How to write and publish a scientific paper - Barbara Gastel, Robert A. Day 2022

More about title format
How to prepare the title
Preparing the text

Many editors are opposed to main title—subtitle arrangements and to hanging titles. The main title—subtitle (series) arrangement (example: “Studies on Bacteria. IV. Cell Wall of Staphylococcus aureus”) was common decades ago. Today, editors generally believe that it is important, especially for the reader, that each published paper be sufficient by itself. Thus, series titles now are rare.

The hanging title (similar to a series title but with a colon instead of a roman numeral) is considerably better. Some journals, especially in the social sciences (Hartley 2007), seem to favor hanging titles, perhaps to get the most important words of the title up to the front. (Example: “Debunking Misinformation About Genetically Modified Food Safety on Social Media: Can Heuristic Cues Mitigate Biased Assimilation?” Science Communication 43:460, 2021). Hanging titles may sometimes aid the reader, but they may appear pedantic, emphasize the general term rather than a more significant term, require punctuation, and scramble indexes. Views also vary as to whether questions are appropriate to include in titles, as in the example just given. Looking at titles in the journal to which you will submit your paper can help in discerning what forms of titles are acceptable to it.

Use of a straightforward title does not lessen the need for proper syntax, however, or for the proper form of each word in the title. For example, a title reading “New Color Standard for Biology” would seem to indicate the development of color specifications for use in describing plant and animal specimens. However, the title “New Color Standard for Biologists” (Bioscience 27:762, 1977) makes us wonder whether the new standard might help in distinguishing the green biologists from the blue ones.