WordviceHow to Make a Research Paper Title with Examples

Aug 5, 2023 

 450,677

How to Make a Research Paper Title with Examples

 Wordvice HJ







How-to-Write-a-Title-for-Your-Research-Paper

What is a research paper title and why does it

matter?
A research paper title summarizes the aim and purpose of your research study.
Making a title for your research is one of the most important decisions when
writing an article to publish in journals. The research title is the first thing that
journal editors and reviewers see when they look at your paper and the only piece
of information that fellow researchers will see in a database or search engine
query. Good titles that are concise and contain all the relevant terms have been
shown to increase citation counts and Altmetric scores.

Therefore, when you title research work, make sure it captures all of the relevant
aspects of your study, including the specific topic and problem being investigated.
It also should present these elements in a way that is accessible and will captivate
readers. Follow these steps to learn how to make a good research title for your
work.
How to Make a Research Paper Title in 5 Steps
You might wonder how you are supposed to pick a title from all the content that
your manuscript contains—how are you supposed to choose? What will make your
research paper title come up in search engines and what will make the people in
your field read it? 

In a nutshell, your research title should accurately capture what you have done, it
should sound interesting to the people who work on the same or a similar topic,
and it should contain the important title keywords that other researchers use
when looking for literature in databases. To make the title writing process as
simple as possible, we have broken it down into 5 simple steps.

Step 1: Answer some key questions about your research

paper
What does your paper seek to answer and what does it accomplish? Try to answer
these questions as briefly as possible. You can create these questions by going
through each section of your paper and finding the MOST relevant information to
make a research title.

Research question One-sentence answer

“My paper studies how program volume affects

“What is my paper about?”  
outcomes for liver transplant patients on waiting lists.”

“What methods/techniques did I use

“It’s a case study.”
to perform my study?

“What or who was the subject of my “I studied 60 cases of liver transplant patients on a
study?”  waiting list throughout the US aged 20-50 years.”
 “My study revealed a positive correlation between
“What did I find?” waitlist volume and negative prognosis of transplant
procedure.”

Step 2: Identify research study keywords

Now that you have answers to your research questions, find the most important
parts of these responses and make these your study keywords. Note that you
should only choose the most important terms for your keywords–journals usually
request anywhere from 3 to 8 keywords maximum.

One-sentence answer Title keywords/phrases

-program volume
“My paper studies how program volume affects
-liver transplant patients
outcomes for liver transplant patients on waiting
-waiting lists
lists.”
-outcomes

“This is a case study.” -case study

“I studied 60 cases of liver transplant patients on a

-US/age 20-50
waiting list throughout the US aged 20-50 years.”
-60 cases

“My study revealed a positive correlation between

waitlist volume and negative prognosis of transplant -positive correlation between waitlist
procedure.” volume and negative outcomes
Step 3: Research title writing: use these keywords

“We employed a case study of 60 liver transplant patients around the US aged 20-50
years to assess how waiting list volume affects the outcomes of liver transplantation in
patients; results indicate a positive correlation between increased waiting list volume
and negative prognosis after the transplant procedure.”

The sentence above is clearly much too long for a research paper title. This is why
you will trim and polish your title in the next two steps.

Step 4: Create a working research paper title

To create a working title, remove elements that make it a complete “sentence” but
keep everything that is important to what the study is about. Delete all
unnecessary and redundant words that are not central to the study or that
researchers would most likely not use in a database search.

“We employed  a case study of 60 liver transplant patients around the US aged 20-50
years to assess how  the  waiting list volume affects  the  outcome
of  liver  transplantation  in patients;  results indicate a  positive correlation between
increased waiting list volume and a negative prognosis  after transplant procedure”

Now shift some words around for proper syntax and rephrase it a bit to shorten
the length and make it leaner and more natural. What you are left with is:

“A case study of 60 liver transplant patients around the US aged 20-50 years assessing
the impact of waiting list volume on outcome of transplantation and showing a positive
correlation between increased waiting list volume and a negative prognosis”  (Word
Count: 38)

This text is getting closer to what we want in a research title, which is just the most
important information. But note that the word count for this working title is still 38
words, whereas the average length of published journal article titles is 16 words or
fewer. Therefore, we should eliminate some words and phrases that are not
essential to this title.

Step 5: Remove any nonessential words and phrases

from your title
Because the number of patients studied and the exact outcome are not the most
essential parts of this paper, remove these elements first:

  “A case study of  60  liver transplant patients  around the US aged 20-50
years  assessing the impact of waiting list volume on outcomes of transplantation  and
showing a positive correlation between increased  waiting list volume and a
negative  prognosis” (Word Count: 19)

In addition, the methods used in a study are not usually the most searched-for
keywords in databases and represent additional details that you may want to
remove to make your title leaner. So what is left is:

“Assessing the impact of waiting list volume on outcome and prognosis in liver
transplantation patients” (Word Count: 15)

In this final version of the title, one can immediately recognize the subject and
what objectives the study aims to achieve. Note that the most important terms
appear at the beginning and end of the title: “Assessing,” which is the main action
of the study, is placed at the beginning; and “liver transplantation patients,” the
specific subject of the study, is placed at the end.

This will aid significantly in your research paper title being found in search engines
and database queries, which means that a lot more researchers will be able to
locate your article once it is published. In fact, a 2014 review of more than 150,000
papers submitted to the UK’s Research Excellence Framework (REF) database
found the style of a paper’s title impacted the number of citations it would typically
receive. In most disciplines, articles with shorter, more concise titles yielded more
citations.
Adding a Research Paper Subtitle
If your title might require a subtitle to provide more immediate details about your
methodology or sample, you can do this by adding this information after a colon:

“ : a case study of US adult patients ages 20-25”

If we abide strictly by our word count rule this may not be necessary or
recommended. But every journal has its own standard formatting and style
guidelines for research paper titles, so it is a good idea to be aware of the
specific journal author instructions, not just when you write the manuscript but
also to decide how to create a good title for it.

Research Paper Title Examples

The title examples in the following table illustrate how a title can be interesting but
incomplete, complete by uninteresting, complete and interesting but too informal
in tone, or some other combination of these. A good research paper title should
meet all the requirements in the four columns below.

Research
Summarize Reflect Important
Paper Title Captivating? Concise?
s Content s Tone? Keywords?
Examples

Advantages of
Meditation for
Nurses: A Yes No No Yes Yes
Longitudinal
Study

Why Focused No Yes Yes No Yes

Nurses Have
the Highest
Nursing
 Results

A Meditation
Study Aimed
No No No No Yes
at Hospital
Nurses

Mindfulness
on the Night
Shift: A
Longitudinal
Study on the Yes Yes Yes Yes No
Impacts of
Meditation on
Nurse
Productivity

Injective
Mindfulness:
Quantitative
Measurement
Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
s of
Medication on
Nurse
Productivity

Tips on Formulating a Good Research Paper Title

In addition to the steps given above, there are a few other important things you
want to keep in mind when it comes to how to write a research paper title,
regarding formatting, word count, and content:

 Write the title after you’ve written your paper and abstract
  Include all of the essential terms in your paper

 Keep it short and to the point (~16 words or fewer)

 Avoid unnecessary jargon and abbreviations

 Use keywords that capture the content of your paper

 Never include a period at the end—your title is NOT a sentence

Research Paper Writing Resources

We hope this article has been helpful in teaching you how to craft your research
paper title. But you might still want to dig deeper into different journal title
formats and categories that might be more suitable for specific article types or
need help with writing a cover letter for your manuscript submission.

In addition to getting English proofreading services, including paper editing

services, before submission to journals, be sure to visit our academic
resources papers. Here you can find dozens of articles on manuscript writing,
from drafting an outline to finding a target journal to submit to.