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Writing and Publishing Scientific Articles
Content of the Title The title of your article should be as informative as possible within any length limits of your target journal. Following the guidelines below will help you write an effective title. Note: Many of the guidelines that follow include questions to consider about your own title. During the class, your instructor will give you time to quickly answer each question. At the end of the class, you will be asked to write a title for your own article using this information. 1. Name the main factors studied. Use key terms (that is, terms by which the paper should be indexed). The separate list of key terms requested by many journals is not used by the National Library of Medicine; the Medline indexers refer to other components of your article, including your title, to create their own list of indexing terms. Good: Methotrexate versus Cyclosporine in Moderate to Severe Chronic Plaque Psoriasis Good: Short-term Recombinant Human Growth Hormone Therapy Does Not Modify Growth Hormone, Thyrotropin, and Prolactin Responses to Thyrotropin-Releasing Hormone in Adult Dialysis Patients Good: Reduced Gap Junctional Intercellular Communication and Altered Biological Effects in Mouse Osteoblast and Rat Liver Oval Cell Lines Transfected with Dominant-Negative Connexin 43 Ask yourself: What are the main factors or key terms in my study? 2. Name the population (or animal, plant, or cell line) studied. Good: Nitroprusside in Critically Ill Patients with Aortic Stenosis Good: Altered Drug Resistance and Recovery from Paralysis in Drosophila melanogaster with a Deficient Histamine-Gated Chloride Channel* Good: Pifithrin-alpha Promotes p53-Mediated Apoptosis in Mouse Epidermal JB6 Cl 41 Cells Use formal scientific names (genus and species) rather than common or nonstandard names for plants and animals. Poor: Genetics of the Yellow Body Mutation in a Small Community of Fruit Flies
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