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ERIC Number: EJ1277943
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2021-Jan
Pages: 6
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0098-6283
EISSN: N/A
I'll Read That!: What Title Elements Attract Readers to an Article?
Hallock, Robert M.; Bennett, Tara N.
Teaching of Psychology, v48 n1 p26-31 Jan 2021
The title of an article is the first chance at catching a reader's attention. We set to develop a list of title attributes that lead to attractive titles in psychology papers, which could then be used to help instruct undergraduate students on how to write good titles for their papers and projects. Currently, research into successful elements that comprise an effective title is generally limited to publication metrics (the number of hits and citations an article has). Here, we created and administered a survey to 99 undergraduate students to rate the effectiveness of titles of psychology papers that varied in length, use of colons, acronyms, clichés, being results-oriented, and phrased the title as a question. We then reworded these titles as the opposite choice (e.g., we made a longer title shorter or took the colon out of a title without changing the meaning or length). We found that participants significantly preferred long over short titles, titles containing colons over the absence of a colon, and titles phrased as questions. We hope our results aid in the instruction of writing in the discipline, and that undergraduate psychology students and authors alike can develop more effective and attractive titles to attract attention from scholars and invite broader audiences to read their work.
SAGE Publications. 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320. Tel: 800-818-7243; Tel: 805-499-9774; Fax: 800-583-2665; e-mail: journals@sagepub.com; Web site: http://sagepub.com
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Indiana
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A