“Insert witty catchphrase here!”: do title elements influence engagement and citation?— examining highly-cited research articles in media, communication, and related disciplines

We investigate the influences of research articles’ title elements on their engagement and citation, focusing specifically on research articles in media, communication, and related disciplines (e.g., advertising, PR, and marketing). For that purpose, we collect the metadata of 1899 research articles that are the most cited between 2014 and 2018 via the Web of Science database (N = 1899). Results from our content analysis suggest that research articles whose titles contain catchphrases receive fewer usage count (i.e., engagement). Articles that mention specific geographic locations in their titles have lower usage count and citation. Meanwhile, including at least one colon in the title may increase publication metrics. Title length, mentioning the methods, and question, on the other hand, did not have significant impacts. Other article- and presentation-related factors (e.g., the numbers of references), as well as journal-related factors (e.g., being published in special issues), significantly predict communication research articles’ publication metrics. Theoretically, our findings partially support scientometric theoretical frameworks suggesting that publication metrics are influenced by universalist and presentation elements. Practically, we provide scholars, especially young and early-career ones, with valuable suggestions on how to come up with effective titles. Other implications and limitations are also discussed. We further argue that impact metrics (e.g., citation) should not be the sole indicators in evaluating scholarship since certain factors that may influence impact metrics cannot comprehensively reflect scholars’ ability and the quality of the research papers. Academia should adopt comprehensive and holistic approaches to assess proposals, scholarships, employment, or promotions.