-level titles, as the implications are more extensive and of interest to a wider audience. More generalized titles are also the standard protocol for review articles, which serve a slightly different purpose. The second most common approach is to state the main findings of the study, i.e., declarative or “what you found” titles. Such a title could be “30% Efficient Unobtainium Solar Cells.” Here, the key numerical value—30% efficiency—is stated in the title. Be wary of quantitative claims, however, as they can serve to functionally repudiate the result if the value is improved upon in future works (30% doesn’t look as enticing if state-of-the-art achieves 50%). It could instead be a qualitative statement, such as “Increased Efficiency,” which serves the same purpose. Finally, there are titles that state the methodology used, be it experimental or computational, i.e., “Dislocation Mobility in Unobtainium via Cryo-EM.” As a general rule, mention the method used if the technique is the main focus of the paper—i.e., the characterization approach is the primary novelty, conceptual advancement, or innovation. You can also include it if you are targeting a particular audience (machine learning is a current hot topic, for example). Make a simple consideration: if the method terminology is dropped from the title, would it still attract the intended audience? If the answer is yes, you don’t need to include the methods. If you do include it, be specific—adding terms like “a first principles investigation” or “via experimental and computational approaches” convey little useful information and are likely superfluous. The final title category is “other,” which encapsulates the somewhat more creative approach to a title—those with emotional appeal or wordplay. Personally, I am supportive of such creative titles, and some authors are more adept at them than others. However, the community is split: the traditional advice is to avoid any titles that are interrogative or include puns and wit. Interrogative studies are simply “question” titles, i.e., “Does Unobtainium Make Hybrid Composites Tougher?”. Likely, they phrase the hypothesis of the study and provide a nice jumping off point for discussions. Save such titles for conference presentations. The interrogative form hints at the finding but is less concrete and disparaged by some writers and journals. In fact, an interrogative “question title” leads to uncertainty and is a common writing trope known as Hinchliffe’s Rule: any title that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word “no”. As with similar “laws” (e.g., Murphy’s law), it is intended to be humorous rather than the literal truth. Be safe—avoid phrasing the title as a question. Finally, what about your razor-sharp wit and unappreciated dad humor? The use of more abstract or creative titles can serve to be an eye-catcher. In the era of academic social media self-promotion, everyone is fighting for attention. Questions, wordplay, and other witty titles are on the rise but still uncommon. Papers using these titles drive downloads but have been shown to garner less citations. Attempting such titles outside of editorial content is a risk—it limits the information conveyed to the audience (missed opportunity), the pun and/or witty allusion may not be understood universally (particularly to those who don’t speak the same primary language or with the same cultural background), and the seriousness of the science may be undermined (although we could all probably use more levity in the field). Besides, overly clever or punny titles will not fare well with search engines. Write at your own risk. Cave scriptor! A discussion of titles is incomplete unless one talks about length. Indeed, too short a title is not helpful to the potential reader. Too long a title can sometimes be even less meaningful. Remember a title is not an abstract—you don’t need to include everything. Titles should be composed of the fewest possible words that adequately describe the contents of the paper, i.e., as simple as possible, but no simpler. If you need motivation, multiple studies have shown that shorter titles receive more citations—most recommend 10 to 15 words or between 31 and 40 characters. However, you also need to provide enough information in your title to make your study unique. It’s not an easy task. A concise but descriptive title aids readers finding your article with an electronic search—be judicious in the chosen words. Keywords are critical for researchers to find your article when they use search engines. Some ranking algorithms for scientific papers place higher weighting on keywords in titles, and then abstract, and then the manuscript body when ranking results. Ask yourself, if you wanted to find similar works, what words would you search for? Try and avoid abbreviations or jargon in your title, which also tend to obfuscate search engines. Need to shorten your title? Make sure to leave out unnecessary filler words such as “effects of,” “comparison of,” or “a case of.” Avoid waste words like “studies on” or “investigations on.” It’s a manuscript—we already know it’s an investigation on something. Similarly, do no use “A Review” in the title of a review. Try and avoid using excess punctuation: i.e., no excess colons, hyphens, commas, or terms in “quotations” or (parentheses). Do not use terms such as “novel,” “first time,” or “unprecedented” unless you are absolutely sure no one has published anything similar. These terms are red flags for reviewers and editors. Chances are a precedent exists. Trust me. Ultimately, all of these suggestions are subjective. It is your choice what to call your paper, but you should be able to justify it to the editor! A good method to produce a title is to write a single sentence that describes the key findings or significance of the study, and then strip that sentence down to the bare minimum meaningful phrase. Play around with it—get your colleagues to help! Write five or six options, mix them up, play Mad Libs, be creative. Taking the time to choose the strongest title for your manuscript can make a good impression during peer review and lead to more readers. At the end of the day, the title should be concise but informative, accurately reflecting the content, aims, and scope of the paper. Selecting the title interesting is a balancing act. Just remember—rather than click-baity title, choose a click-worthy title. Make it seven seconds worthwhile.