Writing an effective title
From the perspective of a search engine, the title is the most important part of a research paper. The search engine recognises the title as inclusive of all important words related to the topic. Thus, you need to choose the words of your title very carefully. Besides, the title is important from the perspective of the reader because it tells the reader whether the topic is relevant or not.
While conceiving the title of your paper, you need to keep the following principles in mind:
• Encapsulate the content and communicate its scope.
• Include words that are generally submitted to search engines when a user is looking up your topic or one similar to yours.
• Focus on words or phrases that occur frequently in your text and describe the content extensively.
• Use short and attractive titles to be more effective.
Hence, a good title should ideally be of 10-12 words containing descriptive words or phrases that accurately describe the core content of your paper.
Writing an effective abstract
The abstract gives a sneak peek into the full text of your paper. It conveys to the reader the basic idea about the content of the paper. Usually, the abstract is free to access and can be viewed by anyone. Therefore, it gives readers the chance to first understand the gist of your paper and then decide whether they want to continue reading or purchase a full copy of the paper. In a sense, the abstract is a marketing document for the full paper.
If you have submitted your paper for publication, the abstract assumes an even greater importance. Since it is the first section of the paper that journal editors and reviewers read, it plays a crucial role in the acceptance of the paper for publication. Sometimes the journal editors are very busy and prefer going through the abstract to determine whether the paper should be sent for peer review or rejected outright. Thus, reviewers form their first impressions about the paper from the abstract.
The abstract should be written in a way that captures the reader’s interest and attention and engages their mental abilities. It should give a brief overview of the main content.
The abstract should basically contain answers to the following questions:
• What is the objective or purpose?
• What is your methodology for accomplishing the objective?
• What are the findings or results?
• What are the implications for future research?
All these points are sequential and need to follow one another in the same order.
How to use keywords effectively
Keywords are used to classify papers by journals and search engines. Therefore, the visibility of your paper to the target group depends greatly on the keywords. An accurate list of keywords will ensure a higher citation count for the paper.
Words and phrases that occur repetitively in the main text and describe the content comprehensively should be among your keywords. Besides, you could also use some other words that are related to the topic and could potentially increase the visibility of your paper.