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 ofthe paper.2.1. Titles2.1.1. General functionsA. Generalizing the TextA 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 ReaderIf 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 RetrievalA 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 FeaturesA. Using More Nouns, Noun Phrases and GerundsThe 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 V ocabulary Learning Strategies.(4) Emotional Therapeutics: New Rectifying App- roaches for Children's Behavior Problems.B. Using Incomplete SentencesA title is just a label of appellation 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 RequirementsA. ABC Principles for TitlesA is for accuracy,B is for brevity andC 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 ConciseGenerally, 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 as “on the ....”“regarding ....”“investigation on..., .... the method of..., .... some thoughts on..., .... aresearch 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 SpecificIn 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 TitlesA 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, “Is there....* .... When does...?” “Should the...? .... Is it...?” 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 + inf in itive,” for example, 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 UnifiedThe 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 StandardIn 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 TitlesA. Words' Number LimitationGenerally, 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 TitleA 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 Necessary for... ? 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 TitlesWith the development of science and technology, a great amount of technological terms come intobeing. 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 stimulatedemission of radiation, 激光).(2) DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid, 脱握拳核糖核酸).(3) AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome,(4) CT (computerized tomography, 电子计算机断(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 TitlesWhether 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 ANAL YSIS OF MULTIPLE CLASS-OF-SER VICE 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 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 sub-title. 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 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 Affiliation2.2.1.AuthorsWho 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 medi- cal 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 SciencesTo social science publications, neither the Modern Languages Association (MLA) nor the Chicago Manual of Style defines requirements for authorship, but the APA Publication Manual (APA, 2010) gives clear advice on allocating credit for authorship. It states th at “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, organ-izing and conducting the statisticalanalysis, 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 disserta tion 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 ScienceIn medical science, a total of 876 journals follow The Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journal (The Uniform Requirements) a). The Uniform Requirement was initiated by a group of editors of general medical journals in 1978 and was adopted by ICM-JE 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 author-ship. 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 forauthorship/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 on- ly general support.2. 2. 1.3 Authorship in the Natural SciencesThe 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 al l 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 deletionor 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. AffiliationJust 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 LearningPatrick R. Thomas1 , Jacinta B. Mckay2(1.School of Education and Professional Studies, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia2.School 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 universitysubmission dateThe 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 EthicsBy Geng TiantianUnder the Supervision ofProfessor XXXSubmitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirementsfor the Degree of Master of ArtsSchool of Foreign LanguagesJiangsu UniversityZhenjiang, ChinaJune, 20122. 3. KeywordsKeywords 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.2.3.1 General FunctionsA. Easiness of RetrievalAs 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 HighlightingThe 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 FeaturesA. NominalizationKeywords are usually used in the form of nouns, not verbs. For example, “investigation” i s used instead of “investigate”; “fabricate” should be replaced by “fabrication”; and “educate” ought to be replaced by “education.”B. Limited NumberThe 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.2.3.3 Writing RequirementsA. Using Required TermsThe terms of “keywords” should be consistent wi th 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 LocationThough 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 KeywordsKeywords 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。
