Scientometrics
Volume/Issue:
Volume 88: Issue 2
Article title type and its relation with the number of downloads and citations
Authors: Hamid R. Jamali 1 and Mahsa Nikzad 2
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  • 1 Department of Library and Information Studies, Faculty of Psychology and Education, Tarbiat Moallem University, No 49, Mofateh Ave, P.O. Box 15614, Tehran, Iran
  • 2 Iranian Research Institute for Information Science and Technology (IRANDOC), Information Science Research Center, No. 1090, Enghelab Ave., Felestin Cross, 1315773314, Tehran, Iran, nikzad.mahsa@gmail.com
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-011-0412-z
Page Count:
653–661
Publication Date:
01 Aug 2011
Online Publication Date:
19 May 2011
Article Category:
Research Article
Restricted access

Abstract

Title of an article can be descriptive, declarative or a question. It plays important role in both marketing and findability of article. We investigate the impact of the type of article titles on the number of citations and downloads articles receive. Number of downloads and citations for all articles published in six of PLoS (Public Library of Science) journals (2,172 articles) were obtained from PLoS and type of each article's title (including descriptive, indicative and question) was determined as well as the number of substantive words in title (title length). Statistical difference and correlation tests were carried out. The findings showed that differences exist between articles with different types of titles in terms of downloads and citations, especially articles with question titles tended to be downloaded more but cited less than the others. Articles with longer titles were downloaded slightly less than the articles with shorter titles. Titles with colon tended to be longer and receive fewer downloads and citations. As expected, number of downloads and citations were positively correlated.

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Cover Scientometrics
Scientometrics
Print ISSN:
0138-9130
Online ISSN:
1588-2861
Keywords:
Article titles; Download; Citation; Title length; Colon

Monthly Content Usage

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Aug 2020 23 0 0
Sep 2020 57 1 0
Oct 2020 117 3 1
Nov 2020 60 4 1
Dec 2020 41 11 3
Jan 2021 49 1 0
Feb 2021 0 0 0