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Scholarly communication in transition: The use of question marks in the titles of scientific articles in medicine, life sciences and physics 1966–2005

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  • Rafael Ball

    (University Library of Regensburg)

Abstract

The titles of scientific articles have a special significance. We examined nearly 20 million scientific articles and recorded the development of articles with a question mark at the end of their titles over the last 40 years. Our study was confined to the disciplines of physics, life sciences and medicine, where we found a significant increase from 50% to more than 200% in the number of articles with question-mark titles. We looked at the principle functions and structure of the titles of scientific papers, and we assume that marketing aspects are one of the decisive factors behind the growing usage of question-mark titles in scientific articles.

Suggested Citation

  • Rafael Ball, 2009. "Scholarly communication in transition: The use of question marks in the titles of scientific articles in medicine, life sciences and physics 1966–2005," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 79(3), pages 667-679, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:79:y:2009:i:3:d:10.1007_s11192-007-1984-5
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-007-1984-5
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Grit Laudel, 2003. "Studying the brain drain: Can bibliometric methods help?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 57(2), pages 215-237, June.
    2. Grant Lewison & James Hartley, 2005. "What's in a title? Numbers of words and the presence of colons," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 63(2), pages 341-356, April.
    3. J. A. Perry, 1985. "The dillion hypothesis of titular colonicity: An empirical test from the ecological sciences," Journal of the American Society for Information Science, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 36(4), pages 251-258, July.
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    Cited by:

    1. William S. Pearson, 2020. "Research article titles in written feedback on English as a second language writing," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 123(2), pages 997-1019, May.
    2. Hamid R. Jamali & Mahsa Nikzad, 2011. "Article title type and its relation with the number of downloads and citations," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 88(2), pages 653-661, August.
    3. Gianna Kexin Jiang & Yajun Jiang, 2023. "More diversity, more complexity, but more flexibility: research article titles in TESOL Quarterly, 1967–2022," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(7), pages 3959-3980, July.
    4. Xuechun Xiang & Jing Li, 2020. "A diachronic comparative study of research article titles in linguistics and literature journals," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 122(2), pages 847-866, February.
    5. William S. Pearson, 2021. "Quoted speech in linguistics research article titles: patterns of use and effects on citations," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(4), pages 3421-3442, April.
    6. Shesen Guo & Ganzhou Zhang & Qiuhong Ju & Yu Chen & Qianfeng Chen & Lulu Li, 2015. "The evolution of conceptual diversity in economics titles from 1890 to 2012," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 102(3), pages 2073-2088, March.
    7. Zhijie Wang & Mohd Azidan Abdul Jabar & Farhana Muslim Mohd Jalis, 2024. "A Systematic Literature Review on Academic Title Studies in Genre Analysis," World Journal of English Language, Sciedu Press, vol. 14(6), pages 111-111, November.

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