Academic Research - “What’s in a Title?”
So that was a pretty poor attempt to adapt a famous adage from Romeo and Juliet - “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet” - for my own expository purposes.
Before taking a short mid-year break (and also because I didn’t have time to prepare anything formal this week), I thought we could have a little fun in taking a look at some clever, bizarre, and in some cases laugh-out-loud titles that academic researchers have published with over the years.
But we can’t have fun without a little science as well. So, is there actually anything to be gained by giving your research paper a less serious title? Interestingly, there is a recent preprint paper out there that has attempted to assess this relationship - specifically between humour in article titles and the all-important citation impact.
If this title is funny, will you cite me? Citation impacts of humour and other features of article titles in ecology and evolution (and the Nature opinion piece of the same paper).
The TL;DR is that articles with humourous titles tend to be cited less, but article ‘importance’ was considered to be a confounder in this association, and once adjustment was made for that, articles with humourous titles were in fact cited more. If you’re interested, have a read of the paper. I’m not that convinced as the authors used self-citation as a proxy for their definition of importance and I’m sure there are better ways to assess this.
But anyway, now that the science is out of the way, let’s get to the fun bit. These are a collection of papers that I’ve come across over the years and no doubt some will be familiar to you, but please indulge me anyway. Many of these have used clever wordplay or puns, but some are also serious (and unfortunate) titles.
I am going to try my best to broadly group them by some linking theme, if that is even possible….
1 Puns and Plays on Popular Culture
Fantastic yeasts and where to find them: the hidden diversity of dimorphic fungal pathogens. For the Harry Potter fans.
Medical marijuana: can’t we all just get a bong? This was a conference poster, not a paper.
miR miR on the wall, who’s the most malignant medulloblastoma miR of them all? Sounds like a poisoned apple is the least of anyones worries.
Gut Microbe to Brain Signaling: What Happens in Vagus… I love this one.
Die hard: Are cancer stem cells the Bruce Willises of tumor biology? Yippee-ki-yay…
One ring to multiplex them all. Well, that’s just precious.
Leaf me alone: visual constraints on the ecology of social group formation. How I feel when my kids come up to me and ask for more money.
2 Just Clever
Can you tell your clunis from your cubitus? A benchmark for functional imaging. Or, can you tell your arse from your elbow?
You Probably Think this Paper’s About You: Narcissists’ Perceptions of their Personality and Reputation. So, it is about me?
3 But Why?
Ok, perhaps these aren’t funny titles, but certainly they make for interesting, if in some cases questionable, research.
Are full or empty beer bottles sturdier and does their fracture-threshold suffice to break the human skull? “Now let’s get ethics approval for an RCT”.
Impact of wet underwear on thermoregulatory responses and thermal comfort in the cold. Just letting you know that wet underwear is not comfortable - tell your friends.
Sword swallowing and its side effects. It turns out that sword swallowing is a hazardous activity (please don’t distract the next sword swallower you meet).
Role of Childhood Aerobic Fitness in Successful Street Crossing. No children were actually harmed in the conduct of this study.
A comparison of jump performances of the dog flea, Ctenocephalides canis (Curtis, 1826) and the cat flea, Ctenocephalides felis felis (Bouché, 1835). But cats can jump?!
Chickens prefer beautiful humans. Duh - obviously!
Pigeon’s discrimination of paintings by Monet and Picasso. Clearly more cultured than me.
Enriched environment exposure accelerates rodent driving skills. Rat designated-drivers, a market ready to exploit.
Experimental replication shows knives manufactured from frozen human feces do not work. Science at its best.
Termination of intractable hiccups with digital rectal massage. We should all keep this in mind at our next dinner party.
Farting as a defence against unspeakable dread. We’ve all been there.
4 Not Sure Where to Put These…
The effect of having Christmas dinner with in-laws on gut microbiota composition. Well now you can put some science behind your decision to abstain from visiting the in-laws during the festive season - “In participants visiting in-laws, there was a significant decrease in all Ruminococcus species, known to be associated with psychological stress and depression.”
Get Me Off Your F’ing Mailing List. This is just awesome.
5 To Conclude
I’m going to end with two papers that I think are highlights.
The first is really a tribute to anyone who has gone through the peer-review process and published an academic paper. At some point - if you haven’t already - you are going to have to deal with Reviewer 2. While this paper provides weak evidence that Reviewer 2 might actually be the victim of Reviewer-Identity-Theft, you can feel rest assured that you are not alone in having an obviously talentless peer-review hack underappreciate your true brilliance and fine work. We’ve all been there.
Dear Reviewer 2: Go F’ Yourself
The second is a classic. To the research students out there - don’t let a lack of words stop you from publishing your best work.
The unsuccessful self-treatment of a case of “writer’s block”
I love the review given of it at the time:
“I have studied this manuscript very carefully with lemon juice and X-rays and have not detected a single flaw in either design or writing style. I suggest it be published without revision. Clearly, it is the most concise manuscript I have ever seen – yet it contains sufficient detail to allow other investigators to replicate Dr. Upper’s failure. In comparison with the other manuscripts I get from you containing all that complicated detail, this one was a pleasure to examine. Surely we can find a place for this paper in the Journal – perhaps on the edge of a blank page.”
I didn’t realise this was just the first in a series, and in fact there have been both success and failures in replication of the study. Unfortunately, the more recent meta-analysis still leaves the jury out as far as I’m concerned…
The Unsuccessful Self-Treatment of a Case of “Writer’s Block”: A Replication
Unsuccessful Self-Treatment of a Case of “Writer’s Block”: A Partial Failure to Replicate
Unsuccessful Self-Treatment of “Writer’s Block”: A Review of the Literature
The Unsuccessful Group-Treatment of “Writer’s Block”
The Unsuccessful Group Treatment of “Writer’s Block”: A Ten-Year Follow-up
Unsuccessful Treatments of “Writer’s Block”: A Meta-Analysis
Until next time…