(See also a more recent blog post: How to Title Your Article: Rules and Tips)
In there early days of Tourism Geographies (which was first published in 1999), there were basically no restrictions on how authors titled their papers. Some of them approached the method that is common for some thesis and dissertations of including every possible keyword in the title, with the apparent belief that this would be (1) the most accurate approach, and (2) attract the most (or maybe the best?) readers. After TG became accepted in the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI, in 2008), however, I learned that there are some general guidelines on how to title a paper to attract the largest audience.
I was told by my publisher that, in general, papers that review the research literature on a certain topic attract the largest audiences. Thus, Progress in Human Geography, which mostly publishes review-type articles, has the highest SSCI rating of all geography journals. On the other hand, papers with the words "case study" in their title generally have the smallest readership because only people who have a specific interest in that case study location are likely to read the paper.
Based on this knowledge, I initially implemented a policy of limiting titles for Tourism Geographies to 10 words. (I had heard of other journals that have an 8 word limit!) The goal was to make every paper sound like a literature review paper to maximize their potential for citation. After a couple of years of complaints, I changed the word limit to 12 words, which people seem to be OK with. I will also suggest alternate titles that I think will work better for people who have a hard time with the 12 word limit.
In addition, I mostly ban the words "case study" from titles -- although occasionally they slip through because I am not always so vigilant. If there is a case study involved, it should be mentioned in the abstract and the place should be listed in the keywords (I have been even more lax on enforcing this). However, the place does not need to be in the title. (Occasionally, an author has a case study that is not mentioned it in the title, abstract or keywords, which I also think is a mistake-- although in the opposite direction.)
Most of the papers that are published in a journal like Tourism Geographies are in between the two extremes of pure literature review and pure case study. They are driven by theory, and therefore contain a well conceptualized literature review, and they are empirically based on case study field work that is trying to resolve a theoretical question. For those papers, the theoretical question is what should drive the title. The empirical place (usually) does not need to be in the title, but should be mentioned in the abstract and keywords.
On the other hand, if the paper is mostly a case study, in which theory is secondary or only used to support a critical analysis of the case, then the case study place should be in the title, along with the basic goals of the argument that is being made. This is especially true of 'Tourism Places' articles, which are a special type of article published in Tourism Geographies. These articles usually have a particular theoretical perspective or lens that is used to expand out understanding of the tourism experience, though they are usually not trying to necessarily develop new theoretical understandings.
Of course nothing is sacrosanct, and it is very possible for a case study to be very popular, and for a literature review paper to fall flat. In the end, the quality of the research and writing are more important that the title. But I think knowing these general rules can help place a paper in a proper perspective to build its readership.
In there early days of Tourism Geographies (which was first published in 1999), there were basically no restrictions on how authors titled their papers. Some of them approached the method that is common for some thesis and dissertations of including every possible keyword in the title, with the apparent belief that this would be (1) the most accurate approach, and (2) attract the most (or maybe the best?) readers. After TG became accepted in the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI, in 2008), however, I learned that there are some general guidelines on how to title a paper to attract the largest audience.
I was told by my publisher that, in general, papers that review the research literature on a certain topic attract the largest audiences. Thus, Progress in Human Geography, which mostly publishes review-type articles, has the highest SSCI rating of all geography journals. On the other hand, papers with the words "case study" in their title generally have the smallest readership because only people who have a specific interest in that case study location are likely to read the paper.
Based on this knowledge, I initially implemented a policy of limiting titles for Tourism Geographies to 10 words. (I had heard of other journals that have an 8 word limit!) The goal was to make every paper sound like a literature review paper to maximize their potential for citation. After a couple of years of complaints, I changed the word limit to 12 words, which people seem to be OK with. I will also suggest alternate titles that I think will work better for people who have a hard time with the 12 word limit.
In addition, I mostly ban the words "case study" from titles -- although occasionally they slip through because I am not always so vigilant. If there is a case study involved, it should be mentioned in the abstract and the place should be listed in the keywords (I have been even more lax on enforcing this). However, the place does not need to be in the title. (Occasionally, an author has a case study that is not mentioned it in the title, abstract or keywords, which I also think is a mistake-- although in the opposite direction.)
Most of the papers that are published in a journal like Tourism Geographies are in between the two extremes of pure literature review and pure case study. They are driven by theory, and therefore contain a well conceptualized literature review, and they are empirically based on case study field work that is trying to resolve a theoretical question. For those papers, the theoretical question is what should drive the title. The empirical place (usually) does not need to be in the title, but should be mentioned in the abstract and keywords.
On the other hand, if the paper is mostly a case study, in which theory is secondary or only used to support a critical analysis of the case, then the case study place should be in the title, along with the basic goals of the argument that is being made. This is especially true of 'Tourism Places' articles, which are a special type of article published in Tourism Geographies. These articles usually have a particular theoretical perspective or lens that is used to expand out understanding of the tourism experience, though they are usually not trying to necessarily develop new theoretical understandings.
Of course nothing is sacrosanct, and it is very possible for a case study to be very popular, and for a literature review paper to fall flat. In the end, the quality of the research and writing are more important that the title. But I think knowing these general rules can help place a paper in a proper perspective to build its readership.
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