Are Titles of Chemical Papers Becoming More Informative?
The efficiency of key-word-in-context (KWIC) permuted-
title indexes and their numerous variations
is
highly
dependent upon authors’ choices of titles for their
papers. Titles are important not only in commercial
services, such as Chemical Titles,
BASIC,
Current Con-
tents, and CA Condensates, but also in scanning pri-
mary journals, and in traditional library services, such
as bibliographies. It
is
generally believed and often
stated that titles of chemical papers are becoming
more informative as authors become increasingly
aware of the importance of titles as “carriers” of in-
formation. The present study was undertaken to test
whether (1
1
titles of chemical papers are becoming
more informative and
(2)
whether uninformative titles
of chemical papers are being eliminated since the
advent of the KWIC index in 1958.
Introduction
The key-word-in-context
(KWIC)
permuted-title index
was introduced by
H.
P.
Luhn in
1958
as
a
prompt,
relatively inexpensive means of building
a
temporary
bridge between the contents
of
the current literature and
readers, awaiting the completion of the more slowly
prepared conventionnl indexes. Luhn himself recognized
that the quality of the
KWIC
index could not equal that
of some
of
the more carefully prepared conventional
indexes. However, because of its low cost and ease
of
preparation, the
KWIC
index and its variations have
replaced the conventional index in many cases.
One
of
the strongest objections voiced against such
indexes is that titles of papers are unsatisfactory as
a
basis
for
subject index entries because titles are not com-
posed with indexing in mind. The adequacy
of
titles as
a
source of subject content clues has been given much
attention
in
the Iast decade, and many studies have
been published on the subject.
t
Present address:
UNESCO,
Paris,
France.
The first hypothesis was tested by comparing titles
published in 1948, 1958, and 1968 by the following
criteria: (1) a count of substantive words in the title;
(2)
a count of
all
word matches between title and
abstract, with and without the use of a thesaurus; and
(3)
a count of word matches between title and 10 lead-
ing substantive words selected from the abstract, with
and without the use of a thesaurus. The second hy-
pothesis was tested by comparing a count of short
titles (with
3
or
less substantive words) published in
1948, 1958, and 1968.
Results confirm that uninformative titles of chemical
papers are being eliminated and that informative
titles are becoming more informative since the advent
of the KWIC index.
JACQUES J. TOCATLIAN
t
Merek
Sharp
&
Dohme
Research Labordories
West
Point,
Pennsylvnnin
The results and conclusions
of
these studies
on
the
adequacy
of
titles vary. There
is,
however, a recognition
of the obvious: The efficiency
of
a
KWIC
index is depen-
dent upon authors’ choices of titles. In fact, the impor-
tance of informative titles has been stressed in the litera-
ture
for
many years.
There developed
a
frequently stated conviction that the
very existence
of
permuted-title indexes would stimulate
authors to use better titles for their papers, as exemplified
by
J.
D.
Black’s statement in
1062:
“Before long the
engineer, scientist,
or
mathematician will realize that
if
his title is not descriptive enough his paper will not
be used
as
much as it might be.”
The belief that titles would become more informative
is sometimes translated into statements that they actually
did. However, none of the statements made verbally
at
professional meetings or in writing were based
on
statisti-
cal evidence.
Recognition that evidence in support
of,
or in contra-
diction to, the belief that titles are becoming more infor-
mative could be important in future index building led
to the undertaking of the present study.
Journal
of
the American Society for Information Science
-
September-October
1970
345