TITLE, BYLINE, ABSTRACT, AND KEYWORDS

FOR SCIENTIFIC ARTICLES

Mien A. Rifai
Indonesian Academy of Sciences
c.o. “Herbarium Bogorience”, Puslit Biologi LIPI, Jalan Juanda 22, Bogor;
“Tang Lebun”, RT 03/RW 15, Kotabatu, Ciomas, Bogor 16610

THE GOLDEN RULE being always upheld in preparing scientific articles is briefly
acronymized as ABC
A(ccurate) – highly precise
B(rief) – compact and to the point
C(lear) – unambiguous, single interpretation
But please bear in mind the saying that ‘The golden rule is that there is no golden
rule’!

Anatomically, modern scientific writings in general always contain the following

items: title, byline, abstract, keywords, body of text, acknowledgement, bibliography,
appendix.

If the title, byline, abstract and keywords of a scientific article normally cover only its
first page and hence represent only a small fraction of the published work, the body of
text may by comparison occupy a whole book. Nevertheless this preliminary
component represents a very important part of the work, so that they are given a very
prominent and most significant position in the publication.

With many variations and modifications as well as nomenclatures, and depending

upon established traditions of the respective disciplines, the body of text of current
scientific writings normally arranged in the so-called IMRD pattern:
introduction = containing a statement on the problems faced (with a brief review of
the salient literature) and reasoning (theoretical background) of the activity being
reported – ideally not more than 10% of the length of the article
methodology = approach, site location, materials and methods, frame of thought, and
any other information on what had been done – approximately 15% of the length of
the article
results = detailing all data and information gathered and unraveled, their analyses and
syntheses, as well as the possible findings that can be developed therein – about 35%
of the length of the article
discussion – elaboration and argument to explain the meaning and significance of the
novelties and findings being discovered, with special reference to their scientific

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position in relation with current theories or opinions among fellow scholars and
scientists, as well as the generalization and conclusion achieved – also about 35% of
the length of the article
To this is always added bibliography – references cited which should be less than 5%
of the length of the article

*TITLE
In scientific articles, titles represent the kernel, essence, interiority, soul, or image of
their contents
Therefore a title is more a label rather than a statement, which succinctly encapsulates
the whole subject matter being dealt with

A title should be considered as an advertisement useful to capture all potential readers

and possible users of the articles
It should also function as a beacon or ‘neon light’ to attract the attention of others to
its possible use as a source of inspiration for furthering one’s work

Please remember that:

1. The title represents the part of the article which is most read by people
2. Hence the title determines the fate of a scientific article – be read and cited, or
ignored and dismissed
3. If unlucky, it will represents the only part of the whole article ever read by people
outside its authors and editors

Therefore the title should be prepared very carefully in order to:

- be immediately comprehended, wholly understood, and grasped by all readers
- adequately describe the whole content of the article
- draw the notice of casual readers
- stimulate the interest of information seekers

Select only strong, positive, informative, important words from the familiar
vocabulary and appropriate scientific terms in accordance with traditions and jargons
of the respective scientific disciplines
Be simple and concise, by employing fewest possible words through omission of
unnecessary ones

Good titles ideally should consist of not more than

- 8 words (German)
- 10 words (English)
- 12 words (Indonesian)
- 90 strokes (including space) on the keyboard

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Because of the development of more detailed specifications in modern scientific
researches, many journals nowadays allow longer titles
Avoid clichés such as
Observation on . . .
Investigation of . . .
Reinvestigation of . . .
Study on . . .
Analysis of . . .
Opening such as A . . ., An . . ., The . . ., Another . . .

When preparing a title, do not use:

Abbreviation and acronym
Complete sentences using verbs
Trade marks

It has been said that

Bombastic title . . .NO
Artistic title . . . YES
Provocative title . . . OK

Beware that short title often becomes too general and conveys an impression that the
subject presented will be a review article rather than an original research
Pseudoaneurism
Antibiotic and typhoid fever
Study of bacteria using electron microscope

Samples of artistic titles which have appeared in scientific literature:

Does Hirneola auricula-judae occur in Indonesia?
That was a Dayak day that was
As the bountiful leafage marches on

Artistic titles are more commonly encountered in review articles, in articles

containing the exposition of opinions, and in articles dealing with social sciences and
humanities

Too long title is often difficult to understand immediately, and liable to be skipped out
in quick searching of articles using search engine.

Although permissible, avoid subtitle (except in serial articles) as it will unnecessarily

lengthen the title.
Observation on the etiologic relationship of achylia gastrica to pernicious
anemia: The effect of the administration to patients with pernicious anemia of
beef muscle after the incubation with normal human gastric juice

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 Control study of comparative efficacy of isoniazid, streptomycin-isoniazid,
and streptomycin-para-amninosalycilic acid in pulmonary tuberculosis
therapy. III. Report on twenty-eight-week observations on 649 patients with
streptomycin-susceptible infection

To obtain a wholly appropriate title that meet all the requirement stipulated above, it
is highly recommended that the title of an article be prepared after the whole article
has been completely written up. Based on personal experience, it is useful to write an
article in the following order: 1) material and methods, 2) conclusion, 3) result, 4)
discussion, 5) introduction, 6) abstract, and the last but not the least 7) title.

*RUNNING TITLE AND INFORMATION DATES

Besides the title of the article, some journals ask their contributors to submit a
‘running title’ to appear on top of the right hand pages of the printed article in the
journal. The running title is an abbreviated title consisting of 3–5 words or not more
50 strokes on the keyboard, often presented together with the abbreviated name of the
author of the respective article.

Example of title of a serial article with its subtitle, and its running title:
M.A. RIFAI. 1965. Discomycetes flora of Asia, Precursor III: Observations on
Javanese species of Trichoglossum. Lloydia 28:113–119.
Running title:
RIFAI: Discomycetes Flora III
[prepared by the editors, whereas the author originally supplied ‘RIFAI:
Javanese Trichoglossum’]

*INFORMATION DATES sometimes appear in the opening part of published

articles. They are provided by the editors of the journal to show the genesis of the
manuscript
1. Many journals report the date the manuscript received in the editorial office,
sometimes followed by the date(s) of its revisions, and especially the date of
its acceptance for publication
2. In case of later disputes, these dates can help in establishing exactly who was
the first to reveal something new
3. These dates give also a kind of indication when the research was done, which
may be important if there has been a long delay in getting it published

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*BYLINE

Byline is part of an articles which indicates its authorship (rests with the author), and
its ownership (belongs to the institution where the work reported was undertaken).
[Remember that the copyright holder of an articles is the journal where it is published]

Dictionary definition of author is ‘the writer of a literary work’.

But what is an author in scientific world? Who is this elusive person? What criteria to
be met with, in order to make one qualifies as an author?

Nowadays, an “author” is generally considered to be someone who has made

substantive intellectual contributions to a published study.
Since scientific authorship has had important academic, social, as well as financial
implications, convention and ethical considerations have been developed to be used as
guideline in clarifying this difficult topic.

The Vancouver Convention on Co-Authorship stipulated that authorship credit should

be based on
1. substantial input to the conception and design, or acquisition of data, or
analysis and interpretation of data
2. drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content
3. final approval of the version to be published
Authors should meet all conditions 1, 2, and 3.

Therefore acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the

research group, alone, does not justify authorship. Similarly persons who provided
purely technical help (such as caring for experimental organisms throughout the
study, preparing illustrations), writing assistance, or a departmental chair who
provided only general support, are not qualify for authorship, as are participating
investigators who may have contributed materially but only performing the task of
serving as scientific advisors or providing critical review of the research proposal.

In an article jointly written by many authors, whatever else they may have contributed
each one of them should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public
responsibility for appropriate portions of the content. In other words, all individuals
listed as co-authors in a work conducted by large multi-centre group should fully meet
the criteria for authorship. All persons designated as authors should qualify for
authorship, and similarly all those who qualify should be listed.

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Authorship of a multi-centre trials can be attributed to a group. All members of the
group who are named as authors should fully meet the above criteria for authorship.
In conjunction with this new development, the term ‘guarantors’ has been introduced
to indicate one or more authors who take the responsibility for the integrity of the
work as a whole, from inception to published article. When submitting a group author
manuscript, the corresponding author should clearly indicate the preferred citation and
should also clearly identify all individual authors as well as the group name.

The order of authorship in the byline should be a joint decision of the co-authors, best
decided before the study begins. For the sake of their own scientific integrity, authors
should be prepared to explain the order in which authors are listed.

Most scientific journals nowadays omit the title, academic degree, and official
position from the author’s name

To conform with archival requirement, author’s name as appear in the byline should
be consistently spelt, bearing in mind the existence of different customs in many
countries.
M. A. Rifai (the accepted form in Europe)
Mien A. Rifai (acceptable in Indonesia and the USA)
Mien Ahmad Rifai (used by Indonesian book publishers)

Indonesians often face difficulty because in international scientific journals the last
name or surname of an author is not to be abbreviated, so that the following form is
not permitted
Mien A. R.
M. Ahmad R.
Mien Ahmad R.

All contributors (especially agencies which provide funding) who do not meet the
criteria for authorship should be listed in the acknowledgment section

Can the question of the quantity and quality of contribution that qualify for authorship
be resolved? Attempts to produce some sort of scoring system for determining the
authorship and co-authorship of a scientific article have been made, one of them
published in Nature 352: 187. 18 July 1991 is modified here.

In line with the criteria to qualify for authorship specified above, intellectual
contributions to a published study can be broken down into several kinds of inputs
(namely intellectual, physical, data processing, expertise, scientific, and literary

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inputs), each of which can be scored according to the relative amounts provided by
individuals.
Scoring system for determining the co-authorship
of a joint scientific paper

1. Intellectual input
(problem identification, approach adopted, planning, designing)

No significant contribution 0
Twice or three times discussions 5
Several times discussions 10
Lengthy and prolong discussions 15
Indepth and continuous discussions 20

2. Physical input
(organizing and setting up apparatusses, observations, data collecting,
recordings, and extracting)

No significant involvement 0
Twice or three times involvement 5
Several times involvement 10
Lengthy and prolong involvement 15
Continuous involvement 20

3. Data processing input

(organizing, processing, analysing, synthesizing)

No significant involvement 0
Short involvement, twice or three times 5
Several times involvement 10
Lengthy and prolong involvement 15
Continuous involvement, from the beginning to the end 20

4. Expertise input
(consultation, advise, opinion, view – from other field or discipline)

No significant contribution 0
Routine short advise 5
Significant opinions 10
Contributed views especially prepared 15
Opinions which become the bases of approach and conclusion 20

5. Scientific input

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 (concluding, summarizing, generalizing, formulating the theory)

No significant contribution 0
Concluding certain parts of results 5
Summarizing major parts of results 10
Generalizing the whole part of the article 15
Formulating the general theory 20

6. Literary input
(contribution to the first completed draft)

No significant contribution 0
Read and improve other’s contribution 5
Assist in writing two or three parts of the draft 10
Writing up several parts of the draft 15
Writing up almost the whole draft 20

The highest score that can be achieved by a person is 100 (because point 4 is
performed by an outsider). Theoretically, the number of person that can become the
coauthor of an article is unlimited, but anyone may only claim the authorship of an
article if he/she manages to accumulate a score of at least 30. The ordering of the
authorship is based on the amount of score achieved, and when two persons have
similar score alphabetical sequence should be used, with a note that the one who
launch the idea should be given preference.

Almost all scientific periodicals nowadays incorporate in the byline the name of the
institute as the owner of each article they publish

In writing down the byline, therefore

1. Name and postal address of the institution where the research reported had
been performed should be attached to the principal author.
2. Name(s) and address(es) of all cooperating institutions should be given
attached to the appropriate authors.
3. Some journals like to include a full postal address and e-mail address, at least
the corresponding author, so that readers can write (ask) for more information
4. If the author moved to another institution, the main entry should give the name
of the institution where the work was done, followed by the author’s current
address (between brackets or in footnote).

*ABSTRACT

Abstract is a concise presentation of the whole article, so that it gives the research
problem or main objective of the research, indicated the methodology used, presents

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the main findings and discussion together with its conclusion (IMRD). Non research
articles abstract should contain brief and comprehensive resume of complete articles.

UNESCO recommends that an abstract should consist of not more that 200 words.
Sometimes some journals use the term ‘summary’ for it, but it is generally understood
that a summary represents an extended abstract consisting of about 400 words and
rendered in many paragraphs, whereas abstract should be presented in one paragraph.

In recent years, more and more medical journals prefer to use a structured abstract
divided into several subheadings/paragraphs.

In order to conform with that recommendation, prepare abstracts which are not:
 too long (because one forgot to count the words used)
 too short (often due to insufficient treatment of the new finding)
 too exhaustive (resulting from detailed explanation of methodology)
 too scanty (unbalanced, important information inadequately presented)

Informative abstract presented quantitatively (‘It was shown that the fertilization of
peanut took place at 04:30 . . .’) is preferable to indicative abstract presented
qualitatively (‘The fertilization processes in peanut were observed continuously
throughout the night . . .’).

Abstracts should not contain:

1. Sentences that can be gleaned from the title of the article, or sound like an
introduction to the whole article (‘The aim of this research is to find out the
role of human resource strategy on the market performance . . .’)
2. Lengthy background information
3. References to other literature
4. Abbreviations or terms that may be confusing to readers
5. Any sort of illustration, figure, or table, or references to them.

Some journals––especially those with tear-out abstract service––instruct their

contributing authors to include the title of the article in the respective abstract. This is
highly commendable for abstract rendered in language different from that used in the
article itself.

Example of one paragraphed abstract, with the title of the article included

RIFAI, M.A. 2008. Another note on Podoconis megasperma Boedijn

(Hyphomycetes). Reinwardtia 12 (4): 277–279. –– Exosporium megaspermum
(Boedijn) Rifai and Exosporium ampullaceum (Petch) M.B.Ellis are transferred to
Neopodoconis Rifai, a newly created genus extracted from Exosporium Link based on
the nature of the true septation of their rostrate conidia. Two new combinations,

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Neopodoconis ampullacea (Petch) Rifai and Neopodoconis megasperma (Boedijn)
Rifai, accordingly are proposed.

Example of one paragraph abstract, title of the article omitted

Diabetes mellitus is a metabolic disease caused by the lack of insulin in the

human body. This disease caused many various kind of complication, including in the
oral cavity known as toothache like pulpits. This study aimed to know the influence of
blood glucose level toward diabetes mellitus’s dental pulp nerve sensitivity. In this
study was used the electric pulp tester (EPT) equipment to measure the dental pulp
nerve sensitivity on both groups of sample. The statistical analysis shows that blood
glucose level is effecting the diabetes mellitus’s dental pulp nerve sensitivity (R2 =
0.327). The result of the study shows increasing of the dental pulp nerve sensitivity on
Blood Glucose Level 2 hour PP (2hPP) 150 mg/dl and reaches the peak level on BGL
2hPP between 250 – 300 mg/dl, but on BGL 2hPP 350 mg/dl decreasing of dental
pulp nerve sensitivity is happened. From this study can be concluded that diabetes
mellitus’s dental pulp nerve sensitivity can be influence by the level of blood glucose
in diabetes mellitus patient.

Example of structured abstract, title of the article omitted

BACKGROUND – Extrapulmonary tuberculosis prevalence in New York

City is still high in the last decade (45-60%).
OBJECTIVE - To analyze the factors associated with survival in patients with
pulmonary and extrapulmonary tuberculosis in New York City.
DESIGN - Observational study of a citywide cohort of tuberculosis cases.
Setting- New York City, April 1991, before the strengthening of its control program.
SUBJECTS - All 229 newly diagnosed cases of tuberculosis documented by
culture in April 1991. Most patients (74%) were male, and the median age was 37
years (range, 1-89 years). In all, 89% belonged to minority groups. Human
immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection was present in 50% and multidrug resistance
in 7% of the cases. Twenty-one patients (9%) were not treated.
MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE - Follow up information was collected through
the city tuberculosis registry; death from any cause was verified through the National
Death Index.
CONCLUSION – HIV and poverty are the main cause of extrapulmonary
tuberculosis in New York.

Example of structured abstract, with the title of the article included

YULIDAR HAFIDH, DWI HIDAYAH, SUNYATANINGKAMTO. Factors

affecting mortality of neonatal sepsis in Moewardi Hospital, Surakarta. Paediatrica
Indonesiana 47(2): 74–77. 2007.
BACKGROUND Mortality of neonatal sepsis is still a significant problem. It
may be affected by many factors.
OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to determine factors which affect
mortality of neonatal sepsis at neonatal ward of Moewardi Hospital, Surakarta.

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 METHODS Data of neonatal sepsis was obtained from medical record at
neonatal ward of Moewardi Hospital from December 2004 to November 2005. We
recorded data from 97 neonatal sepsis consisted of 46 males and 52 female babies.
Statistical analysis had been performed using univariate Chi-square and multivariate
multiple logistic regression analysis.
RESULTS Overall neonatal sepsis mortality was about 40%. There were no
significant difference in factors associated with mortality of neonatal sepsis such as
gender, referral patients, and bacterial growth culture, except for birth weight which
affected mortality (OR=6.29; 95% CI 2.57; 15.42)
CONCLUSION Birth weight affects mortality of neonatal sepsis in
Moewardi Hospital. Patients with positive bacterial growth culture has two times
higher risk of death, however it is not statistically significant.

*KEYWORDS

Dictionary explanation of keywords are ‘a selection of significant words from a

document that can be used as indices to its content’.

Beside useful for preparing index, keywords can also be employed in scanning the
content of scientific articles through computer, so that they are useful for readers in
hunting for articles related to problems they are facing by inputting them to a search
machine. Therefore in recent years keywords are becoming familiar feature in
published scientific articles.

In published articles, keywords are mostly presented under the abstract

1. Normally consist of 3-8 words (may be organized in short in phrases)
2. Prepare by not repeating words used in the title
3. May even use words not appearing in the whole article
4. Some journals prepare list of keywords to be selected by their contributors
5. In medical journals MeSH (Medical Subject Heading) Terms are used.

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