Title (mis)deeds?

Just a brief post this month, as befits a look at one of the shortest sections of a research proposal – its title. The title is almost certainly the part of your proposal that will be read first, and it may well be the one single bit of text that’s read the most.

First impressions count

Picture for a moment a tired reviewer, working late into the evening to get through a pile of proposals. They put down the one they’ve just read with a weary shake of the head and reach for yours, scanning the title to get a quick heads-up as to what it’s about. Why should they care enough to read on past the title? It’s a question you should already have asked yourself, and in answering it you hopefully aimed a bit higher than ‘because that’s what they’ve signed up to’.

The title is an opportunity to create a strong first impression, catch the reader’s eye and give them a good flavour of what’s to come. It should inform, intrigue and entice the reader – even the weariest of cynics – and hook them in, making them want to find out more. It sets the scene, predicting the content of the proposal and reflecting its aim, focus and key messages. Its job is to confirm to the reader that yes, this is something they really should be interested in.

This is quite a task for a single short sentence or phrase to accomplish. And it’s made more challenging by the fact that shorter certainly is sweeter when it comes to titles. I’d suggest aiming for a maximum of 20 words, and ideally no more than 15. You might even consider limiting it to ten.

Here’s an example of a proposal title that I think is rather nice. It’s based on something I found on the web:

The role of psychosocial factors in treatment compliance among HIV-positive patients

Okay, it’s 11 words long, not ten or less. But it’s still succinct and punchy, fitting easily onto a single line and containing no flab or waffle. It packs in a lot of good information – we now know exactly what the proposal is about. We know the main group of people that it involves, the specific behaviour of interest, and the variable/s under examination that could affect that behaviour. Contextual cues give a good indication as to the importance of the proposed research. Armed with this knowledge, the reader can very quickly decide whether the proposal is likely to be of interest to them. If it has been submitted to the right funder, the right funding call and/or the appropriate panel, and if it addresses the funder’s guidance, remit and objectives, then it’s reasonable to hope that the answer here will be ‘yes’.

Get the essential information to the front

Even though a good title should only be short, it’s nevertheless well worth trying to front-load it with those words and phrases that work hardest to catch the reader’s attention and spell out exactly what the proposal is all about. Take the following example:

A cluster-randomised pragmatic trial to evaluate the effectiveness of hyperbaric oxygen therapy for treating non-healing wounds in diabetes

This is perfectly adequate – it does the job. It’s not too long (18 words) and it certainly tells us clearly what the project is about. But I think it could be improved. Specifically, I might point out that we’re fully ten words into the title before we get any clue as to what the research is actually about. And it’s not until right at the end that we discover it’s about diabetic wounds. There’s scope to front-load the title with that information, and perhaps in doing so reduce word count a little. Here’s my effort (11 words in total):

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy in non-healing diabetic wounds: A cluster-randomised pragmatic trial

Proposal acronyms

Sometimes an acronym is conjured up as part of, or as an adjunct to, the proposal title. Some people just love a nice project acronym, and presumably at least some of those people are themselves reviewers. I’m quite partial to a good acronym (or proposal short name) myself, so long as it’s catchy, appropriate to the proposal’s focus and not too obviously forced. So for the above example, we might consider something like the following:

HEALS: Hyperbaric oxygen therapy for Effective Amelioration of Long-term and Slow-healing diabetic wounds – A cluster-randomised pragmatic trial

While an acronym certainly isn’t the be-all and end-all of a good proposal title – I daresay no project ever missed out on funding for want of a killer acronym – a decent one provides a strong and easily-recalled identity for the project. Consider this; your proposal will (hopefully) get discussed by a panel or committee, and its members will typically refer to it using a short-hand version of the name. Would you rather they referred to it is as ‘HEALS’, or ‘the one about hyperbaric oxygen treatment’? 

I’m really not keen on acronyms of the ‘AWFUL’ variety though: rAndomly-generated acronyms that alWays Fail to impress because they're only tenUously connected with the proposaL.  And please – the titles I’ve used above are just intended as illustrative examples, so if a pragmatic cluster-randomised trial would not in any way be appropriate in this context then hopefully you’ll accept my sincere apologies and spare me the anguished emails…

Don’t forget the rest of the proposal!

Importantly, while the title (and indeed acronym) may well be the first part of your proposal to get read, it doesn’t need to be the first thing you write. Certainly, don’t get stuck in the name-hunting loop at the expense of getting on with the proposal itself. This can become quite a rabbit hole, and for the procrastinators among us it can prove very tempting to put off the hard work of writing in favour of knocking about some promising titles and acronyms. If necessary, just come up with a working title and re-visit this when the bulk of the writing work is done. Often a good title will emerge organically from the writing process.

Practising what I preach?

And what of the title I’ve chosen for this blog post? Well it’s certainly short, and I think it gives a pretty clear indication of what the post is about. I’ve also sneaked in a pithy little word play, which pleases me at any rate; probably too frivolous for a research proposal, but acceptable in a blog.

The views and opinions expressed in this blog are mine alone and are in no way endorsed by my employer. Factual information and guidance are provided on a 'best-endeavour' basis and may become out of date over time. No responsibility can be taken for any action or inaction taken or not in respect of the content of this blog.