Original scientific paper
Titles of Articles in Human Movement Science Journals
Marta Medved Krajnović
Darija Omrčen
Abstract
The role of academic journals is well recognized by the members of scientifi c community.
Consequently, the titles of articles published in them are also of importance
since, by refl ecting the contents of articles, they consequently mirror the scientifi c
inquiry done in a particular scientifi c discipline. The aim of our study was to identify
possible diff erences in terms of structure and type of information conveyed in the
654 titles of articles published in two diff erent human movement science journals –
Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport and Kinesiology. The titles were analysed as
regards their structural construction and the type of information that they present
to prospective readers. The structural construction categories addressed the total of
six groups: nominal group titles, compound titles (subsuming the nominal group/
nominal group combinations), full-sentence titles, question titles, compound titles
consisting of a nominal group and a question, and compound titles consisting of a
nominal group and a full sentence. Additional six groups were formed in terms of
information that a title presents to a reader – the actual subject matt er of research
without any additional information; both the subject matt er of research and the information
regarding a sample; the subject matt er of research complemented by an
information on a relation (eff ect, comparison, infl uence, diff erence, etc.) between the
phenomena observed; the subject of research supplemented by information both on
a relation between the phenomena and on the sample; the subject matt er extended
by information on statistical method(s) used; and the subject matt er accompanied by
information both on the statistical method used and on the sample. Pearson chi-square
test was used to identify any possible diff erences between the two journals as regards
the structural (grammatical) construction and the type-of-information-conveyed categories
of titles. The analysis showed that the titles in the two journals diff ered both in
terms of their grammatical construction as well as in terms of the type of information
conveyed. A tentative conclusion is therefore drawn that editorial policy is a decisive
factor, although not the only one, both for the structural construction of the titles and
for the types of information included in the titles.
Keywords
scientifi c journals; article titles; structural construction; type of information
Hrčak ID:
112262
URI
Publication date:
9.5.2013.
Visits: 1.565 *