Ulrich Morawetz und Martin Schönhart

Choosing a title for a manuscript can be approached either like a craft or like a work of art. To learn the craft, books can be consulted. For example Silvia (2015, p.164) stresses that it is important

• To start by selecting at least keywords that match the research interest of peers (don’t use synonyms or literary allusions)

• Select the right "tone": straight and sober, silly, intriguing, snarky, combative, or confusing. The right tone should match your manuscript and the journal. And don’t forget: you will have to live the rest of your life with the title.

• Choose the title structure right: The most popular is the colon title with a main title, a colon, and a subtitle. It is particularly striking if one part is short and the other one is long. Use another structure only if the title still conveys the substance of the manuscript. Consider also using a question as full title or as one of the elements.

 Silvia (2015, p.167) also explains what to avoid:

• A title can be too topical: for example, an idea from the news might be an eye-catcher now, but future readers might not get the reference.

• A title can be too obscure: will the readers get the reference?

• Avoid subscripts, superscripts, mathematical characters, and the like: they will not render well in the database

These arguments highlight the importance of a title to perfectly inform about major aspects of a scientific article. Another school of thought argues from an artistic rather than informative perspective and highlights the need to gain attraction of potential readers, who face increasing amounts of scientific literature. From this perspective the title serves as eye catcher – still related to the paper of course – while the abstract informs about major contents. Learning the art of writing a title is more difficult as creativity to a certain degree is more a matter of personality and attitude than skills. One approach, however, may be to study examples. Below we started a list of titles which strike us as extraordinary creative.

Which approach to choose, the craft or the art? Or a combination?

In the end, writing is like talking: it is a personal decision what you want to say and how you want to say it. An innovative example is given by Seppelt et al. (2009), who developed their theoretical thoughts on modelling complex environmental systems along a virtual dialog between two scientists in ETH Zurich’s cafeteria. By the way, one of the authors in a personal talk acknowledged the willingness or even enthusiasm of both the editor and reviewers to support such paper project. In the scientific process, the choice never is taken by the authors alone. Choosing the artful way of publishing requires willingness to take some risks but obviously, there is both need and acceptance (see for example K.P. Liessmanns philosophical arguments).  

Finally, writing is a personal decision about contents and style. And the title is kind of the first thing you are saying.

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