Researchers and students often find the difficulty of coming up with a catchy title. If not catchy, then a succinct, and proper research title is what they need. Researchers often find writing a research title difficult, and time consuming as well. Many people make mistakes while writing their research title, and end up disappointing the readers. Your title is the key to your research paper. It leads to your research paper, and lets the reader know what the paper is about as well. If the title is not relevant and concise, the reader will not pay heed to the content. Thus, to convey a clear message and to appeal to your readers, you need to write the correct title. Follow this article to know things you should avoid while writing your research title.
While searching for past literature on a research topic, you skip all the papers that seem irrelevant. By irrelevant, it means that you read the research title and realised it is not related to the topic. So, what made you skip those papers was the title. Your title serves as your storefront. If it does not pique your reader’s interest, they will stop reading. So always ensure that you don’t make these frequent errors. You can get help from best PhD dissertation writing services if you don’t know how to create a good research title.
Frequent Errors You Should Avoid While Writing Your Research Title:
Contradiction In Research Title And Content
One of the major mistakes that researchers often make is writing a research title opposite to the aim of study. When there is a contradiction between the content of research and the title, there is an error. Your reader is curious about what you introduced to the profession. It is not sufficient to simply hint at the overall issue area. It is also critical to understand your key message for this. In fact, an apt title is critical for the entire paper writing process. The major flaw in a title is that it is separated from reality of the study it’s implying. The reader feels disappointed because what was promised has not been achieved.
Lengthy And Detailed Title
A research title should be no more than 5 to 15 words. It should be succinct, and to the point. Yet, researchers often make a mistake and write lengthy titles that contain too many details. This occurs when people try to jam in far too much material, or when they’re unsure of their key point. Authors may sometimes attempt to convey many points rather than emphasising on one. You should specify the topic, and scope of the research precisely.
Similarly, a research title that is too short like “Republic Day Speech” is also a mistake that authors should avoid.
It Is Vague
If you give a title that is not descriptive, your audience will not know if your research has the information they need. Hence it is important to strike a balance between being generic enough for your audience. And specific enough to express your major point. It is also vital to be descriptive in your title for searching reasons. Ensure including the most significant keywords within your research title. For example, “A systematic review based on the relationship between traumatic events, and mental trauma”. This title seems too vague, lengthy, and unstructured. Here, you need to mention what traumatic event are you focusing on. The title then should be, “Exploring the relationship between child sexual abuse and mental trauma”.
Too Many Punctuations
By framing your title as an inquiry, you just communicate your research topic. But your research title lacks the primary point of inquiry in this scenario. When people use punctuation like colon or hyphen in their title, they give too much detail. Or they often choose a term that is too wide, and comprehensive. For example, “Investigating the correlation between paranoid schizophrenia and employment status: A psychology study”. Here, the research title is not just lengthy and unspecific, but includes unnecessary punctuation.
Too Many Nouns
You just have a few moments to tell your readers about your research. Thus, it is critical to make things simple for them. The reader will take longer to read, and grasp your title if it is packed with nouns instead of verbs. Odds are that your reader will abandon your article without even reading it. Yet not all publications allow the use of verbs. Such as, “Examining the difference between men and women in eating junk food in the UK”. So you need to keep a balance between the number of nouns and verbs in your research title.
Unnecessary Conjunctions
Use of irrelevant filler words in your research title not only makes it boring but worthy of rejection too. Your aim is to keep your title as minimal as possible. So you need to avoid terms like “A systematic literature review of, an observation of”. Also, you need to avoid filler words like as, in, on, of. Rather, clearly explain what you noticed, and what your research discovered. You need to be explicit about your research outcome as well.
Acronyms In The Research Title
Avoid using abbreviations for any term except the terms that are already in acronyms such as AIDS, and HIV. As a rule of thumb, you should always spell out the acronyms. If your reader does not understand what an acronym implies, they are more likely to throw away your paper. No one wants to undertake further research. Having said that, it is important to understand your audience in this context. There might be some acronyms in academic writing that the readers of that journal might know about.
Informal Research Title
You should consider the journal’s readership while writing a paper. If it is going to address scientists, healthcare workers, and professors at the same time. You must also ensure that everyone understands your research title. Just make sure your title is not too broad, and that it conveys your unique outcome as well.
It Is Not As Per The Journal Guidelines
You must stick to the journal’s guidelines that you’re writing for. Many journals have precise criteria or suggestions about how lengthy a title should be. They have set guidelines about what a title can, and cannot include as well. Just like Springer has specific guidelines for systematic reviews, and meta-analyses studies.
This article covers all the things you should avoid while writing your research article. So follow these points to avoid disappointing your readers.
