How to write a title and keywords that readers find
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The title and keywords are the part of your paper that most readers see first, and the part search systems use to match your work to a query. This guide gives practical, plain advice for authors who write in English as a second language. The illustrative titles below are invented for teaching and do not refer to real studies.
What a good title contains
The ICMJE Recommendations say the title should summarize the whole article and carry enough detail that, together with the abstract, readers can find it through electronic searches. They also note that reporting guidelines and some journals expect the study design to appear in the title, especially for randomized trials and for systematic reviews or meta-analyses.
In practice, a useful title answers four questions in one line:
- Who or what was studied (the population, condition or problem)?
- What was done or compared (the intervention, exposure or test)?
- What type of study is it (for example, a cohort study, a case report, a systematic review)?
- Where relevant, what outcome or setting matters?
Avoid titles that promise more than the study can show. A single-centre record review should not be titled as if it settled a question for every patient.
Length and word order
ICMJE notes that some journals also ask for a short title, often about 40 characters, and that submission systems may limit title length. Check the journal's instructions before you finalise the wording.
- Put the most important terms near the start. Search engines and readers scanning a list both give the first words the most attention.
- Prefer plain nouns over long phrases. Cut filler such as "A study of" or "An investigation into".
- Spell out terms on first use; use only abbreviations that readers in your field know. Unexplained abbreviations make a title hard to search.
- Do not translate word by word from Turkish. Write the English title directly, then ask a colleague who reads English to check that it sounds natural.
- Do not use a question or a sentence-style claim unless the journal's article type calls for it.
Choosing keywords and MeSH terms
MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) is a controlled vocabulary of biomedical and health terms produced and maintained by the U.S. National Library of Medicine. It is used to index, catalogue and search the literature in MEDLINE/PubMed. You can browse the vocabulary in the MeSH Browser.
The ICMJE page on preparing a manuscript does not set rules for keywords, so follow the number and format the target journal asks for. A sensible approach:
- List the five or six main ideas of your paper in your own words.
- Look each one up in the MeSH Browser and use the official heading where one fits. This keeps your terms aligned with the way the literature is indexed.
- Add one or two free-text terms only for a new concept that has no heading yet, and say so plainly.
- Do not repeat the exact words of the title in the keyword list; use the keywords to add synonyms and related concepts.
- Test the list: search PubMed with your keywords and see whether papers like yours appear.
Examples
These examples are invented, only to show the pattern.
| Weak title | Better title | Why it is better |
|---|---|---|
| A study about diabetes patients | Glycaemic control in adults with type 2 diabetes: a retrospective cohort study | Names the population, outcome and design. |
| Our experience with a new method | Laparoscopic versus open repair of inguinal hernia: a single-centre case series | Names the comparison and the study type. |
| Rare complication seen in our clinic | Delayed spinal cord ischaemia after endovascular aortic repair: a case report | States the condition and article type. |
Before submitting, read the title aloud together with your keywords. If a reader who only saw those two lines could tell what the paper is about, you are ready.