Original scientific paper
Are Shorter Article Titles More Attractive for Citations? Crosssectional Study of 22 Scientific Journals
Farrokh Habibzadeh
orcid.org/0000-0001-5360-2900
; Shiraz NIOC Medical Education and Research Center, Shiraz, Iran
Mahboobeh Yadollahie
orcid.org/0000-0002-1730-3863
; Shiraz NIOC Medical Education and Research Center, Shiraz, Iran
Abstract
Aim To investigate the correlation between the length of
the title of a scientific article and the number of citations
it receives, in view of the common editorial call for shorter
titles.
Methods Title and the number of citations to all articles
published in 2005 in 22 arbitrarily chosen English-language
journals (n = 9031) were retrieved from citation database
Scopus. The 2008 journal impact factors of these 22
journals were also retrieved from Thomson Reuters’ Journal
Citation Report (JCR). Assuming the article title length as
the independent variable, and the number of citations to
the article as the dependent variable, a linear regression
model was applied.
Results The slope of the regression line for some journals
(n = 6, when titles were measured in characters but 7 when
titles were measured in words) was negative – none was
significantly different from 0. The overall slope for all journals
was 0.140 (when titles were measured in characters)
and 0.778 (when titles were measured in words), which is
significantly different from 0 (P < 0.001 , t test). Overall, articles
with longer titles received more citations – Spearman
ρ = 0.266 – when titles were measured in characters, and
ρ = 0.244 when titles were measured in words (P < 0.001).
This association was found for 7 of 8 journals with impact
factor >10 and for 2 out of 14 journals with impact factor
<10 (P < 0.001, Fisher exact test).
Conclusion Longer titles seem to be associated with higher
citation rates. This association is more pronounced for
journals with high impact factors. Editors who insist on
brief and concise titles should perhaps update the guidelines
for authors of their journals and have more flexibility
regarding the length of the title.
Keywords
Journalism; Scientific writing; Evidence-based writing
Hrčak ID:
53523
URI
Publication date:
15.4.2010.
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