TITLE BYLINE ABSTRACT AND KEYWORDS

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TITLE, BYLINE, ABSTRACT,

AND KEYWORDS FOR

SCIENTIFIC ARTICLES

Mien A. Rifai

Indonesian Academy of Sciences

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THE GOLDEN RULE being always upheld in preparing scientific articles is briefly

acronymized as ABC

 A(ccurate) – highly precise

 B(rief) – compact and to the point

 C(lear) – unambiguous, single interpretation

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Anatomically, modern scientific writings in general always contain the following

items: title, byline, abstract, keywords, body of text, acknowledgement,

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If the title, byline, abstract and keywords of a scientific article normally cover only its first

page and hence represent only a small fraction of the published work, the body of text may by

comparison occupy a whole book. Nevertheless this preliminary component represents a very

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With many variations and modifications as well as nomenclatures, and depending upon established traditions of the respective disciplines, the body of text of current scientific writings normally arranged in the so-called IMRD pattern:

introduction = containing a statement on the problems faced (with a brief review of the salient literature) and reasoning (theoretical background) of the activity being reported – ideally not more than 10% of the length of the article

methodology = approach, site location, materials and methods, frame of thought, and any other information on what had been done –

approximately 15% of the length of the article

results = detailing all data and information gathered and unraveled, their analyses and syntheses, as well as the possible findings that can be developed therein – about 35% of the length of the article

discussion – elaboration and argument to explain the meaning and

significance of the novelties and findings being discovered, with special reference to their scientific position in relation with current theories or opinions among fellow scholars and scientists, as well as the

generalization and conclusion achieved – also about 35% of the length of the article

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*TITLE

In scientific articles, titles represent the

kernel, essence, interiority, soul, or image of their contents

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A title should be considered as an

advertisement useful to capture all potential readers and possible users of the articles

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Please remember that:

1. The title represents the part of the article which is most read by people

2. Hence the title determines the fate of a scientific article – be read and cited, or ignored and dismissed

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Therefore the title should be

prepared very carefully in order to:

 be immediately comprehended, wholly

understood, and grasped by all readers

 adequately describe the whole content of the

article

 draw the notice of casual readers

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Select only strong, positive, informative,

important words from the familiar vocabulary and appropriate scientific terms in accordance with traditions and jargons of the respective scientific disciplines

Be simple and concise, by employing fewest possible words through omission of

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Good titles

ideally

_ideally

should consist

_{should consist}

of not more than

 8 words (German)  10 words (English)

 12 words (Indonesian)

 90 strokes (including space) on the keyboard

Because of the development of more detailed

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Avoid clichés such as

Observation on . . . Investigation of . . .

Reinvestigation of . . . Study on . . .

Analysis of . . .

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When preparing a title, do not use:

Abbreviation and acronym

Complete sentences using verbs Trade marks

It has been said that

 Bombastic title . . .NO  Artistic title . . . YES

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Beware that short title often becomes too general and conveys an impression that the subject

presented will be a review article rather than an original research

Pseudoaneurism

Antibiotic and typhoid fever

Study of bacteria using electron microscope

Samples of artistic titles which have appeared in scientific literature:

Does Hirneola auricula-judae occur in Indonesia? That was a Dayak day that was

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Artistic titles are more commonly encountered in review articles, in articles containing the exposition of opinions, and in articles dealing with social sciences and humanities

Too long title is often difficult to understand immediately, and liable to be skipped out in quick searching of articles using search

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Although permissible, avoid subtitle (except Although permissible, avoid subtitle (except

in serial articles) as it will unnecessarily in serial articles) as it will unnecessarily

lengthen the title. lengthen the title.

Observation on the etiologic relationship of achylia gastrica to pernicious anemia: The effect of the

administration to patients with pernicious anemia of beef muscle after the incubation with normal human gastric juice

Control study of comparative efficacy of isoniazid, streptomycin-isoniazid, and streptomycin-para-amninosalycilic acid in pulmonary tuberculosis therapy. III. Report on twenty-eight-week

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To obtain a wholly appropriate title that meet all the requirement stipulated above, it is highly recommended that the title of an

article be prepared after the whole article has been completely written up. Based on

personal experience, it is useful to write an article in the following order: 1) material and methods, 2) conclusion, 3) result, 4)

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*RUNNING TITLE AND

INFORMATION DATES

Besides the title of the article, some journals ask their contributors to submit a ‘running title’ to appear on top of the right hand pages of the

printed article in the journal. The running title is an abbreviated title consisting of 3–5 words or not more 50 strokes on the keyboard, often

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Example of title of a serial article with its subtitle, and its running title:

M.A. RIFAI. 1965. Discomycetes flora of

Asia, Precursor III: Observations on Javanese species of Trichoglossum. Lloydia 28:113–

119.

Running title:

RIFAI: Discomycetes Flora III

[prepared by the editors, whereas the author originally supplied ‘RIFAI: Javanese

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*INFORMATION DATES sometimes appear in the

opening part of published articles. They are provided by

the editors of the journal to show the genesis of the

manuscript

1. Many journals report the date the manuscript

received in the editorial office, sometimes followed by the date(s) of its revisions, and especially the date of its acceptance for

publication

2. In case of later disputes, these dates can help in

establishing exactly who was the first to reveal something new

3. These dates give also a kind of indication when

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*BYLINE

Byline is part of an articles which indicates its

authorship (rests with the author), and its

ownership (belongs to the institution where the work reported was undertaken).

[Remember that the copyright holder of an articles is the journal where it is published]

Dictionary definition of author is ‘the writer of a literary work’.

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 Nowadays, an “author” is generally

considered to be someone who has made substantive intellectual contributions to a published study.

 Since scientific authorship has had important

academic, social, as well as financial implications, convention and ethical

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The Vancouver Convention on Co-Authorship stipulated

that authorship credit should be based on

1. substantial input to the conception and design,

or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data

2. drafting the article or revising it critically for

important intellectual content

3. final approval of the version to be published

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Therefore acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group, alone, does not justify authorship. Similarly persons who provided purely technical help (such as caring for

experimental organisms throughout the study, preparing illustrations), writing assistance, or a departmental chair who provided only

general support, are not qualify for

authorship, as are participating investigators who may have contributed materially but

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In an article jointly written by many authors, whatever else they may have contributed each one of them

should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content. In other words, all individuals listed as co-authors in a work conducted by large

multi-centre group should fully meet the criteria for

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Authorship of a multi-centre trials can be attributed to a group. All members of the

group who are named as authors should fully meet the above criteria for authorship. In

conjunction with this new development, the term ‘guarantors’ has been introduced to

indicate one or more authors who take the

responsibility for the integrity of the work as a whole, from inception to published article. When submitting a group author manuscript, the corresponding author should clearly

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The order of authorship in the byline should be a joint decision of the co-authors, best

decided before the study begins. For the sake of their own scientific integrity, authors

should be prepared to explain the order in which authors are listed.

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To conform with archival requirement, To conform with archival requirement, author’s name as appear in the byline author’s name as appear in the byline

should be consistently spelt, bearing in mind should be consistently spelt, bearing in mind

the existence of different customs in many the existence of different customs in many

countries. countries.

M. A. Rifai (the accepted form in Europe)

Mien A. Rifai (acceptable in Indonesia and the USA)

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Indonesians often face difficulty

because in international scientific

journals the last name or surname of

an author is not to be abbreviated, so

that the following form is not permitted

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All contributors (especially agencies which

provide funding) who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in the

acknowledgment section

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In line with the criteria to qualify for authorship specified above, intellectual contributions to a published study can be broken down into

several kinds of inputs (namely intellectual, physical, data processing, expertise,

scientific, and literary inputs), each of which can be scored according to the relative

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1. Intellectual input

(problem identification, approach adopted,

planning, designing)

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2. Physical input

(organizing and setting up apparatusses,

observations, data collecting, recordings,

and extracting

and extracting))

No significant involvement 0

Twice or three times involvement 5

Several times involvement 10

Lengthy and prolong involvement 15

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3. Data processing input

(organizing, processing, analysing,

synthesizing)

No significant involvement 0 Short involvement, twice or three times 5 Several times involvement 10 Lengthy and prolong involvement 15 Continuous involvement, from the

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4. Expertise input

(consultation, advise, opinion, view – from

other field or discipline)

No significant contribution 0

Routine short advise 5

Significant opinions 10

Contributed views especially prepared 15 Opinions which become the bases of

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5. Scientific input

(concluding, summarizing, generalizing,

formulating the theory)

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6. Literary input

(contribution to the first completed draft)

No significant contribution 0 Read and improve other’s contribution 5 Assist in writing two or three parts of the draft

10

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The highest score that can be achieved by a person is 100 (because point 4 is performed by an outsider). Theoretically, the number of person that can become the coauthor of an article is unlimited, but anyone may only claim the authorship of an article if he/she manages to accumulate a score of at least 30. The ordering of the authorship is based on the amount of score achieved, and when two persons have similar score alphabetical sequence should be used, with a note that the one who launch the idea should be

given preference.

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In writing down the byline,

therefore

1. Name and postal address of the institution where

the research reported had been performed should be attached to the principal author.

2. Name(s) and address(es) of all cooperating

institutions should be given attached to the appropriate authors.

3. Some journals like to include a full postal address

and e-mail address, at least the corresponding author, so that readers can write (ask) for more information

4. If the author moved to another institution, the

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*ABSTRACT

Abstract is a concise presentation of the

whole article, so that it gives the research problem or main objective of the research, indicated the methodology used, presents the main findings and discussion together with its conclusion (IMRD). Non research articles abstract should contain brief and comprehensive resume of complete

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UNESCO recommends that an abstract should consist of not more that 200 words.

Sometimes some journals use the term ‘summary’ for it, but it is generally

understood that a summary represents an extended abstract consisting of about 400 words and rendered in many paragraphs,

whereas abstract should be presented in one paragraph.

In recent years, more and more medical

journals prefer to use a structured abstract

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In order to conform with that recommendation, In order to conform with that recommendation, prepare abstracts which are not:

prepare abstracts which are not:

 too long (because one forgot to count the

words used)

 too short (often due to insufficient

treatment of the new finding)

 too exhaustive (resulting from detailed

explanation of methodology)

 too scanty (unbalanced, important

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Informative abstract presented quantitatively (‘It was shown that the fertilization of peanut took place at 04:30 . . .’) is preferable to

indicative abstract presented qualitatively (‘The fertilization processes in peanut were observed continuously throughout the

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Abstracts should not contain:

1. Sentences that can be gleaned from the title of the

article, or sound like an introduction to the whole

article (‘The aim of this research is to find out the role of human resource strategy on the market

performance . . .’)

2. Lengthy background information 3. References to other literature

4. Abbreviations or terms that may be confusing to

readers

5. Any sort of illustration, figure, or table, or references

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Some journals––especially those with tear-out abstract service––instruct their

contributing authors to include the title of the article in the respective abstract. This is highly commendable for abstract

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Example of one paragraphed abstract,

with the title of the article included

RIFAI, M.A. 2008. Another note on Podoconis

megasperma Boedijn (Hyphomycetes). Reinwardtia

12 (4): 277–279. –– Exosporium megaspermum

(Boedijn) Rifai and Exosporium ampullaceum

(Petch) M.B.Ellis are transferred to Neopodoconis

Rifai, a newly created genus extracted from

Exosporium Link based on the nature of the true septation of their rostrate conidia. Two new

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Example of one paragraph abstract, title of the article

omitted

Diabetes mellitus is a metabolic disease caused by the lack of insulin in the human body. This disease caused many various kind of complication, including in the oral cavity known as

toothache like pulpits. This study aimed to know the influence of blood glucose level toward diabetes mellitus’s dental pulp

nerve sensitivity. In this study was used the electric pulp tester

(EPT) equipment to measure the dental pulp nerve sensitivity on both groups of sample. The statistical analysis shows that blood glucose level is effecting the diabetes mellitus’s dental pulp nerve sensitivity (R2 = 0.327). The result of the study shows increasing of the dental pulp nerve sensitivity on Blood Glucose Level 2 hour PP (2hPP) 150 mg/dl and reaches the peak level on BGL 2hPP between 250 – 300 mg/dl, but on BGL 2hPP 350 mg/dl decreasing of dental pulp nerve sensitivity is happened. From this study can be concluded that diabetes

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Example of structured abstract, title of the article omitted Example of structured abstract, title of the article omitted

BACKGROUND – Extrapulmonary tuberculosis prevalence in New York City is still high in the last decade (45-60%).

OBJECTIVE - To analyze the factors associated with survival in patients with pulmonary and extrapulmonary tuberculosis in New York City. DESIGN - Observational study of a citywide cohort of tuberculosis cases.

Setting- New York City, April 1991, before the strengthening of its control program.

SUBJECTS - All 229 newly diagnosed cases of tuberculosis documented by culture in April 1991. Most patients (74%) were male, and the median age was 37 years (range, 1-89 years). In all, 89% belonged to minority groups. Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection was present in 50% and multidrug resistance in 7% of the cases. Twenty-one patients (9%) were not treated.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE - Follow up information was collected

through the city tuberculosis registry; death from any cause was verified through the National Death Index.

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Example of structured abstract, with the title of the article

included

YULIDAR HAFIDH, DWI HIDAYAH, SUNYATANINGKAMTO. Factors affecting mortality of neonatal sepsis in Moewardi Hospital, Surakarta.

Paediatrica Indonesiana 47(2): 74–77. 2007.

BACKGROUND Mortality of neonatal sepsis is still a significant problem. It may be affected by many factors.

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to determine factors which affect

mortality of neonatal sepsis at neonatal ward of Moewardi Hospital, Surakarta. METHODS Data of neonatal sepsis was obtained from medical record at neonatal

ward of Moewardi Hospital from December 2004 to November 2005. We recorded data from 97 neonatal sepsis consisted of 46 males and 52 female

babies. Statistical analysis had been performed using univariate Chi-square and multivariate multiple logistic regression analysis.

RESULTS Overall neonatal sepsis mortality was about 40%. There were no

significant difference in factors associated with mortality of neonatal sepsis such as gender, referral patients, and bacterial growth culture, except for birth weight which affected mortality (OR=6.29; 95% CI 2.57; 15.42)

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*KEYWORDS

Dictionary explanation of keywords are ‘a selection of significant words from a document that can be used as indices to its content’.

Beside useful for preparing index, keywords can also be employed in scanning the content of scientific

articles through computer, so that they are useful for readers in hunting for articles related to problems

they are facing by inputting them to a search

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In published articles, keywords are mostly In published articles, keywords are mostly

presented under the abstract presented under the abstract

1. Normally consist of 3-8 words (may be

organized in short in phrases)

2. Prepare by not repeating words used in the title 3. May even use words not appearing in the

whole article

4. Some journals prepare list of keywords to be

selected by their contributors

5. In medical journals MeSH (Medical Subject

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TITLE BYLINE ABSTRACT AND KEYWORDS