Abstract

ENTRALGO, Johanna; SALAGER-MEYER, Françoise  and  LUZARDO BRICENO, Marianela. Titles of English-Written Scientific Articles: A Cross-Disciplinary Analysis. Núcleo [online]. 2014, vol.26, n.31, pp.75-100. ISSN 0798-9784.

This paper examines a corpus of 150 titles of scientific articles published between 2010 and 2013 in Anglo-American journals of natural sciences in order to determine their average length and the frequency of the different types of titles (nominal, verbal, simple, compound, and question titles). The frequency of occurrence of these variables was recorded in each title. The quantitative results obtained were then compared by means of the ANOVA test of significance. An ethnographic study was also conducted with the participation of experts in biology, chemistry and physics. Our results show that the average title length was 12 words. Statistically significant differences were observed between the frequency of nominal vs. verbal titles (p = 0.001) and that of simple vs. compound titles (p = 0.04). The colon was found to be the most frequent punctuation mark used in compound titles. Despite a few interdisciplinary differences, nominal and simple titles, and the use of colons in compound titles are the three most important characteristics of English-written scientific article titles in natural sciences. We present a few pedagogical recommendations that could be applied in ESP courses.

Keywords : titles; scientific paper; natural sciences; English; ethnographic study.

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