Before researchers start work on a new topic, they need to look at the past work done in the same field. Of course, they cannot read all the work that has been published so they make do with title scanning, a routine activity that involves checking lists of titles and deciding whether the content of the paper as a whole is important or not for their research. Thus, the title acts as a hook and researchers often decide to read a paper (or at least move on to read the abstract) on the sole basis of the information provided in it.

Although the final project you write for your bachelor’s or master’s degree has no need to hook an audience – after all, you probably have a captive audience of only a handful of people (your tutor, supervisor and examiners) – you should still respect the marketing/advertising function of the title. As Helen Sword says in Stylish Academic Writing, “Like a hat on a head or the front door to a house, the title of an academic article offers a powerful first impression.” Work done in the social sciences will only get noticed if researchers can compose a title that is sufficiently attractive to stand out from others and sufficiently informative to encourage potential readers to pick up and read the whole paper. And the title of your work will immediately reveal to your supervisor whether you have understood the demands and conventions of your chosen discipline. A good title, then, attracts readers to your text, informs them of the content of your work and shows them that you are part of their community.

According to Viviana Soler, science titles come in four different types: nominal, compound, questions and full-sentence (Soler, 2007). Nevertheless, questions are rare (only 1% of all titles) and full-sentence titles are generally found only in biology and medicine, so here we shall focus on the first two types.

The following might be an appropriate nominal title.


Firstly, note that the title is given what is known as title-style capitalization. That is to say, the first word and all nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs are capitalized, but the articles, conjunctions and prepositions are not. Secondly, it is a sentence fragment, not a full sentence, based on noun phrases. And thirdly, it is ‘indicative’ in that it merely indicates what the paper discusses but gives no information about the findings or the methodology.

The title is interesting because it is a good example of a standard approach to research in the social and behavioural sciences: the use of dependent and independent variables as a way of discovering meaningful results. In studies of this type, the variables need to be identified in the title so that potential readers get an immediate understanding of which ones are going to be analysed. In this case, the research focuses on one independent variable (physical exercise) that may or may not have an effect on a dependent variable (self-esteem). Note that the opposite effect is not possible; the dependent variable cannot have an effect on the independent variable, so the title is effective because it clearly identifies the two variables that are the object of study.

It is also possible to have a title with just one variable.


Likewise, a study may focus on so many variables that they cannot all be named in the title. In this case, name only the type of variable. If you are studying how the attitudes of adolescent girls towards alcohol are affected by whether they live in an urban or rural environment, their socioeconomic status, their ethnic group or their religion, you will have to refer to all these background factors as “demographic variables”.


The titles above are also effective for other reasons. They are specific but also reasonably short. If you are a researcher in the social sciences you need to strike a balance between including as much detail as possible while still keeping your title short. Another positive feature is that they delimit the scope of the research (to young male adults in the first instance and adolescent girls in the second and third).

The titles above are good ones in the sense that they are short and specific, they identify the variables that are the focus of the study, and they define the population analysed. However, it is possible to include even more information that can be useful for potential readers.

Consider the following title.


The title is still nominal but, unlike the other titles above, it is also compound: that is to say, it consists of two sentence fragments based on noun phrases joined by a colon. The first phrase gives a general description of the subject, which the second phrase explains in more detail. It has all the good points of the titles discussed above:

• It is short (although not as short as two of the three titles above).
  
  
• It is specific (it identifies the variables that are the object of study).
  
  
• It limits the scope of the study (to the population of young adult males).

It also has other positive features:

• It locates the dependent variable (self-esteem) prominently in initial position, thus indicating that this is the main focus of the study.
  
  
• It indicates what the findings were (positive effects).
  
  
• It gives information about the study design (three-month physical-exercise programme).

The compound title offers a wide range of possibilities to researchers who are looking for attractive, informative titles for their research texts. Here are some ways in which you can use compound titles to maximum effect. The practice is to make some sort of general statement in the first phrase and then qualify that statement in the second. There are at least four ways of doing this.

The second phrase limits the scope of a general research topic announced in the first.


The second phrase focuses on the work of a particular individual or the repercussions of a particular event.


The second phrase identifies the methodology or the techniques used.



The second phrase provides a context or explanation for a provocative, imaginative or literary quote or phrase in the first, as in the two original titles below.


As well as all the factors discussed above, when writing your title bear in mind that it is the single most important phrase in your study, so make sure you give it the time and effort it deserves. Write a working title early in the research process. It can help focus your efforts in much the same way as clearly defining the research problem can and, by constantly referring back to it, you can keep your research and your writing on track. However, although you may write your title early on, you will probably revise and modify it during the research process and only submit a final version once the research is complete.

You should also decide which word is the most important and, if possible, place it prominently in initial position.

Write terms out in full. Do not use abbreviations or acronyms because they often have different meanings in different fields. For example, CDA means critical discourse analysis in linguistics, child development accounts in sociology, correlated double amplification in electronics, combined damage assessment in medicine, conventional depot antipsychotics in psychiatry and child dental anxiety in dentistry. Searching for this acronym online, then, will not be useful because the search results will include texts on different topics from a multiplicity of disciplines.

Finally, as for punctuation, as in all other ambits do not finish a title with a point.