Titling Biological Papers for Proper Storage and Retrieval
By VIRGINIA S. WOLF
Entomology Research Division, Agr. Res. Serv., USDA, Beltsville, Maryland
The title you give your paper is as important as the
content. This statement may jolt you a little. I meant it
to. A good title helps the reader to know whether he
should take the time to read your paper. A bad title
wastes his $10-an-hour time. The first significant word in
a good title also informs the librarian where to file and
how to index and cross reference your paper. Such a
service is very valuable to you because your paper is the
culmination, the end product of your particular research
endeavor. A bad title wastes the librarian's time, too.
And this is sad because, to paraphrase the song, her time
is your time; she is serving you.
But these days a good title must do another job:
this idea even further, it is conceivable that a scientist
might even be recommended for the Nobel prize on the
basis of his Shelf-Space Quotimt(SSQ).
In composing titles, then, we must set up guideposts
that are clearly marked, with messages that are telegraphically brief but cannot be misinterpreted.
Titles are
not easy to compose. They take considerable thought.
But they are important because they not only point the
way for those traveling through unfamiliar research territory but also for those who have been there before. You
will no doubt all be acquainted with the paper by Dethier,
Browne, and Smith entitled: "The Designation of Chemi-
It
cals in Terms of the Responses They Elicit from Insects,"
must label the end product for storage and retrieval in a
computer system or on microfilm. And if the label is
minus a detail or two, the product cannot be adequately
stored, much less retrieved. For example, suppose that
you have written a paper that includes data pertaining to
the influence of weather on the effectiveness of insecticides and that for some reason or other you have left out
the word weather in the title. This seemingly slight omission may hinder your career for the rest of your scientific
days. Why? Because inadvertently you will have failed
to provide a key word for indexing; thus, 10, 50, or
maybe even 1000 people searching the literature will not
find your paper listed under the word weather, where
indeed it belongs. Chances are that without the presence
of this one word, these people will never get around to
reading your paper and will not discover the significance
of your data.
which was published in the JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOlliOLOGY in February
1960. This paper is something of
a landmark in entomology. Countless entomologists have
referred to it and included it in their References Cited.
Yet it has a very poor title for indexing purposes. In
fact, I searched the index of the 1960 JOURNAL for 15
minutes without finding a single reference to the paper.
Why was my effort to no avail? Because the title is
almost impossible to index owing to misplacement and
misuse of the word Terms. I have rephrased this title to
demonstrate how its indexing could have been simplified:
I may have exaggerated, of course; no one likes to
think that recognition and understanding of his scientific
effort depend on petty, mechanical details. I have heard
at least one author say, indignantly: "I don't write my
papers for the benefit of the indexers, and I'm not about
to be hog-tied by any computer system, either 1" However, a visit to a storage and retrieval center should convince even the most vehement objector. Undoubtedly the
era of the computer system is upon us. WillY-lIilly,
whether we like it or not, our efforts are being reduced to
code language and subjected to the machinations of an
electronic brain.
If you get an opportunity to visit a storage and retrieval
center, by all means do so. I have visited two: the small
one operated by Biological Abstracts in Philadelphia and
the very large one, known as MEDLARS,
operated by
the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is also seriously
considering setting up one in its big new library building
in Beltsville, for which hopefully the ground will be
broken soon.
We should also realize that a big premium is now being
placed on storage space; before long the work of even the
greatest among us will be reduced to a few centimeters of
microfilm on a library shelf. Indeed, your own accomplishments, as described in American Men of Science, may
soon be given in terms of reference numbers to certain
shelves in a U.S. National Science Microfilm Library,
where your entire life works may be stored. To project
370
"Terms for Chemicals Eliciting Specific Responses
from Insects." Note that besides being 5 words shorter,
the title begins with the most significant key word,
Terms, which is now used in its proper sense. I have also
composed indexing words to show the ease with which
the new title can be indexed:
Chemicals eliciting specific insect responses: terms for
Insect responses: terms for chemicals eliciting specific
Responses, insect: terms for chemicals eliciting specific
Terms for chemicals eliciting specific insect responses
Using the exact title to describe the area of research
covered in your paper, to precisely define it in tcrms that
cannot possibly be misunderstood, even by a computer,
should be your goal. And I hope that wc editors can help
you achieve it. Remember that the reader just browsing
or definitely searching for results pertaining to a specific
subj ect should be able to scan the title and tell at once
what your paper is about. Therefore, a title should be an
abstract in miniature. In addition, although everybody
knows, I hope, that scientific reputations are built on
quality of performance, the title of your paper will draw
the kind of readers you want to understand it or that you
need for recognition of your work. Thus, your title
should be as carefully composed as the electrified type on
a theater marquee. Your name is up there in big letters
and you are the star of the show. So the message had
better come through bright and clear. Also, do not be
misled into underestimating
the power of a computer
system. Your titles are already being fed into these systems at an ever-increasing rate. Thus, each title should
be prepared so that the key words will emcrg-e under
usable headings that can be selected by a machine indexer
without laughable results, a point that I will now proceed to illustrate.
Lucy Eisenberg (1965) wrote an article for Harper's
Ma!la:;ine she called "vVhat Computers Can't Do." In
this article she stated: "Computers ... can handle words
well enough to carryon a simple conversation. They can
remember, they can learn, and they also make assumptions. In fact, they can manage most of the skills we
associate with thinking . . . Yet there is something dissatisfying about the way they think. They are exasperatingly rigid . . ."
Just how rigid is borne out by the following: One day
I came across a very funny title in the Pesticides Dommentation Bulletin (which Bulletin you no doubt all have
seen and used). The title read, "Lepidopterology by Fits
and Starts, or Advice to Beginners." I'm fairly certain
that this title, creative and different though it may be,
will haunt its author for the rest of his life. You must
have guessed what happened. The computer at the National Agricultural
Library indexed this title not only
under Lepidopterology, Advice, and Beginners, but also
under Fits and Starts. The last two indexing words make
the beholder whoop with joy but do little for the author's
scientific immortality.
In addition to prissiness of thinking, the computers are
maddening because they impose some new restrictions on
the content of titles. All authors should be aware of these.
The computer machine is instructed by the programmer
(programmed, as they say) to select certain key words as
index words and to eliminate certain other words. The
words the computer automatically eliminates or rejects
are called "stop" words. The list of stop words fed to
the machine at Biological Abstracts runs to about 1000;
the list for the machine that grinds out the Pesticides
Dommentatioll Bulletill runs to about 1100. These lists
include such no-account words as study, effect, result,
evaluation, factor, and test, plus all their plural forms.
You can readily see why such words are useless for
inde.xing purposes, since it goes without saying that if
you conduct experimental work, you will make studies;
observe effects and results; make tests, evaluations, and
observations;
and be concerned with factors.
vVhat then can authors do to make sure they use the
proper words in their titles? The most I can say is that
it takes practice and some skill that can be acquired with
a little patience. I have assembled 10 titles similar to
those we commonly see in the Publications Office of this
Division. By analyzing the good and bad ones, perhaps
we can cleat' up some of the troubles that authors experience in choosing a title. Let us begin with Title I,
Results of Tests Using Tepa. This is about as poor a
title as you will find anywhere. It contains only 1 key
word that is suitable for indexing-Tepa.
Thus, 4 out of
its 5 words are useless. It also contains a grammatical
error very often present in titles-the
word Using, a
\'erbal, modifies nothing but the air it hangs on. In addition, though the experimental work involved a problem in
entomology, the author neglected to give the name of the
insect tested; in this particular work, the test organism
lI'as the house fly.
How do we fix up a title like this one? How do we
make sure that the author will get the full value from the
1I'0rds he uses? Remembering 3 rules will help:
1. Tell all.
2. Tell it economically.
3. Tell it artfully.
Let's apply these rules to Title 1. A quick perusal of
the paper shows that the results of the work, as demonstrated in the tables, are concerned with the numbers of
eggs the flies laid (fecundity), the numbers of eggs that
hatched, and the percentages of test flies that died (mortality) the first 10 days after they were treated with tepa
(a chemical that sexually sterilizes insects). So in addition to tepa we now have several more key wordsfecundity, hatch of eggs, mortality, and house flies. Let's
put these words together, as follows:
Fecundity, Hatch of Eggs, and Mortality of House
Flies' Treated with Tepa. Please note that because Biological Abstracts is now indexing all papers received from
entomologists under the family name and order of insect,
they have asked that we include this information in a
footnote or in the title, whichever the journal editor prefers. Our first footnote to this paper will then read:
, Musca domestica L. (Diptera:
Muscidae).
Title 2, Studies on the Importance of pH in Tests with
Chemosterilants, also contains a grammatical error, one
that turns up again and again. You can't make studies 011
anything, unless, perhaps, you customarily conduct your
research from the top of a flagpole. The proper phrase is
"Studies of," that is, if you are going to use this phrase
at all. But in the interest of saving title space, you should
get rid of this particular phrase and others like it. As I
mentioned a moment ago, any research involves studies.
The same applies to the words experiments, tests, and
trials. Then why use them and waste good space?
Have you noticed that in composing Title 2 the author
again forgot to mention his test insect? In our inspection
of the actual content of his paper, we discover that he
fed 2 chemosterilants, tepa and metepa, to the house fly
and that the effectiveness of the treatment depended on
the pH level of the mixture fed. Thus, let's modify this
title as follows:
Activity of the Chemosterilants Tepa and Metepa Fed
to House Flies' at Different pH Levels (Same footnote
as for Title 1)
Can you spot the weaknesses of Title 3, Observations
on Reproduction of Some Insects Treated with Chemosterilants?
This title could no doubt take a prize for
ambiguity. There is that preposition on again I You make
observations 0/, please! In mending this title we must
ask ourselves some questions. The tests were concerned
with the reproduction of what insects? Treated with
what chemosterilants?
The word reproduction implies
that the author will deal with the reproductive process of
the test insects. In scanning the paper we find that he
obtained data pertaining to hatch of eggs, but was not at
all concerned with the reproductive process per se, and
that he used 3 chemosterilants (tepa, metepa, and apholate) to treat 5 different insects that attack cotton. Our
new title emerges from the mending process as follows:
Hatch of Eggs from Five Cotton Insects' Treated with
Tepa, Metepa, and Apholate.
(Please note: In footnote
I all 5 insects should be identified.)
Title 4, Colorimetric Method for the Detennination
of the Dimethoate Residues, although better than many
we receive, still leaves the reader guessing as to the exact
content of the paper. In reading this paper, we discover
that the author conducted tests with 4 different kinds of
materials-soils,
fodder, meat, and milk-to
determine
whether they contained any dimethoate and that he used
371
colorimetry. Armed with this information,
reconstruct the title as follows:
we can thus
Dimethoate in Soils, Fodder, Meat, and Milk: A Col.
orimetric Determination.
Note the use of the colon in
this title. More and more authors are employing this punctuation to provide an emphasis that cannot be achieved
any other way. Later on (for Title 10) we will discuss
another way to use the colon.
Title 5, Control of Insects and Mites on Fruit Trees
by Trunk Injections, appears at first glance to be fairly
good, but a closer look discloses that some valuable information is missing. For instance, the words insects and
mites give us a wrong impression. We are led to think
that several species of insects and mites are involved. But
it turns out that the author was actually working with
only 2 species, an aphid and a mite. An what were the
materials he inj ected into the trunks of the fruit trees?
'Ve find that they consisted of about 35 antibiotics. And
what happened during the tests? By examining the data,
we find that results of the tests are given entirely in percentages of mortality obtained at different intervals after
treatment. This title, then, emerges from the wash looking somewhat better than new:
Mortality of the Apple Aphid] and Two-Spotted Spider
Mite" on Apple Trees Injected with Antibiotics.
(Footnotes 1 and 2 should provide the complete scientific names
of the aphid and mite).
Title number 6, believe it or not, is given just as it
was received: Outdoor Observations of Activity during
Sunset, Dispersal, and Nocturnal Resting Places of the
Face Fly, with Special Reference to A Mechanical Means
of Capturing Same. Whenever you come upon a title
such as this one, look at it with a jaundiced eye. The
fault undoubtedly lies with the author, in that he attempted to cram 2 papers into 1. The struggle the reader
goes through trying to tuck in all the loose ends of this
title (like trying to bed down twins in the same crib) is
symptomatic of the whole traumatic experience the author
must have gone through when he produced such a title in
the first place. He simply couldn't compose a good title
for his paper; it contained too much and too diverse information. The only thing left for him to do was to
start over, separate the observational data from the howto-do-it information, and prepare 2 reports entitled:
(1)
Outdoor Activity of the Face Fly' During Sunset
and Its Dispersal to Nocturnal Resting Places.
(2)
A Device for Capturing Face Flies.] (Footnote 1
for both papers then contains the scientific name
for the face fly [Musca autunlIlalis De Geer (Diptera: Muscidae)])
Title 7, Effects of Attractants, like the original Title 1,
is impossible. It is so uninspired, so uninformative, as to
be better not written at all. However, we find that we
can easily forgive the author, whose creativity obviously
failed him as he composed this title. His paper turns out
to be one of these reviews so hard to write and just as
hard to find a title for. If he did manage to hit on a good
one, he probably discovered that someone else had already
used it. So in desperation he gave up and submitted number 7, no doubt hoping the editors would come up with
something a little better. Of course, we did try to help
him.
Depending on place of publication
solution to his dilemma was,
and readership,
one
372
The Role of Insect Sex Attractants in Reproduction
the Species. (vV ritten for scientists only)
Another
of
was,
Recent Research At Beltsville on Insect Sex Attractants.
(Written for a mixed audience of scientists and laymen)
And still another,
Why the Chemist Wants to Synthesize Sex Attractants.
(Written for the layman)
Title 8, Why is Biological Control of Insects Neces·
sary? is very good. It has only one slight drawback. Because it is stated as a question it is going to cause a
problem since some computer systems reject questions.
Better write a title like this in the form of a direct statement, as follows:
Why Biological Control of Insects is Necessary
Title 9, Pink Bollworm Mating Studies Based on
Presence of Spermataphores,
is another one that is ambiguously stated. The phrase based on is misplaced in the
sentence and the entire syntax needs combing out. Restated, the title makes much more sense and in addition
the most significant key word now comes at the beginning:
Mating
of Pink Bollworms Determined by Presence
Spermatophores
in the Spermatheca.
of
Title 10, Experiments on the Control of Insect Popu.
lations with Light Traps, is a good example to end with.
In choosing this title the authors quite simply did not do
justice to the contents of their paper. In overhauling, we
must go through the familiar process of acquainting ourselves with the results if the research, as given in the
tables. We find that the authors deal with 4 different subjects: (1) design of traps, (2) their placement at certain
distances from the center of the test area, (3) the mortality of insects to be expected when the traps are placed
at these distances, and (4) the possible uses of such traps
along with other means of control. How may we best
present this information in the title?
Probably the best way to handle Title 10 is to compose
a main title, set the main title off with a colon and then
follow with a subtitle, as shown:
'
Light Traps for Controlling Insects: Design, Placement,
Expected Mortality at Given Distances, and
Possible Uses with Other Control Measures
This title indexes very well indeed. Try it and see!
Each word in the subtitle leads easily back to the main
title. It also has the virtue of leaving no doubt in the
reader's mind as to what the paper is about. Although
somewhat long, it is neatly and concisely stated with
parallel construction and proper emphasis.
And now let's pretend you are in the throes of composing a title for your own paper. The first step, of course,
is to examine the contents of your paper thoroughly.
What insect(s) did you test? What were your principal
results in terms of data in your tables? Now write out
what to you appears to be the best statement, perhaps
giving some consideration to using a subtitle.
After you have done your best, walk away for an hour
or two, or even overnight. Then come back and give
another look at what you have done. Is your syntax
showing? Do you need all tile words you have used? Do
you have parallel construction?
Do you have any dangling verbals? Do your words roll nicely off the tongue?
And most importantly, does your title tell accurately what
you really did?
A Stable Trap
Have fun!
And now I have a little problem for you to solve. What
is wrong with the following title?
NEWS
for Sampling
Insects Affecting
REFERENCE
CITED
Cattle
Eisenberg, Lucy. 1965. What computers can't do. Harper's Mag. 231 (1383) : 96-9.
NOTES
Bundesanstalt fUr Pflanzenschutz
Wien 11
Trunnerstrassel
Austria
Dr. E. Reitter GMBH
Kaulbachstrasse 26a
8 Miinchen 22
West Germany
Harrasser & Ubeda
8580 Bayreuth
Karl-Marx-Strasse
1
West Germany
Harry Deutsch
N aturwessenschaftlicke
Fuchbuchhandlung
Graefstrasse 47 (An del' Universitaet)
Frankfort/Main
- W13
West Germany
IVeA
37, rue de Linthout
B ruxelles 4
Belgium
Lehrmittelverlog Wilhelm Hagemann
Karlstrasse 20
Dusseldorf
West Germany
Norstedt's Modern School Supply
Lilla Nygstan 13
Stockholm 2
Sweden
RALi'li W. SHERMAN wrote an interesting article, "The
Insect, Jet Set," for the June 1966 issue of the English
periodical N C'W S cimtist. This deals with plant quarantine problems under the conditions of fast-moving worldwide trans poration.
E. F. KNIPLING was one of five federal employees who
recently received Rockefeller Public Service Awards.
The Award of $10,000 was in recognition of research on
screw-worm biology and control.
HERCULESINCORPORATED,
a Sustaining Associate of this
Society, has announced the advancement of P. J. RENO
to assistant director of sales, K. T. GIVENS to sales manager, phenoxy herbicides, HENRY F. PIERCE to sales manager, nitrogen products, in Wilmington, and E. WAYNE
LEMONS to manager of the Greenville, Mississippi, sales
district.
Hercules also announced the retirement
of
JAMES H. NEAL.
Ross H. ARNETT, JR., has resigned from Catholic University of America to accept a position in the Department of Entomology at Purdue University. He will be
in charge of the Purdue collection which includes the
B1atchly types.
C. ...,\T. SABROSKYwas awarded an honorary degree of
Doctor of Science from his alma mater, Kalamazoo College, in June 1966. Congratulations are extended to this
well-known member and leading student of Diptera.
ROBERTE. PFADT has accepted a transfer of assignment
to the College of Agriculture
in Kabul, Afghanistan,
where the University of Wyoming has an AID contract.
GLEN M. KOHLS received an honorary Doctor of Science
degree from Montana State University in June. We congratulate Dr. Kohls, a world authority on tick biology
and tick-borne diseases.
JOHN H. LILLY will join the Ford Foundation as a Project Specialist in Entomology, starting February 1, 1967.
Dr. Lilly will be on a leave of absence from the University of Massachusetts, and will be assigned to the University of Agricultural
Sciences at Bangalore, India.
His work will be in collaboration with HALBERT M.
HARRIS, who is now stationed at Bangalore on assignment
from the Ford Foundation.
ElIIORY D. BURGESS,PHILIP S. CALLAHAN, ROBERTW.
EVERYand ARTHt:R 11. HEIJ\IPEL received Superior Service Awards from the U. S. Department of Agriculture in
1fay 1966.
Phywe AG
Postfach 665
Gottingen
West Germany
Richard Herold
Quellenstrasse 6
532 Bad Godesberg
West Germany
MAURICE H. FARRIER
Department of Entomology
N. C. State University
Raleigh, North Carolina, 27607
AMERICAN ASSOCIATION
FOR THE
ADVANCEMENT
OF SCIENCE
SOME FOREIGN SOURCES
OF DIDACTIC MATERIALS
Domestic sources of teaching aids in entomology are
very limited. By inquiring of associates, both domestic
and foreign, and foreign embassies and educational institutions, the following firms were found to furnish catalogues containing items useful in instructing undergraduate entomology. At the suggestion of John Simeone,
Syracuse University, they are presented here without endorsement or recommendation.
A. Schluter Kg.
Gerberstrasse 11
7057 Winnenden near Stuttgart
West Germany
The 1966 meeting of the AAAS will be held in Washington, D. c., on December 26-30. A series of papers in
Section 0 will be given under the general headings:
Agriculture and Air Quality; Agriculture
and Water
Quality; Soil Pollution in Agriculture; Human and Animal Wastes. A number of the papers will be of direct
interest to entomologists and all will be worthwhile.
A symposium on Education
Agriculture and Conservation
27 in Section Q.
in the Biological Sciences,
will be held on December
The ESA Representatives on the AAAS Council are
A. B. GURNEY and J. G. ROZEN, JR. The former will
attend the Council meetings in Washington.
373