2024年4月16日发(作者：)

Unit 2. Title, Author/Affiliation and Keywords（

2hrs

）

The information about title & affiliation of an academic paper is often on the head page of a

dissertation, but it may occupy different places of a periodical paper. The title is always at the very

beginning of a periodical paper, with the author’s name and affiliation below the title, and a brief

introduction to the author is always at the bottom of a front page of a periodical paper, or at the end

of the paper.

2.1. Titles

2.1.1. General functions

A. Generalizing the Text

A title should summarize the central idea of the paper concisely and correctly. By glancing at

the title, the reader will immediately know, incorporating with the abstract, what is mainly dealt

with in the paper.

B. Attracting the Reader

If a title is accurate, concise and distinct, it will attract readers a lot and stimulate readers to

read the whole text. An interesting title may draw particular attention among professionals, for only

when readers are interested in the title will they decide to read the whole paper.

C. Facilitating the Retrieval

A title usually provides leads for the international information retrieval organizations to choose

the appropriate keywords contained in it when they organize index and secondary documents. So, a

title serves as an important index of information retrieval to meet the needs of extensive paper

communication and information dissemination.

2.1.2 Linguistic Features

A. Using More Nouns, Noun Phrases and Gerunds

The words or phrases used in a title are very often nouns, noun phrases or gerunds,

nominalization, which usually are keywords for the paper, having the ability to sum up the whole

text. Nouns or noun phrases used in a title can be added with pre-modifiers or/and post-modifiers.

Therefore, a title can normally be composed of nouns or noun phrases, adjectives, prepositions,

articles and conjunctions, and occasionally, pronouns. If a verb should be used in a title, it should be

changed into its infinite verbal forms, for instance, present participles, past participles or gerunds.

For example, we may easily find such titles as:

(1) Civilization's Source and Its Implication.

(2) A Multi-perspective Account of Met linguistic Negation.

(3) Research on the Motivations of Lexis and Vocabulary Learning Strategies.

(4) Emotional Therapeutics: New Rectifying Approaches for Children's Behavior Problems.

B. Using Incomplete Sentences

A title is just a label of appellation（A name, title, or designation 名字，称号） of the paper,

reflecting the main idea of the content, so even when there is a need to give a title in the form of a

sentence, it does not need to be a complete sentence. A complete declarative sentence usually makes

a title containing determining implication. Meanwhile, it appears lacking brevity and clarity.

For example, the title Nitrendipine Is Effective on Severe Hypertension is not a standard one. It

is a complete declarative sentence that contains the author's determining implication of the effect of

the medicine Nitrendipine. So it should be revised into Effects of Nitrendipine on Severe

Hypertension.

2.1.3 Writing Requirements

A. ABC Principles for Titles

A is for accuracy, B is for brevity and C is for clarity, which is the so-called ABC principles.

Accuracy means that a title can appropriately express and fit in the reality of the paper. Brevity asks

the writer to summarize the necessary content with the most limited words. Clarity means a title

should clearly reflect the distinguishing features of the paper.

For example, Research and Development of Sound-transmitted Technology is not a title to

express the specific content accurately. By analyzing the original writing material, we know it is a

paper about sound-transmitted technology used in on-line monitoring for machine tools. So it

should be corrected into On-line Monitoring for Cutting on Machine Tools by Using

Sound-transmitted Technology.

B. Being Brief and Concise

Generally, a title is composed of no more than twenty words. If a title is too long, it will be

difficult for readers to catch the meaning of the content and remember it. If the writer fails to state

his idea clearly in a few words, he can use a subtitle. To be brief and concise, professional papers

seldom use such decorative locutions （phrase or idiom 短语; 惯用语） as “on the ....”

“regarding ....” “”, .... “the ”, .... “some ”, .... “a research

of...,” and etc., which lead to redundancy. Of course, the title must be long enough to describe the

content of the paper. Too short a title, sometimes, may bring about confusion.

C. Being Specific

In preparing the title of a paper, a general and abstract title should be avoided. For example,

such a title as Computer Simulations of the Measurement will be regarded as too general and global,

vague and empty, telling the reader nothing specific. It would be better to change the title into

something like Computer Simulations of the Measurement of Quadratic Electro-optic Coefficients

Associated with Rotations of the Principal Axes of the Optical Permittivity Tensor (Journal of Optics

A: Pure Appl. Opt. 5, 2003,147), according to the content of the paper. The revised title can greatly

highlight the emphasis and particularity of the work.

D. Avoiding Question Titles

A question title means a complete sentence in the question form. Such titles are usually not

used in an academic paper (especially in natural sciences), because they always include some

redundant question words and marks, for example, “?” “?” “?”

“?” and so on. What is worse, such a title creates inconvenience for information retrieval. If

your title really contains an interrogation, you may adopt the form of “the question words +

infinitive,” for example, Essential Steps for Writing a Title Page: How to Prepare the Title,

Authors/Affiliations and Keywords. The title When Should Nerve Gaps Be Grafted?, An

Experimental Study on Rats should be changed into Optimal Time for Nerve Gaps Grafting: An

Experimental Study on Rats.

E. Being Unified

The parallel parts of a title should be grammatically symmetrical. That is to say, nouns should

be matched with nouns, gerunds with gerunds, etc. In general, nouns and gerunds should not be

mixed in a given title. For instance, the title Digital Laser Microinterferometer and Its Applying

should be changed into Digital Laser Microinterferometer and Its Applications and the title

Measuring of Surface Shape and Deformation by Phase-Shifting Image Digital Holography should

be replaced by Measurement of Surface Shape and Deformation by Phase-Shifting Image Digital

Holography (2003 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers, 1267).

F. Being Standard

In general, nonstandard abbreviations and symbols and/or any terms or phraseology intelligible

only to the specialist should be avoided, because the use of them could be very unfavorable to

efficient information retrieval.

Prepositions used in titles should be correct. Prepositions are flexible. It should be noticed that

they are usually used in some certain expressions. Preposition of should be paid more attention to

because it is frequently used in some expressions. But readers will be bored if they find more than

two of’s appearing in one title subsequently. If possible, prepositions on or for can replace of.

Sometimes apostrophe can be used in a title. Additionally, with the development of language, it is

common to use a noun to modify another noun.

Recently, titles tend to be brief. So articles should be omitted when they are not necessary

enough.

2.1.4 Some Other Requirements for Titles

A. Words' Number Limitation

Generally, the number is limited within 10 words and shouldn't be over the limitation of 15

words. Certainly, the limitation is not absolute. If necessary, it can be exceeded. Here are only some

referent figures. The general regulation is fixed: based on an accurate, brief and clear title, the fewer

of the words we use, the better the title is.

B. How to Name a Title

A title should give prominence to the central idea of the research paper. The most important

key words, which show the main idea of a paper, are normally fixed first in a title. That will draw

readers' attention.

Recently, some authors like to crown a title with such words as:

(1) Observation on, Comparison between, Improvement of, and etc. to show the aim of writing

the paper.

(2) Nuclear Energy in China, AIDS in the United States, Patients with Breast Cancer,

Depression in Elderly, and etc. to tell readers the object of the research.

(3) Experimental Study of Laser Processing of Analysis of, and etc. to tell the research method.

(4) Results of, Verification of, Follow-up of, and etc. to show the result of the research.

(5) Realizing the Importance of, Is Regression Analysis ? and etc. to introduce

the thesis.

It ought to be noticed that we should not apply the above expressions mechanically. But we

should use them according to the certain situation. In general, the ABC principles are applicable

forever.

C. Abbreviations in Titles

With the development of science and technology, a great amount of technological terms come

into being. All these terms consist of nouns. It is inconvenient to be written and printed or recounted

orally. Thus, they are expressed by the abbreviations of the formation of nouns, and most of them

are the acronym formed by the first letter of every noun. But we should severely use the

abbreviations in titles--only those abbreviations, whose full terms are rather long and which are

generally acknowledged in the scientific field and very familiar to readers, can be used, such as:

(1) LASER (light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation, 激光).

(2) DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid, 脱氧核糖核酸).

(3) AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome, 爱滋病

(4) CT (computerized tomography, 电子计算机断层扫描

(5) NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance, 核磁共振).

(6) BCG (Bacilli Calmette-Guerin, 卡介苗).

(7) SARS (severe acquired respiration syndrome,严重获得性呼吸道综合征，”非典”)

Reader groups also restrict the using extent of abbreviations. Take the above abbreviations as

examples, generally speaking, LASER, CT, AIDS and SARS are generally recognized and familiar

in the whole scientific field and can be used in the titles in all sorts of learned journals; DNA, NMR,

and BCG are normally known and familiar in the whole medical world and can be utilized in the

titles in all medical journals. All in all, it is especially noticed that the use of abbreviations should be

selected according to the various branches of learning and specialized subjects.

D. Writing Patterns for Titles

Whether all the first letters of the principal words in a title should be capitalized or not, may

depend upon the specific requirements set forth by the journal to which your manuscript is to be

submitted. In general, there are three patterns for writing a title.

(1) All the letters are capitalized, for instance, INTEGRATED MODEL FOR

PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF MULTIPLE CLASS-OF-SERVICE INTERNET. But if pH, α, β,

γ, and etc. are contained in a title, p, α, β, γ and etc. are not capitalized. For instance, α-RAY, γ-RAY,

β-PARTICLE.

(2) The first letter of every notional (adj. conveying an idea of a thing or an action; having full

lexical meaning 表意的，实义的) word in a title should be capitalized, such as, A Comparison of an

OFDM System and a Single Carrier System Using Frequency Domain Equalization, Array Antenna

Assisted Doppler Spread Compensator for OFDM, Capacity Optimization in MC- CDMA Systems,

and etc.

Notes:

a. The first letters of articles like a, an and the, conjunctions like and, but, or and nor and the

prepositions containing less than four letters like of, in, on, to, for, and etc. in a title are not

capitalized. But the first letters of all the examples mentioned above should be capitalized when

they are at the beginning or end of a title, or they are behind a colon or the first word of a subtitle.

For instance, Scope of the Investigations: The First Phase, A New Broadband Uniform Accuracy

DOA Estimator and The Research of Nuclear Structure Going On.

b. The first letters of the prepositions containing four or more letters are capitalized. For

instance, with, about, between, through, and etc. For example, The Relation Between the View of

Scientific Development and the Strategy of Revitalizing China Through Talents.

c. The infinitive mark to in a title should be written as To.* For instance, Compounds To Be

Tested.

d. The first letter of the word ray should not be capitalized when it is used in X-ray in a title.

e. The first letter of the name for a genus (生物学: 类，属) should be capitalized, whereas the

one of the name for a species is not capitalized, such as, Novel Metabolites of Siphonaria pectinata

Bacillus Subtil Pneumo-coccus Aureus.

f. The first letters of the two words in a compound in a title should be capitalized if it is used as

an entirety to modify the other words, for instance, Laser-Produced Protons and Their Application

as a Particle Probe and Wide-Angel Achromatic Prism Beam Steering for Infrared Countermeasure

Applications.

g. The abbreviation for measure unit should not be capitalized. But the first letter of the full

form for it should be. Such as, Analysis of Milligram Amounts ...of 2mg.

(3) The first letter of the only first word is capitalized while the others are not. For instance,

Pair production via crossed laser, Dual-frequency sounder for UMTS frequency-division duplex

channels, and etc.

Note:

a. Proper nouns should be capitalized whether they are at the beginning or not, for instance, Health care

in the United States.

b. The first letter of a noun to show directions of a country or an area is capitalized, but the adjective for

the noun is not, such as, Northeast northeastern and Midwest midwestern.

c. The first letter of the word earth used to denote a planet in the universe is capitalized.

The last point should be noticed: Nowadays, some important international retrieval organizations have

their own different requirements for titles. For instance, EI has the following requirements for titles:

a. Try to avoid using articles (the, a and an) at the very beginning of a title;

b. The first letter of the first word in a title is capitalized while the others are not except the first letters of

proper nouns, every letter in abbreviations, the first letter of Germany nouns and the first letter of any word

after the punctuation period in a title;

c. The main title and the subtitle must be separated by period but not colon, semicolon or dash.

d. Try to avoid using abbreviations in a title. If they have to be used, the full forms of them should be

given in brackets;

e. Try to avoid using some particular characters such as numbers and Greek letters in a title or use them

less.

Commonly used phrases and structures in titles:

An analysis of…

An assessment of…

A comparison of …

A description of…

An evaluation on…

An explanation of…

An outline of…

An overview of…

Study of…

A tentative study of…

Experiments of…

Experimental study of…

Effect of…on…

A preliminary report of…

Observation on…

Comparison between …and..

Improvement of…

Experimental research of…

LASER processing of…

Clinical analysis of…

Results of…

Verification of…

Follow-up of…

2.2. Author and Affiliation

2.2.1. Authors

Who should be an author? This question concerns ethic issue of academic authorship of

published study. Conceptually, an “author” is generally considered to be someone who has made

substantive intellectual contributions to the published study. In practice, there is no problem to

provide one name of a single author, but providing the name of two authors often requires resolution

in terms of who comes first. The problem gets more difficult as the number of authors increases.

Given that, in the real world, academic authorship is a primary basis on which many academics are

evaluated for employment, promotion, and tenure; such academic and financial implications of

authorship have often resulted in the inappropriate inclusion of “honorary” authors or the exclusion

of junior authors. Consequently, incorrect application of authorship rules occasionally leads to

charges of academic misconduct and sanctions for the violator.

There are many guidelines for assigning authorship that can help writers keep away from

academic misconduct but the criteria for authorship vary between institutions and disciplines. The

American Psychological Association (APA) gives clear criteria for authorship of publication in

social science. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICNJE) and the Journal of

American Medical Association (JAMA) regularly update the criteria for authorship and

contributorship in medical science. The criteria for authorship developed by Proceedings of the

National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) are widely accepted in the

disciplines of natural science.

2.2.1.1 Authorship in the Social Sciences

To social science publications, neither the Modern Languages Association (MLA 美国现代语

言协会) nor the Chicago Manual of Style defines requirements for authorship, but the APA （美国

心理学会American Psychological Association）Publication Manual (APA, 2010) gives clear advice

on allocating credit for authorship. It states that “Authorship” is not limited to the writing of

manuscripts, but must include those who have made substantial contributions to a study, such as,

formulating the problem or hypothesis, structuring the experimental design, organizing and

conducting the statistical analysis, interpreting the results, or writing a major portion of the paper.

Specifically, in a journal article, the name of authors should be listed according to the following

rules:

~ The sequence of names of the authors to an article must reflect the relative scientific or

professional contribution of the authors, irrespective of their academic status.

~ The general rule is that the name of the principal contributor should come first, with

subsequent names in order of decreasing contribution.

~ Mere possession of an institutional position on its own, such as Head of the Research team,

does not justify authorship.

~ A student should be listed as a principal author on any multi-authored article that is

substantially based on the student’s dissertation or thesis.

While the APA guidelines list many other forms of contributions to a study that do not

constitute authorship, it does state that combinations of these and other tasks may justify authorship.

Like medicine, the APA considers institutional position, such as Department Chair, insufficient for

attributing authorship.

2. 2. 1.2. Authorship in Medical Science

In medical science, a total of 876 journals follow The Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts

Submitted to Biomedical Journal (The Uniform Requirements). The Uniform Requirement was

initiated by a group of editors of general medical journals in 1978 and was adopted by ICMJE in

1979. Since then, the ICMJE has gradually broadened its concerns to include ethical principles

related to publication in biomedical journals. In May 2001, in the revised sections related to

potential conflict of interest, the committee clearly defined the criteria for authorship. In the latest

version (April 2010), the criteria for “authorship and contributorship’ are listed under the issue of

“Ethical Considerations in the Conduct and Reporting of Research”.

The ICJME has recommended following criteria for authorship:

1) Authorship credit should be based on (1)substantial contributions to conception and design,

acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; (2)drafting the article or revising it

critically for important intellectual content; and (3)final approval of the version to be published.

Authors should meet conditions (1), (2) and (3).

2) When a large, multicenter group has conducted the work, the group should identify the

individuals who accept direct responsibility for the manuscript. These individuals should fully meet

the criteria for authorship/contributorship defined above, and editors will ask these individuals to

complete journal-specific author and conflict-of-interest disclosure forms. When submit- ting a

manuscript authored by a group, the corresponding author should clearly indicate the preferred

citation and identify all individual authors as well as the group name. Journals generally list other

members of the group in the Acknowledgments. The NLM indexes the group name and the names

of individuals the group has identified as being directly responsible for the manuscript; it also lists

the names of collaborators if they are listed in Acknowledgments.

3) Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group alone

does not constitute authorship.

4) All persons designated as authors should qualify for authorship, and all those who qualify

should be listed.

5) Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility

for appropriate portions of the content. All contributors who do not meet the above criteria for

authorship should be listed in an acknowledgments section. Examples of those who might be

acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, writing assistance, or a

department chairperson who provided only general support.

2. 2. 1.3 Authorship in the Natural Sciences

The natural sciences have no universal standard for authorship, but some major

multi-disciplinary journals and institutions have established guidelines for work that they publish.

The journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

(PNAS)~defines the authorship in its editorial policy. It states that “Authorship should be limited to

those who have contributed substan-tially to the work” and “The corresponding author must have

obtained permission from all authors for the submission of each version of the paper and for any

change in authorship.” Furthermore, “Authors must indicate their specific contributions to the

published work” as a foot-note. Such introduction of credit states exactly what each person did in

the study and probably makes the ranking of authors less important (Gustavii, 2008).

Nature journals do not require all authors of a research paper to sign the letter of submission,

nor do they impose an order on the list of authors. Submission to a Nature journal is taken by the

journal to mean that all the listed authors have agreed all of the contents. The corre- sponding

(submitting) author is responsible for having ensured that this agreement has been reached, and for

managing all communication between the journal and all co-authors, before and after publication.

Any changes to the author list after submission, such as a change in the order of the authors, or

the deletion or addition of authors, needs to be approved by a letter signed by every author.

The above guidelines for authorship give clear criteria to distinguish authors and contributors

to a study. Irrespective of the nature of their contributions -- intellectual (creative) or practical

(doing the experi-ments) -- all members of the research team are usually acknowledged in the author

byline and the contributors are listed in the acknowledge section.

2.2.1.4. Affiliation

Just below the author’s name lies affiliation, which makes it convenient for the readers to

communicate with the author. Affiliation includes the author’s working place , address and postal

code. Samples are given below.

Sample 1:

(source:姚吉刚.从语言模糊性看英语委婉语的语用功能.黄山学院学报，2008：131-133)

Analysis of Pragmatic Functions of English Euphemism from the Perspective of Language

Vagueness

Yao Jigang

(Department of Foreign Studies, Anhui Institute of Architecture and Industry, Hefei

230601,China)

If there are more than one author affiliated with different working units for an academic paper, the authors and

their respective affiliations should be made clear, as the flowing sample shows.

Sample 2:

(source: Patrick R. Thomas , Jacinta B. Mckay. Cognitive Styles and Instructional Design in University

Learning. Learning and Individual Differences, 2010(20): 197-202)

Cognitive Styles and Instructional Design in University Learning

Patrick R. Thomas

1

, Jacinta B. Mckay

2

( of Education and Professional Studies, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia

of Psychology, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia)

The above two samples are of periodical papers, whose Title and Author/ Affiliation part is slightly different

from that of the thesis or dissertation, which includes the information about:

 the author’ s supervisor

 the degree to be acquired

 submission university

 submission date

The following sample is from a postgraduate student’s dissertation .

Sample 3:

(研究生学位论文)

A Study of Translation of Mao Zedong’s Poetry from the Perspective of Translation Ethics

By Geng Tiantian

Under the Supervision of

Professor XXX

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

for the Degree of Master of Arts

School of Foreign Languages

Jiangsu University

Zhenjiang, China

June, 2012

2. 3. Keywords

Keywords are the identification for science and technology research papers to be retrieved as

documents. They are the natural language vocabulary to show the thematic concept of the

documents. Keywords, the same with abstract, are a part of a research paper, but not the part of the

main body of the paper.

2.2.1 General Functions

A. Easiness of Retrieval

As the name implies, keywords are the most important words and phrases representing the

theme or subject matter of the paper, and frequently used in a paper. Readers can find out the theme

of the paper by looking at the keywords.

B. Easiness of Highlighting

The function of keywords is to facilitate the information retrieval and accentuate the gist of the

paper. It is easy for the information retrieval clerks to make up the index and secondary document.

2.2.2 Linguistic Features

A. Nominalization

Keywords are usually used in the form of nouns, not verbs. For example, “investigation” is

used instead of “investigate”; “fabricate” should be replaced by “fabrication”; and “educate” ought

to be replaced by “education.”

B. Limited Number

The number of the keywords for a paper should be limited. Four to six keywords are the

average. In general, there should be at least 2 and at most 8.

C. Designated Choice

(1) The keywords of a paper usually come from the title and/or the abstract, where the key

terms of words and phrases are usually contained.

(2) But some free terms can be chosen in the following cases.

a. Some other key terms which are obviously ignored in the keyword bank;

b. Some new concepts that stand for new subject, new theory, new technology, new material,

and etc.;

c. The name for area, person, document, product, and etc. which are not contained in the word

bank and the important data.

d. Some concepts being collocated together may lead to polysemy. So the concepts can adopt

free terms.

2.2.3 Writing Requirements

A. Using Required Terms

The terms of “keywords” should be consistent with the requirements of the journal to which

you submit your paper. The section “keywords” is also variously called “keywords index,”

“keywords and phrases,” “indexing terms,” and etc.

B. Placing in Right Location

Though keywords can be either above or below the abstract of a paper, they are yet, in most

cases, placed below the abstract.

C. Spacing the Keywords

Keywords are not necessarily all capitalized, except the first letter of keywords as a heading.

Use comma (,) or semicolon (;) to separate the words. Larger partition or space can also be used

instead of punctuation.

D. Adopting Standard Abbreviations, etc.

Standard abbreviations are preferred in the section of keywords. All abbreviated words should

be in conformity with the ISO norms. Since the keywords are often used as index to retrieve the

paper, they must be intelligible, at least, to professionals in the field.

Exercises

Correct the mistakes in the following titles according to the writing requirements you've learnt in this unit.

1. Digital Laser Micro interferometer and Its Applying.

2. Measuring of Surface Shape and Deformation by Phase-shifting Image Digital Holography.

3. The Effects of the Patient Age and Physician Training on the Choice and Dose of

Anti-melancholic Drugs.

4. Scope of the Investigations: the First Phase.

5. a New Broadband Uniform Accuracy DOA Estimator.

6. The Relation between the View of Scientific Development and the Strategy of Revitalizing

China through Talents.

7. Compounds to Be Tested.

8. On the origin of Korean grammar.

9. Effectiveness of Post-reading Activities.

10. Using Role-Plays to Develop Cultural Awareness in Communication.

11. A New Frequency Domain Speech Scrambling System Which Does Not Require Frame

Synchronization.

12. Developing Computer Internet and the Spread of Culture and Information.

13. A Bridge between Two Worlds.

14. Can the Rate of Wash Load Be Predicted from the Bed Load Function?

15. A Research on the Artificial Neural Network (ANN) Applied in the Analysis of Structural

Mechanics.

16. On Learning Foreign Languages and Cultural Background Teaching.

17. Is Literature Useless in TOEFL?

18. Inputting Cross-cultural Information for More Effective English Teaching by Means of

Inputting Cross-cultural Communication in General College English Teaching.