Planning that title: Practices and preferences for titles with colons in academic articles

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

Library & Information Science Research 29 (2007) 553–568

Planning that title: Practices and preferences for titles withcolons in academic articles

James Hartley

School of Psychology, Keele University, Staffordshire, ST5 5BG, UK

Abstract

Colons play a hidden but important role in the planning and writing of effective titles for academicarticles. This paper presents three studies of current practices in using colons and four studies of students'and academics' preferences for titles with and without colons. The practice studies showed disciplinarydifferences in the use of colons (with a greater use in the arts than in the sciences). They also showed thatmore single authors than multiple authors use colons. Using colons in the titles of academic articles hadno effect upon their subsequent citation rates. The preference studies showed that students and academicsgenerally preferred titles with colons to titles without them. However, these results depended to someextent on the materials and the methods used.© 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

The titles of academic articles appear in many different forms, including statements,questions, puns, quotations, etc. Many of these forms use compound sentences, where twoelements of a title are separated by a full stop, dash, or colon. Of these, the colon is mostfrequently used. Unlike most other formats, titles with colons have come in for a considerableamount of study because researchers in different disciplines are interested in what makes for aneffective title.

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554 J. Hartley / Library & Information Science Research 29 (2007) 553–568

2. Problem statement

Researchers planning titles for scholarly publications are interested in both being read andbeing cited. Selecting what to read from tables of contents, whether print or virtual, is usuallybased on scanning titles. It is important to consider what characteristics might make a titlemore prominent. No recent systematic review of the small but growing literature on the use ofcolons in titles exists, and few studies have explored differences across disciplines. This articlebrings together research from different disciplines and presents several new studies that extendour knowledge of current practice in the use of colonic titles. This work is important because itindicates how the colons in titles can affect readers' responses. It also suggests how authorscan use colons effectively when they are planning the titles of their articles (see also Hartley,2007).

3. Literature review

Dillon (1981a) reported that a colon was used in the titles in 72% of the published articles inthen-current issues of 10 journals in psychology, education, and literary criticism. Bycomparison, round 20% of titles in unpublished works and published non-research titles hadcolons. Furthermore, the titles with colons contained on average just over 17 words, while titleswithout them had fewer than 9. Dillon concluded that “titular colonicity” was a predominantcharacteristic of scholarly publication. In Dillon's (1982a) follow-up to his original paper, henoted that in the subsequent issue of the journal in which his 1981 article had first appeared, (i)60% of the titles of articles contained colons; (ii) these colonic titles were grouped apart fromthe non-colonic ones; and (iii) they were given first place in the table of contents. (Thesedramatic observations lose their force somewhat when inspection reveals that there are only fivearticles in this particular issue of the American Psychologist).

Since the publication of Dillon's papers there have been at least 17 more studies of colonuse.1 The most comprehensive one to date is that of Lewison and Hartley (2005). The authorsused computer-based retrieval methods to study the structure of the titles of 216,500 UK papersin science journals and 133,200 international papers in oncology.

Table 1 shows estimates of the percentages of colonic titles in journal articles in variousdisciplines. As one moves from the natural sciences to the arts and humanities, the use ofcolons increases.

Table 2 shows some of the results drawn from the UK science papers. More surprisingly,single authors used colons in their titles more than pairs or groups of authors. This findingremained the case until the groups got quite large—up to 12 or more authors.

1 See Anthony (2001); Busch-Lauer (2000); Diers and Downs (1994); Dillon (1981b, 1982b); Fontanet, Coll,Palmer, and Posteguillo (1997); Fontanet, Posteguillo, Coll, and Palmer (1998) as cited in Anthony (2001);Haggan (2004); Hartley (2005); Lewison and Hartley (2005); Michelson (1994); Perry (1985); Schwartz (1995);Townsend (1983); Whissell (1999, 2004); and Ziebland and Pope (1995).

Table 1Recent estimates of the percentages of colonic titles found in articles in different disciplines

Source Discipline Estimated percentagesof colonic titles

Lewison and Hartley (2005) Engineering 09Busch-Lauer (2000) Veterinary science 10Lewison and Hartley (2005) Biology 11Lewison and Hartley (2005) Physics 12Anthony (2001) Computer science 13Lewison and Hartley (2005) Earth and space 15Lewison and Hartley (2005) Biomedical research 17Busch-Lauer (2000) Forestry 20Lewison and Hartley (2005) Chemistry 25Lewison and Hartley (2005) Clinical medicine 27Haggan (2004) Linguistics 30Fontanet et al. (1997) Business studies 33Hartley (2005) Psychology 45Busch-Lauer (2000) Education 50Hartley (2005) History 50Haggan (2004) Literature 61Busch-Lauer (2000) Music 66

555J. Hartley / Library & Information Science Research 29 (2007) 553–568

Lewison and Hartley also showed that the authors of scientific articles rarely, if ever, used aquestion mark in their titles, and that the more authors there were, the longer their titles. Othersalso reported this finding (e.g., Anthony, 2001; Hyland, 2002; Kutch, 1978; Schwartz, 1995;Yitzhaki, 1994).

Researchers have also studied colon use in titles other than those of journal articles.Ziebland and Pope (1995) studied the titles of UK conference papers. They reported that thepercentage of titles of papers with colons delivered at British Medical Sociology Conferencesfrom 1970 to 1993 increased steadily during the 1970s and 1980s. The percentage leveled off

Table 2Percentage of journal articles with colonic titles in seven disciplines as a function of the number of authors per title

Field of study Number of authors

1 4 8

Biology 14.1 8.0 11.6Biomedical 22.9 13.9 13.2Chemistry 25.8 21.3 27.4Clinical medicine 34.5 23.2 23.2Earth and space 16.7 13.6 15.9Engineering and technology 12.7 6.3 7.6Physics 15.3 11.3 10.0

Data from more than 216,000 articles using a best fit regression equation reported by Lewison and Hartley (2005).


at about 45% after the mid-1980s. This is high, suggesting that conference presentations mayneed to be considered separately and in addition to disciplinary factors.

4. Study of colonicity practices

I carried out three studies to examine current practices in the use of colons in the titles ofacademic papers. Study 1 replicates and extends the work by Ziebland and Pope (1995).Studies 2 and 3 look to see if titles with colons are cited more frequently than titles withoutthem.

4.1. Study 1

Study 1 replicates the work Ziebland and Pope did some 10 years ago. The aim was to seewhether the percentage of titles with colons was higher for conference papers than it is forjournal articles. Table 3 shows the results of an analysis of the titles of papers and posters givento the British Psychological Society's Annual Conferences in 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005(British Psychological Society, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005).

The overall percentage of colonic titles (38%) is slightly less than the 45% reported earlier forAmerican psychology articles in 2002 (Hartley, 2005). However, it is slightly more than thatnormally reported for highly cited papers in psychology (see Table 4). These findings thereforedo not present any evidence for a “conference factor” in the use of colons. However, the data inTable 3 do show a higher percentage of conference papers and posters with colons written bysingle authors than written by pairs or multiple authors. This confirms earlier findings (LewisonandHartley, 2005). The percentage of titles using questionmarks was 5%, 5%, 10%, and 6% foreach year, respectively, averaging 6% overall.

The data in Table 3 do not include that obtained from keynote conference speeches andinvited addresses, which are usually delivered by single authors. The BPS conferenceproceedings do not provide information in this respect for the 2002 Conference, but they do forthe 2003, 2004, and 2005 ones. Analyzing these single-author keynote papers indicated thatthe proportion of keynote addresses with colonic titles increased from 35% in 2003 to 53% in2004 and 65% 2005. This suggests that colonic titles do feature more strongly in keynote

Table 3Percentages of colonic titles in conference presentations at Annual Conferences of the British Psychological Society(excluding keynote and invited addresses)

Single authors Pairs of authors Three or more Total %

2002 (366 titles) 18 9 11 382003 (248 titles) 17 11 9 372004 (259 titles) 10 9 12 312005 (509 titles) 17 16 14 47Average over the four years 16 10 9 38

Data in italics are summary figures.

Table 4Numbers and percentages of articles with colons in their titles reported in different studies of highly cited articles,chapters, and books in different disciplines

Studies Discipline Number ofarticle titles

Numberwith colons

% withcolons a

Garfield (1978a) Sciences 105 15 14Garfield (1978b) Social sciences 100 20 20Garfield (1980) Clinical research 100 11 11Garfield (1984) Nursing 18 3 17Chew (1988) Roentgenology

(Butterflies)50 18 36

McConnell and Gorenflo (1989) Psychology 24 7 29Gross (1990) Psychology 31 6 24Hock (1992) Psychology 36 5 14Banyard and Grayson (2000) Psychology 64 11 17Cognitive MillenniumProject (2000)

Cognitive psychology 37 9 24

Chesapeake BiologicalLaboratory (2000)

Environmental sciences 22 4 18

Garfield (2005) Life sciences 08 1 13Total 595 110 18

Data in italics are summary figures.Note.Only one study of highly cited works in the Arts was found (Garfield, 1979) and this contained only book titles.a Titles with two sentences, and parts separated by dashes or numbers, were counted as colonic titles.


presentations than in more conventional conference presentations, and this percentage isincreasing.

Studies 2 and 3 below present more new data, prompted by the question of a colleague: Aretitles with colons cited more frequently than those without them? This is a tricky question toanswer directly – there are numerous confounding variables to consider – but these studiestake two approaches. Study 2 asks what percentages of highly cited articles have colons inthem. Study 3 asks whether or not there are changes in citation rates over time for articles withand without colons in their titles.

4.2. Study 2

Study 2 examines lists of titles of highly cited articles in several disciplines in order to assesswhether or not theremight be a higher proportion of colonic titles to non-colonic ones. If articleswith colonic titles are cited more than articles without them, then one would expect this toemerge in these lists. However, as Table 4 shows, this is not the result.

4.3. Study 3

Another way of assessing the effects of papers with colonic titles is to investigate whathappens to their citation rates. The question here is: Are papers with colonic titles cited more

Table 5Median rank scores of titles with and without colons in highly cited articles in the American Journal ofRoentgenology in 1997 and 2004

1997 2004

Titles without colons Median rank 25.0 27.5Range 1–50 1–50N 32 32

Titles with colons Median rank 25.5 22.5Range 2–48 1–50N 18 18

Note. Low rank=higher citation.Data from Chew (1988) and Bui-Mansfield (2005).


than papers without them? Townsend (1983) used 1981 data to assess the citation rates for twocolonic titles and two non-colonic titles from each of 10 scholarly journals in psychologypublished in 1977. He found that the median citation rate was 8.5 for the colonic titles and 5.0for the non-colonic titles. However, because of the wide variances – one paper had 340citations – the overall difference between themwas only significant at pb0.10 (one-tailed test).

The data shown in Table 5 are based upon the results obtained in studies reported by Chew(1988) andBui-Mansfield (2005). Bui-Mansfield examined how 50 highly cited papers listed byChew in the American Journal of Roentgenology had fared in terms of their citation rankings by2004. Table 5 shows the median rank scores for paper titles with and without colons in 1997 and2004. The differences between them are negligible in both years. Studies 2 and 3, then, provideno data to suggest that papers with colonic titles are cited more than papers without them.

5. Study of colonicity preferences

Hartley (2005) suggested that colonic titles were preferable to titles without them becausethey allowed the author both to attract and to inform the reader. His paper used examples toillustrate how titles that solely attract might not accurately inform the reader what the paper isabout. Furthermore, such titles might be of little help to scholars using search engines to findinformation on a particular topic.

However, titles that solely inform can be a little dull and may fail to attract the reader. Acompromise – such as that used in the title for this paper – might be best. However, thereappears to be no evidence to show whether or not readers prefer titles with colons to thosewithout them. Accordingly, the following four studies were carried out. Study 4 examinedwhether or not university students rated a forthcoming conference as more interesting when thetitles for the papers to be presented were provided in simple sentences, colonic sentences, or ina mixed format. Study 5 examined how academics rated the titles for a forthcoming journalwhen given the titles with and without colons. Study 6 partly replicated Study 5 by askingacademics to compare different forms of titles directly. Study 7 asked students yet again tocompare different kinds of colonic titles.


5.1. Study 4

For Study 4, researchers prepared three different versions of titles for a forthcoming UKconference (see Appendix A.1). In the first version, all of the titles contained colons; in thesecond version, three of the five titles contained colons; and in the third version, none of thetitles contained colons. These titles were taken from those with complete sentences used in anadvertisement for a forthcoming BPS conference for students published in The Psychologist(Advertisement, 2005). Note that these titles were amplified with an “attractor” before thecolon. For example, the original title “The psychology of face perception” became “The eyeshave it: The psychology of face perception.”

Thirty-two undergraduate students were asked to complete the rating scale shown inAppendix A to indicate – for one version only – how interesting they thought the conferencewould be. Table 6 shows the median ratings and the modal responses for each of the threeversions. The data show that the conference rated most interesting was the one with titles usingcolons, and the conference rated least interesting was the one with titles in the form of simplesentences. The conference titles in the mixed format were rated in between.

These results for the two extremes are statistically significantly different from each other(although the two closer comparisons are not). (Colons throughout vs. no colons: Mann–Whitney U=17.5, z=2.45, pb0.025, one-tailed test.) This study concludes, therefore, that thetitles with colons were judged significantly more interesting than were those without them.

5.2. Study 5

In Study 5, researchers prepared three different versions of titles for the articles in asupposedly forthcoming journal in the field of educational psychology (see Appendix A.2). Inthe first version, all of the titles were presented with colons; in the second version, three of thefive titles contained colons; and in the final version, none the titles employed colons. Most ofthese titles were based upon those presented with complete sentences in recent issues of theBritish Journal of Educational Psychology. The colons were used largely to re-structure asentence: thus “University students' perceptions of learning in small groups” became“Learning in small groups: University students' perceptions.”

Researchers sent 120 e-mail messages to a set of international academic authors who hadresponded to an earlier investigation in book reviewing (Hartley, 2006). Approximately 40people received each condition. These authors came in roughly equal proportions from the arts

Table 6Effects of colons in conference paper titles on students' ratings of how interesting that conference would be

Titles without colons Mixed titles Titles with colon

Median rating 7 8 9Modal rating 7 8 9Range 5–8 5–10 4–10N 10 13 9

Table 7Effects of colons in titles on academics' ratings of how interesting a new journal might be

Titles without colons Mixed titles Titles with colons

Median rating 7 6 7Modal rating 7 6 7Range 2–9 2–8 2–10N 15 13 10


and the social and natural sciences. Each author was asked to rate only one of the conditions.Discounting delivery failures, the response rate was approximately 45%. Table 7 shows themedian ratings and the modal responses to each of the three versions. There are few differences,if any, between these academics' ratings for the different styles of titles.

It is possible that lack of difference between the perceptions of the articles with colons andthose without was due to either (i) the change in the use of the colons from poster to academictext or (ii) the method used, where each participant rated only one condition. Without a directcomparison, the judges might not have perceived any actual difference in the effectiveness ofthe titles. This latter thought led to Study 6 even though this reasoning did not apply to Study 4.

5.3. Study 6

Study 6 compared the preferences of similar academics for two sets of titles of the sort usedin Study 5. It was undertaken in three stages: In Study 6a, half of the respondents compared aset of titles without colons to a set with some colons. Half of the respondents in Study 6bcompared a set of titles with some colons to a set where all of the titles had colons. In Study 6c,half of the respondents compared a set of titles without colons to a set of titles with colons. Ineach separate study, half the respondents received the sets of titles in the reverse order from theother half. This was done in order to counterbalance the effects of reading the first set upontheir reading of the second (Hartley & Ganier, 2000). Appendix A.3 shows a typical instructionsheet, and study results are listed in Table 8.

The respondents in these studies were all academics who (i) were listed on the electronicpanel of referees for the British Journal of Educational Technology, (ii) were listed as membersof an academic discussion group in higher education, or (iii) were authors in the October (2005)

Table 8Effects of colons in titles on academics' choice of how interesting a new journal might be when each respondentcompared two sets

Number preferring

Titles without colons Mixed titles Titles with colons

Study 6a 5 20 –Study 6b a – 7 15Study 6c b 15 – 22

a Two people indicated that they had no preference; these people were not included in the chi-square calculation.b Three people indicated that they had no preference; these people were not included in the chi-square calculation.


issue of papers abstracted in the Research into Higher Education Abstracts. E-mails asking forparticipants were sent to 150 people in Study 6a, 100 in Study 6b, and 150 in Study 6c. Theresponse rates for the three separate studies (excluding delivery failures) were 27% (Study 6a),26% (Study 6b), and 27% (Study 6c). In each case, the respondents came from a diversebackground and included members of more than twenty different nationalities.

Table 8 shows the number of respondents in Studies 6a, 6b, and 6c who preferred differentversions of the sets of titles. It can be seen that in Study 6a there was a clear preference for theset of titles that included some colons over the set that contained no colons (chi-square=9.00,df=1, pb0.001, one-tailed test). In Study 6b, the preferences were similarly divided—participants preferred the set of titles with colons over the set with some colons (chi-square=2.91, df=1, pb0.05 one-tailed test). In Study 6c, the difference between thepreferences was not statistically significant (chi-square=1.32, df=1, ns). However, morepeople preferred the set of titles with colons.

5.4. Study 7

Study 7 reverted to using students as participants. It focused on distinguishing betweencolonic titles where the format was used to attract a reader and where it was used to particularizethe generality of the title, thus informing the reader. This study used three different versions of aset of five titles “from a journal of educational psychology.” In the first version, all of the titleswere presented without colons. In the second and third version, the first and last title was incolonic form. In the second version, this form was used to attract the reader (e.g., “What's yourdad think? Paternal involvement in young people's choices of higher education”). In the thirdversion, colons were used to particularize the information for the reader (e.g., “Choosing theuniversity: Paternal involvement in young people's choice of higher education”).

The participants were 75 British students: 13 men and 62 women. Most studied psychology,and their first language was English. Each student was systematically allocated into one of thethree conditions. Based upon their reading of the tables of contents, students were asked to ratethe journal on nine bipolar rating scales (such as clear–unclear, lively–dull, etc.; see AppendixA.4 for details). They completed their rating scales independently. The responses to each scalewere scored separately. An overall score was determined by summing the scores obtained on thenine scales.

Table 9 shows the mean overall scores and the standard deviations for each of the threeconditions. A lower score indicates a higher preference. Analyzing these overall scoresshowed that the students significantly preferred the version of the table of contents that usedthe two informative colonic titles (mean=32.5) over the version that did not contain any colons(mean 36.0) (t=2.34, df=48, pb0.05 one-tailed test). However, there was no significantdifference between their preferences for the version with the informative colonic titles (mean32.5) and those with attractors (mean=35.2) (t=1.66, ns). These last two did not differsignificantly from each other (t=0.50, ns).

Similar significant findings were found for the individual subscale easy–difficult. On thescales clear–unclear and simple–complicated, the students significantly preferred theinformative titles to the control (no colons) condition and to the ones with attractors. On the

Table 9Mean total scores on the nine subscales for the three versions of the contents pages

Control page Colon page Colon pageNo colons Two titles with “attractors” Two titles with more

particular information

Mean overall score 36.0 35.2 32.5Standard deviation 4.6 7.3 5.8N 25 25 25

Note. The lower the score, the more positive the rating.


nine subscales assessed individually, the informative colonic titles came out best seven timesand tied once with the attractor titles. The attractor titles came out best once (personal–impersonal), and the control titles did not come out best on any of the scales. These data alsosuggest a preference for the contents pages with the two informative titles.

6. Discussion

In terms of practice, it was interesting to note that Lewison and Hartley's (2005) finding –that single authors used significantly more colonic titles than did groups of authors in academicpapers – was replicated in the conference data reported in Study 1. However, it wasdisappointing but perhaps not surprising to find no evidence that colonic papers were cited anymore than non-colonic ones. It would indeed be startling if something so simple as a colon in atitle led to repeated citations.

The new preference data were of interest in that they showed that students significantlypreferred the titles of conference presentations and journal contents pages in colonic form.Especially in Study 7, students preferred the use of colons to make a title more informative. Thepreferences of the academics, however, were more mixed. One difficulty was that the resultswith the academics appeared to depend upon the method of investigation as well as the colonicformat used. The academics had to make direct comparisons between different formats for anydifferences in preferences to be observed, and these sometimes did not materialize.Furthermore, the response rates from the academics in the e-mail studies were low—but notuntypical of findings in e-mail studies (see Truell, 2003). It would be interesting to replicatethese studies with larger samples of academics –perhaps those attending specific conferences –and to make a clearer differentiation between different colonic formats (as was done in Study 7with the students).

Finally, it is noteworthy that the findings reported in this paper are mainly descriptivestatistics—means, medians, modes, and frequencies. Such summary statistics, of course, do notdo justice to the wide variety of opinions held about the use of colons in academic writing. Table10 lists some of the characteristic responses of the academics received in Study 6. In light ofthese comments, it would be interesting (i) to ask respondents in future studies just why theyprefer one version of a title over another, if at all, and (ii) (following Busch-Lauer, 2000) to

Table 10Different views of academics on the use of colons in titles

I think that the use of colons in titles, when there really is no need, is just pretentious.Colons (and exclamation marks) need to be used sparingly.You know what they say about colons. They're full of…I don't have any strong views either way. If an editor said, “Change the title,” I'd take the line of least resistance.Titles without colons read like articles; titles with colons read like books.We've gotten trained to see the opening part of the title as the subject heading, with the bit that follows as thecontext or details.

The announcement of the main focus of a paper before the colon can be helpful.I suspect that American social scientists, with their propensity for deductive reasoning, might prefer titles withcolons.

Colons are helpful: you get the main idea immediately.


explore further the effects of different kinds of titles on such judgments in different disciplinesand possibly different languages.

7. Conclusion

Authors of scientific articles and conference papers use a variety of methods to make thetitles of their papers more effective. The studies reported in this paper have shown that there aredisciplinary differences in how they go about doing so. There are differences between the titleswritten for conference papers and those written for publication. One curious finding, replicatedin this paper, is that single authors use colons in their titles more than do pairs or groups ofauthors.

Readers have different preferences for different kinds of titles. In this study, academics hadmixed views about the effectiveness of colons, but students generally preferred titles withcolons to titles without them. Further research is need in different disciplines and with papersin different languages.

Appendix A. Examples of the materials used in the studies

A.1. Study 4

In Study 4, university students were asked to rate how interesting they thought a conferencemight be. This case illustrates the condition where all of the conference titles included colons.In a second condition, only titles 1, 3, and 5 were written in colonic form; the initial phrasesand the colon were removed from the other two titles. In the third condition, none of the titlesincluded a colon and the initial phrases for all of them were removed. Each participant tookpart in only one condition. The instructions were as follows:

You have been asked if you would like to attend a conference on Psychology for Students.Here are the titles of the conference lectures:


Criminals at large: Myth and reality in psychological profilingThe eyes have it: The psychology of face perceptionFeeling good: Psychology, medicine and healthThe daily grind: Work, health and organizationGet me out of here: Human behavior in emergency situations

Please indicate on the scale below how interesting you think the conference as a whole willbe (where 1=not interesting and 10=extremely interesting)

1
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Conference not interesting … … … … … … … … Conference extremely interesting
Thank you.

A.2. Study 5

In Study 5, academics were asked to rate how interesting they thought a proposed new journalfor teachers might be. This case illustrates the mixed condition where titles 1, 3, and 5 for thecontents contained colons. In the other two conditions, all of these titles were presented with orrevised to be presented without colons (samples of these revised texts also appear in Study 6).The participants took part by e-mail in only one condition. The instructions were as follows:

Please imagine that you have been asked to evaluate a new journal for teachers onEducational Psychology.

Here are the titles of the papers in the first issue:

Anti-bullying programs: Implementation and outcomesUniversity students' perceptions of learning in small groupsCombining statistical methods: An introduction to stochastic processes in educationNew technology, teaching and learning in higher educationThe literacy hour: A re-appraisal

Please indicate on the scale below how interesting you think the journal will be for teachers(where 1=not interesting and 10=extremely interesting)

1
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Journal not interesting … … … … … … … … Journal extremely interesting
Thank you.

A.3. Study 6

In Study 6 academics were asked to compare two sets of titles for a proposed new journalfor teachers. The participants were asked to indicate their preference for the top or the bottom


set. In this example, the top set contained titles with colons and the bottom set revised titleswithout them. In the other two conditions, (1) the set of titles with colons was compared with aset where only titles 1, 3, and 5 contained colons, and (2) the set of titles without colons wascompared with the set where only titles 1, 3, and 5 contained them. For half of the respondents,the order (top/bottom) of the two sets was reversed in each condition. The participants tookpart by e-mail in only one condition. The instructions were as follows:

Please imagine that you have been asked to compare two sets of titles for articles in a newjournal for teachers on educational psychology.

Here are the proposed titles:

Anti-bullying programs: Implementation and outcomesLearning in small groups: University students' perceptionsStochastic processes in education: An introductionTeaching and learning in higher education: The role of new technologyThe literacy hour: A re-appraisal

Here are the editor's suggested titles for these papers:

The implementation and outcomes of anti-bullying programsUniversity students' perceptions of learning in small groupsAn introduction to stochastic processes in educationNew technology, teaching and learning in higher educationA re-appraisal of the literacy hour

Which set do you prefer? The top set or the bottom set?Please respond accordingly!Many thanks.

A.4. Study 7

In Study 7, 75 university students were asked to rate one of three sets of five titles from thecontents page of “an educational psychology journal.” The first and the last title on each of thepages differed in format. Condition 1 did not have any colons; Condition 2 used colons to attractthe reader; and Condition 3, shown here, used colons to extend the content of the titles. Thestudents completed their rating sheets independently. The instructions were as follows:

The following is the contents page from a journal of educational psychology. Please rate thejournal, using the scales below, based upon your reading of this contents page.

Schools and settings: The influence of ability-grouping on students' progress inmathematicsStudent teachers' beliefs about learning to teachChanges in the conceptions of learning held by Australian and American university studentsChildren's knowledge of road safety as a function of age


Choosing the university: Paternal involvement in young people's choices of highereducation

Clear
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Unclear Human 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Technical Simple 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Complicated Predictable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Unpredictable Professional 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Amateurish Courageous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Cautious Easy 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Challenging Lively 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Dull Personal 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Impersonal
Please indicate as appropriate:Male/FemaleMain discipline _______________First language (if not English)__________Thank you!

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Documents

Planning that title: Practices and preferences for titles with colons in academic articles