title page for biology research paper

Submission Guidelines

About the journal.

PLOS Biology pushes boundaries to publish highly selective research across the life sciences. Read more about our scope .

Manuscript Organization

Most manuscripts should be organized as follows. Instructions for each element appear below.

• Title page with author list and author affiliations

Introduction

Materials and methods, acknowledgments, other elements.

• Figure files : Upload separately. Do not put figure files in the manuscript body.
• Figure captions : Insert immediately in the manuscript text after the first paragraph in which the figure is cited.
• Tables and boxes​ : Insert immediately in the manuscript text after the first paragraph in which the table or box is cited.
• Supporting Information files : Upload separately.
• Supporting Information captions : List captions at the end of the manuscript file.

• Download sample title, author list, and affiliations page (PDF)
• Download sample manuscript body (PDF)

Style and Format

Parts of a submission.

Include a title page as the first page of the manuscript file with the title, authors, and affiliations .

Include a full title and a short title for the manuscript using the following format: 

• Titles should be written in sentence case (only the first word of the text, proper nouns, and genus names are capitalized). 
• Avoid specialist abbreviations if possible.
• For clinical trials, systematic reviews, or meta-analyses, the subtitle should include the study design.

Author list

Author names and affiliations.

During initial submission, enter author names on the title page of the manuscript. If your manuscript is selected for peer review, you will also add author details to the submission system.

On the title page, write author names in the following order:

• First name (or initials, if used)
• Middle name (or initials, if used)
• Last name (surname, family name)

Each author on the list must have an affiliation. The affiliation includes department, university, or organizational affiliation and its location, including city, state/province (if applicable), and country. Authors have the option to include a current address in addition to the address of their affiliation at the time of the study. The current address should be listed in the byline and clearly labeled “current address.” At a minimum, the address must include the author’s current institution, city, and country.

If an author has multiple affiliations, enter the full list of affiliations on the title page. In the submission system, enter only the preferred or primary affiliation. Author affiliations will be listed in the typeset PDF article in the same order that the authors are listed in the submission.

Corresponding authorship

Designate at least one corresponding author on the title page. Include an email address for each corresponding author listed on the title page of the manuscript.

We do not restrict the number of corresponding authors that may be listed on the article in the event of publication.   Whoever is designated as a corresponding author on the title page of the manuscript file will be listed as such upon publication.

The corresponding author role may be transferred to another coauthor. However, note that transferring the corresponding author role also transfers access to the manuscript.

Consortia and group authorship

If a manuscript is submitted on behalf of a consortium or group, include the consortium or group name in the author list. The name should be listed in the manuscript file and included in the submission form. You may include the full list of members in the Acknowledgments or in a supporting information file.

PubMed only indexes individual consortium or group author members listed in the article byline. If included, these individuals must qualify for authorship according to our criteria.

Author contributions

You will enter all author contributions in the submission system if your manuscript is selected for peer review. Provide at minimum one contribution for each author, and use the CRediT taxonomy to describe each contribution. Read the policy and the full list of roles .

Contributions will be published with the final article, and they should accurately reflect contributions to the work. The submitting author is responsible for completing this information at submission, and we expect that all authors will have reviewed, discussed, and agreed to their individual contributions ahead of this time.

Cover letter

Upload a cover letter as a separate file in the submission system. The length limit is 600 words.

The cover letter should address the following questions:

• What is the scientific question you are addressing?
• What is the key finding that answers this question?
• What is the nature of the evidence you provide in support of your conclusion?
• What are the three most recently published articles that are relevant to this question?
• What significance do your results have for the field?
• What significance do your results have for the broader community (of biologists and/or the public)?
• What other novel findings do you present?
• Is there additional information that we should take into account?

You may enter requests to exclude specific reviewers from the evaluation process in the submission system. If you choose to enter opposed reviewers, please provide a reason for doing so. Please also read our policy about competing interests before submitting your inquiry.

The Abstract comes after the title page in the manuscript file.

The Abstract succinctly introduces the manuscript. It should mention the techniques used without going into methodological detail and mention the most important results.

The Abstract is conceptually divided into the following three sections: Background, Methodology/Principal Findings, and Conclusions/Significance. However, the Abstract should be written as a single paragraph without these headers.

Do not include any citations in the Abstract. Avoid specialist abbreviations.

The Introduction should put the focus of the manuscript into a broader context. As you compose the Introduction, think of readers who are not experts in this field. Include a brief review of the key literature. If there are relevant controversies or disagreements in the field, they should be mentioned so that a non-expert reader can delve into these issues further. The Introduction should conclude with a brief statement of the overall aim of the reported research and a comment about whether that aim was achieved.

The Results section should provide details of all of the experiments that are required to support the conclusions of the paper, including information on the number of replicates (if relevant to ensure replicability). There is no specific word limit for this section, but details of experiments that are peripheral to the main thrust of the article and that detract from the focus of the article should not be included. The section may be divided into subsections, each with a concise subheading. The Results section should be written in past tense.

PLOS journals require authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception.

Large data sets, including raw data, may be deposited in an appropriate public repository.  See our list of recommended repositories .

For smaller data sets and certain data types, authors may provide their data within  supporting information files  accompanying the manuscript. Authors should take care to maximize the accessibility and reusability of the data by selecting a file format from which data can be efficiently extracted (for example, spreadsheets or flat files should be provided rather than PDFs when providing tabulated data).

For more information on how best to provide data, read our   policy on data availability . PLOS does not accept references to “data not shown.”

The Discussion should spell out the major conclusions and interpretations of the work including some explanation on the significance of these conclusions. How do the conclusions affect the existing assumptions and models in the field? How can future research build on these observations? What are the key experiments that must be done? The Discussion should be concise and tightly argued. If warranted, the Results and Discussion may be combined into one section.

The Materials and Methods should provide enough detail to reproduce the findings. Submit detailed protocols for newer or less established methods. Well-established protocols may be referenced. 

Details of algorithms and protocol documents for clinical trials, observational studies, and other non-laboratory investigations may be uploaded as supporting information. These are not included in the typeset manuscript, but are downloadable and fully searchable from the HTML version of the article. Read the supporting information guidelines for formatting instructions.

We recommend and encourage you to deposit laboratory protocols in protocols.io , where protocols can be assigned their own persistent digital object identifiers (DOIs).

To include a link to a protocol in your article:

• Describe your step-by-step protocol on protocols.io
• Select Get DOI to issue your protocol a persistent digital object identifier (DOI) 
• Include the DOI link in the Methods section of your manuscript using the following format provided by protocols.io: http://dx.doi.org/10.17504/protocols.io.[PROTOCOL DOI]

At this stage, your protocol is only visible to those with the link. This allows editors and reviewers to consult your protocol when evaluating the manuscript. You can make your protocols public at any time by selecting Publish on the protocols.io site. Any referenced protocol(s) will automatically be made public when your article is published.

PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io articles. Read more information on Lab Protocol articles .

Those who contributed to the work but do not meet our authorship criteria should be listed in the Acknowledgments with a description of the contribution.

Authors are responsible for ensuring that anyone named in the Acknowledgments agrees to be named.

Any and all available works can be cited in the reference list. Acceptable sources include:

• Published or accepted manuscripts
• Manuscripts on preprint servers, providing the manuscript has a citable DOI or arXiv URL.

Do not cite the following sources in the reference list:

• Unavailable and unpublished work, including manuscripts that have been submitted but not yet accepted (e.g., “unpublished work,” “data not shown”). Instead, include those data as supplementary material or deposit the data in a publicly available database.
• Personal communications (these should be supported by a letter from the relevant authors but not included in the reference list)
• Submitted research should not rely upon retracted research. You should avoid citing retracted articles unless you need to discuss retracted work to provide historical context for your submitted research. If it is necessary to discuss retracted work, state the article’s retracted status in your article’s text and reference list.

Ensure that your reference list includes full and current bibliography details for every cited work at the time of your article’s submission (and publication, if accepted). If cited work is corrected, retracted, or marked with an expression of concern before your article is published, and if you feel it is appropriate to cite the work even in light of the post-publication notice, include in your manuscript citations and full references for both the affected article and the post-publication notice. Email the journal office if you have questions.

References are listed at the end of the manuscript and numbered in the order that they appear in the text. In the text, cite the reference number in square brackets (e.g., “We used the techniques developed by our colleagues [19] to analyze the data”). PLOS uses the numbered citation (citation-sequence) method and first six authors, et al.

Do not include citations in abstracts. 

Make sure the parts of the manuscript are in the correct order  before  ordering the citations.

​ Formatting references

PLOS uses the reference style outlined by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), also referred to as the “Vancouver” style. Example formats are listed below. Additional examples are in the ICMJE sample references .

Journal name abbreviations should be those found in the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) databases . 

Supporting Information

Authors can submit essential supporting files and multimedia files that are auxiliary to the main content of the article. All Supporting Information will be subject to peer review. These files are published exactly as provided and are not copyedited.

List supporting information captions at the end of the manuscript file. Do not submit captions in a separate file. 

Prepare and upload each figure to the submission system as an individual file. Do not include figures in the main manuscript file.

Insert your figure captions in ascending numerical order after their citations in the manuscript.

Avoiding image manipulation

As part of our efforts to improve published figure quality, we routinely and thoroughly check all main and supporting figures for all papers editorially accepted for publication in PLOS Biology . In doing so, we not only ensure that all figure files meet our requirements for publication and are available to publish under our CC BY license, but also that we remain vigilant to inappropriate image manipulation of photographic images.

Image files should not be manipulated or adjusted in any way that could lead to misinterpretation of the information present in the original image. Please make sure to read our guidelines on Preparing Figures from Image Files  and our figure guidelines .

Please also read our requirements for reporting blot and gel data and uploading original image files .

If evidence is found of inappropriate manipulation, we reserve the right to ask for your original photographic images in the original file format, at higher resolution or at the resolution at which they were first created, so that we can efficiently and accurately check all figures. If that is not satisfactory, we may decide not to accept the manuscript, and may also contact the authors' institutions to ask them to assist with investigation.

If you ever need to email files to the journal office, our system has a 10 MB attachment limit, meaning that we will not receive any emails larger than this size. If your files are larger than 10 MB, please either send them one email at a time, or look into reducing the size of the files. If you are having problems sending us large files, please contact the journal office for details of how we can help you transfer your files.

Cite tables in ascending numeric order upon first appearance in the manuscript file.

Place each table in your manuscript file directly after the paragraph in which it is first cited (read order). Do not embed your tables as images or submit them in separate files.

Tables require a label (e.g., “Table 1”) and brief descriptive title to be placed above the table. Place legends, footnotes, and other text below the table.

Data presentation in graphs 

To better illustrate your results and to improve the reader's understanding and interpretation of your data, we discourage the use of bar graphs and line plots for continuous data, particularly for studies with small sample sizes (n≤9 independent observations per group).

We recommend that continuous data is presented in such a way that the reader can evaluate the distribution of the individual data points. Scatterplots, boxplots, and histograms are more informative than bar or line charts.

If there is a particular reason that bar or line graphs are preferred, these must include inferential error bars:  SD - standard deviation of the population, or CI - confidence intervals.  

Paired or non-independent data should be presented to include information about whether changes are consistent across individuals.

Figures presenting small sample size data (n≤9 independent observations per group)   should show the full distribution of the data, as opposed to summary statistics.

All numerical values used to generate graphs must be provided as per the PLOS Data Availability policy .

Data reporting

All data and related metadata underlying the findings reported in a submitted manuscript should be deposited in an appropriate public repository, unless already provided as part of the submitted article.

See here for instructions on providing underlying data to support blot and gel results.

Repositories may be either subject-specific (where these exist) and accept specific types of structured data, or generalist repositories that accept multiple data types. We recommend that authors select repositories appropriate to their field. Repositories may be subject-specific (e.g., GenBank for sequences and PDB for structures), general, or institutional, as long as DOIs or accession numbers are provided and the data are at least as open as CC BY. Authors are encouraged to select repositories that meet accepted criteria as trustworthy digital repositories, such as criteria of the Centre for Research Libraries or Data Seal of Approval. Large, international databases are more likely to persist than small, local ones.

To support data sharing and author compliance of the PLOS data policy, we have integrated our submission process with a select set of data repositories. The list is neither representative nor exhaustive of the suitable repositories available to authors. Current repository integration partners include  Dryad and FlowRepository . Please contact  [email protected]  to make recommendations for further partnerships.

Instructions for PLOS submissions with data deposited in an integration partner repository:

• Deposit data in the integrated repository of choice.
• Once deposition is final and complete, the repository will provide you with a dataset DOI (provisional) and private URL for reviewers to gain access to the data. Insert these details into the Data Availability section of the submission system.

If you have any questions, please  email us .

Accession numbers

All appropriate data sets, images, and information should be deposited in an appropriate public repository. See our list of recommended repositories .

Accession numbers (and version numbers, if appropriate) should be provided in the Data Availability Statement. Accession numbers or a citation to the DOI should also be provided when the data set is mentioned within the manuscript.

In some cases authors may not be able to obtain accession numbers of DOIs until the manuscript is accepted; in these cases, the authors must provide these numbers at acceptance. In all other cases, these numbers must be provided at full submission.

Identifiers

As much as possible, please provide accession numbers or identifiers for all entities such as genes, proteins, mutants, diseases, etc., for which there is an entry in a public database, for example:

• Entrez Gene
• Mouse Genome Database (MGD)
• Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM)

Identifiers should be provided in parentheses after the entity on first use.

Research Resource Identifiers

Research Resource Identifiers are unique Resource Identifiers (RRIDs) for citing resources used in the research. We encourage authors to use RRIDs within the text of their papers to identify their model organisms, antibodies, or tools.

PLOS is a part of the Research Resource Identification Initiative (#RII), a cross-publisher effort to enable effective tracking of the utilization of particular research resources across all biomedical literature and promote reproducibility in science. RRIDs are found via the RRID portal .

If an RRID does not exist, you may create a new one as needed through the RRID Portal. The Research Resource Citation guidelines provide instructions on how to cite the resource in the manuscript.

Small and macromolecule crystal data

Manuscripts reporting new and unpublished three-dimensional structures must include sufficient supporting data and detailed descriptions of the methodologies used to allow the reproduction and validation of the structures. All novel structures must have been deposited in a community endorsed database prior to submission (please see our list of recommended repositories ).

Small molecule single crystal data

Authors reporting X-Ray crystallographic structures of small organic, metal-organic, and inorganic molecules must deposit their data with the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (CCDC), the Inorganic Crystal Structure Database (ICSD), or similar community databases providing a recognized validation functionality. Authors are also required to include the relevant structure reference numbers within the main text (e.g. the CCDC ID number), as well as the crystallographic information files (.cif format) as Supplementary Information, along with the checkCIF validation reports that can be obtained via the International Union of Crystallography (IUCr).

Macromolecular structures

Authors reporting novel macromolecular structures must have deposited their data prior to submission with the Worldwide Protein Data Bank (wwPDB), the Biological Magnetic Resonance Data Bank (BMRB), the Electron Microscopy Data Bank (EMDB), or other community databases providing a recognized validation functionality. Authors must include the structure reference numbers within the main text and submit as Supplementary Information the official validation reports from these databases.

Striking image

You can choose to upload a “Striking Image” that we may use to represent your article online in places such as the journal homepage. All striking image files that are submitted are also eligible to be chosen as the monthly Issue Image, which is chosen by the editorial staff.

The striking image should visually represent the article in a striking and eye-catching way. This could be derived from a figure or supporting information file from the paper, i.e., a cropped portion of an image or the entire image. Alternatively, you may create or source an image which represents the article, as long as this image adheres to our CC BY license.

Striking images should ideally be high resolution, eye-catching, single panel images, and should ideally avoid containing added details such as text, scale bars, and arrows.

Should your manuscript be accepted for publication, you will be asked to provide a caption describing the image and a full image credit that details who should be credited with the creation of the image. We are unable to use striking image files that do not include an accompanying caption and credit.

If no striking image is uploaded, the journal team will choose an appropriate image, which may be a figure from the submission or a separately sourced CC BY image.

Funding Disclosure

Declare any funding received for this study including details such as funder name, grant numbers, and the funder’s website in the submission system.

Competing Interests

In the submission system, declare on behalf of all authors whether there are any financial, personal, or professional interests that could be construed to have influenced the work.

Any relevant competing interests of authors must be available to editors and reviewers during the review process and will be stated in published articles.

Related Manuscripts

When submitting a manuscript, all authors are asked to indicate that they do not have a related or duplicate manuscript under consideration (or accepted) for publication elsewhere. If related work has been or will be submitted elsewhere or is in press elsewhere, then a copy must be uploaded with the article submitted to PLOS. Reviewers will be asked to comment on the overlap between related submissions.

PLOS supports authors who wish to share their work early and receive feedback before formal peer review. Deposition of manuscripts with preprint servers does not impact consideration of the manuscript at any PLOS journal.

PLOS encourages authors to post preprints to accelerate the dissemination of research and support authors who wish to share their work early and receive feedback before formal peer review. Deposition of manuscripts with preprint servers does not impact consideration of the manuscript at any PLOS journal.

Authors choosing bioRxiv may concurrently submit directly to PLOS journals through bioRxiv’s direct transfer to journal service .

Authors submitting manuscripts in the life sciences to PLOS Biology may opt-in to post their work on bioRxiv during the PLOS Biology  full submission process.

Preregistered Research Articles

Preregistered Research Articles are a form of empirical article offered at PLOS Biology in which the methods and proposed analyses are peer reviewed prior to conducting experiments, data collection or analysis. High quality protocols are reviewed for technical soundness of the proposed methodology, and provisionally accepted for publication before data collection commences. 

This format of article is designed to minimize publication and research bias, while also maximising study quality by focusing peer review on the importance of the research question and rigour of the proposed methodology. It also allows complete flexibility to conduct exploratory (unregistered) analyses and report serendipitous findings. 

Preregistered Research Articles are offered across the full scope of empirical research at   PLOS Biology .

Read the full Author Guidelines for Preregistered Research Articles

Other article types.

If you are submitting content other than a research article,  read the guidelines for other article types .

PLOS Community Action Publishing (CAP) – non member fee support

PLOS Biology  no longer has APCs, and instead is funded by a new collective action model called PLOS Community Action Publishing (CAP) . Institutions pay to become community members so their authors are not subject to fees. Corresponding and contributing authors from non-member institutions are subject to non-member fees.

To find out if your institution is a  PLOS Biology  CAP member, please visit our institutional partner page and search by your institutional name or by the agreement type “Community Action Publishing.”

If the corresponding author’s institution is a member, they will be notified at acceptance that no fees are required. If the corresponding author’s instution is not a member, they will be subject to a non-member fee. If the non-member corresponding author’s  coauthors belong to member institutions , there is a 25% discount on the non-member fee. Be sure to check if your contributing authors’ institutions are members to take advantage of this discount.

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• Int J Endocrinol Metab
• v.17(4); 2019 Oct

The Principles of Biomedical Scientific Writing: Title

Zahra bahadoran.

1 Nutrition and Endocrine Research Center, Research Institute for Endocrine Sciences, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

Parvin Mirmiran

2 Department of Clinical Nutrition and Human Dietetics, National Nutrition and Food Technology Research Institute, Faculty of Nutrition Sciences and Food Technology, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

Khosrow Kashfi

3 Department of Molecular, Cellular and Biomedical Sciences, Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education, City University of New York School of Medicine, New York, United States

Asghar Ghasemi

4 Endocrine Physiology Research Center, Research Institute for Endocrine Sciences, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

The title of a paper is “like a hat on a head or the front door to a house” and its initial impression. Writing a good and effective title makes the paper more retrievable by search engines and maximizes its impact in the scientific community. The paper’s title presents what has been studied, how it has been done, and what are the major results. A well-written title is balanced for being informative and concise, as well as attractively conveying the main topic, highlighting the importance of the study. For writing a good title, it should be drafted correctly, accurately, carefully, and meticulously by the main study keywords. By removing extra and unspecific words, the final title should be unambiguous, memorable, captivating, and informative. Here, we provided an overview of the importance and function of the title as well as different types of titles in scientific medical writing. We also focused on the content and organization of the title of a hypothesis-testing paper. In addition, the features of a good title were discussed.

The title is the “single most important line of a publication” ( 1 ). Although the title is a very small part of a research paper, it plays an important role in connecting the writer with potential readers. It also determines whether the paper is read or not ( 2 ). The title of a paper acts as a billboard, a descriptor, an advertisement ( 3 ), or a trailer for the movie ( 4 ). For every person who reads the whole paper, about 500 people only read the title, indicating that the majority of the papers are read by title alone ( 5 ). The title can influence the first impression of the work during the pre-publication process that occurs in the peer-review, as well as the post-publication process, which affects both dissemination and citations ( 3 , 6 ). Therefore, writing an effective title is an important step in scientific writing.

A good title provides a reconciliation between being attractive and being informative ( 4 ); it means that the title should motivate the readers to read an article, give them a summary of the contents, and provide an overview of the topics and findings ( 7 ). A well-written title will help other researchers to find the paper more easily ( 8 ), whereas a poorly written one may make a paper difficult to be retrieved by search engines, discourage readers to go through the text, and reduce an article’s impact ( 9 ). There are examples where journals have withdrawn a published paper because of it having a wrong title ( 10 ), a misleading or an inaccurate title ( 11 , 12 ), or for misuse of words within the title ( 13 ).

Following our previous reports on how to write and construct an introduction ( 14 ), materials and methods ( 15 ), results ( 16 ), and discussion ( 17 ) as sections of a scientific paper, here, we provided an overview of the importance and function of the title. We also focused on different types of titles that are commonly used in scientific and biomedical writings, in particular highlighting the function, content, and organization of the title in a hypothesis-testing paper.

2. Functions of the Title

The title of a biomedical scientific paper has two main functions ( 18 , 19 ): (1) to present the main topic or the message of the paper (the answer to the question) and (2) to attract potential readers and evoke their interest to read the paper. In fact, the title tells the readers what the paper is all about ( 6 , 19 ). The title also provides some keywords for further search ( 19 ) and facilitates the retrieval of the paper from bibliographic databases as this is used by the abstracting and documentation services in order to classify and index the paper ( 20 ).

3. Content of the Title

The main elements of a title include intervention, end-point or outcome, study population, and its specific conditions, design, and setting, which refers to a situation or a place that study was conducted at ( 21 ). The main elements in a hypothesis-testing paper, are (1) the independent variable(s) (X), (2) dependent variable(s) (Y), and (3) the study subjects (i.e. animal, population) or materials (i.e. culture media, cell line, tissue) (Z).

If important, the experimental approach and the condition of the animals/subjects during the study can also be included in the title ( 18 ). The specific organism or the biological system studied (e.g. animals, bacteria, cell culture) must always be included in the title ( 3 , 18 ). In case of humans, they are often removed from the title ( 3 , 18 ). It means that in biomedical journals, it is assumed that the species studied is human unless otherwise stated ( 3 ) and no population in the title indicates that the population is humans ( 18 ). However, if a subpopulation of humans was studied (e.g. patients who have asthma), that should be included in the title ( 18 ). Indication of the study setting (e.g. community-based, home-based, school-based, hospital-based, rural or urban setting) in the title is only important if the results are not generalizable to other settings, or if the setting reflects the magnitude of the research ( 21 ).

In descriptive papers, where a new structure is described, an important element of the title is to name that structure and its key function ( 18 ). In method papers, the name of the method (apparatus or material), its purpose, and the population where the method is used for are key elements of the title ( 18 ). According to the journal’s style or where appropriate, the study design may also be stated ( 8 ). This is especially true for randomized clinical trials, cohort, case-control, and cross-sectional studies ( 4 ). What this does is to alert the readers regarding the level of the evidence in the paper ( 4 ). Stating the study design in the title, usually located after a colon or an Em dash, makes the title more complete ( 21 ). Stating what type the review is (narrative, systematic or quantitative systematic) may also be helpful, especially for quantitative systematic reviews (meta-analysis) where a high level of evidence is suggested ( 4 ).

4. Organization of the Title

4.1. descriptive (neutral) titles.

Descriptive titles describe the subject of the paper but do not reveal the main conclusions ( 22 ) and are usually recommended as the best form of titles ( 23 ). Most of these contain all the elements of the research work (e.g. study population, intervention, study outcome, comparison) ( 21 , 23 ). In a hypothesis-testing paper, a descriptive title traditionally states the topic of the paper using its three essential pieces of information (dependent variable, independent variable, study subject or material), the so-called X, Y, and Z ( 18 ); e.g. a common form of such titles are “effect of X on Y in Z” (e.g. Effect of broccoli sprouts on insulin resistance in type 2 diabetic patients: a randomized double-blind clinical trial ( 24 )) or “Y during X in Z” (e.g. change of maternal serum triglycerides during third trimester of pregnancy in obese women). Usually, Z comes at the end of the title ( 18 ). Where there is no independent variable (X), the title would be Y in Z (e.g. dynamics of the chest wall in preterm infants) ( 18 ). If the study has several independent or dependent variables where they cannot be summarized under the general categories, it is advisable to select the most important ones ( 18 ) since these are new findings and should be presented in the title ( 25 ).

4.2. Declarative Titles

Declarative titles present the main conclusions or the actual message of the study ( 26 , 27 ). The message can be stated in a phrase or in a sentence ( 18 ). When the message is expressed in a phrase, an adjective or a noun (based on the verb used in the question and answer) or a combination of both are placed at the beginning of the title before the dependent variable; e.g. “reduced metabolic rate during radio-frequency irradiation in rats”, in which the message is expressed as an adjective, reduced ( 18 ). When the message is expressed in a sentence, a verb in the present tense is used; e.g. continuous positive airway pressure impairs renal function in anesthetized newborn goats ( 18 ). Using a sentence is stronger than using a phrase (because verbs convey an action more powerful than adjectives and nouns); therefore, it is used only when solid evidence supports a clear message ( 18 ). Some believe that using a sentence as a title overemphasize a conclusion and is best to be avoided ( 4 ).

In hypothesis-testing papers, the message of the paper can be stated in the title, where the message is strong and clear, and is supported by strong and solid evidence ( 18 , 23 ). Authors also need to be ensured that the title is true and is supported by the rest of the paper ( 28 ). When the title is a complete sentence, it conveys the impression that the study has reached a definite conclusion ( 19 ). e.g. “endothelium-derived relaxing factor produced and released from artery and vein is nitric oxide” ( 29 ).

Some believe that declarative titles would help authors to select a more appropriate paper during their search ( 27 ). For some types of papers such as commentaries, journals (e.g. obstetrics and gynecology) may push the authors to write a declarative title regarding the commentary’s main argument(s). Declarative titles give the impression that the findings of the study have general validity, which rarely is the case ( 26 ). Editors are, therefore, more cautious in accepting declarative titles due to its possible impact on public health ( 22 ) and some journals do not accept declarative titles (e.g. New England Journal of Medicine) ( 26 ). In addition, in case of choosing a declarative title, authors need to ask themselves will the title kill the curiosity? Will the readers lose motivation and interest to read the full article? ( 23 ).

Generally, the present tense in the title emphasizes the general validity of the results whereas the past tense indicates that the results are not established knowledge yet. To state results of a single investigation past tense and for results of a systematic review present tense should be used ( 27 ).

4.3. Interrogative Titles

To make a title more attractive, an interrogative form, which phrases the subject of the paper in the form of a question, can be used ( 30 ). However, in hypothesis-testing papers, interrogative titles are not recommended ( 31 ), because the reader would appreciate being told the answer from the beginning ( 30 ). An interrogative title may be appropriate for a review article, where the controversial issues are being discussed in response to the study question ( 30 ); e.g. are shorter article titles more attractive for citations? Cross-sectional study of 22 scientific journals ( 32 ). Interrogative titles in general lead to more paper down-loads but may result in fewer citations ( 22 ).

4.4. Compound Titles

Compound titles (or hanging titles) contain the main title and a subtitle ( 23 ) that are separated by a colon (:) ( 18 ). Compound titles can be started with a short question, a subject sentence, or a noun phrase, followed by a colon and a declarative sentence or a question ( 22 ). These types of titles are used to provide additional relevant information (e.g. about the study design, geographic or temporal scope of the research) or to add substance to a provocative area ( 23 ); e.g. developmental origins of type 2 diabetes: focus on epigenetics ( 33 ). They are useful for complex studies ( 19 ) and series papers ( 18 ). Using subtitles is not recommended except for putting an important word first ( 18 ). Papers with subtitles seem to be more attractive and are less likely to be rejected ( 34 ). In a compound title, the main part (main title) should be standalone ( 4 ).

4.5. Other Types of Title

Other styles, less commonly used to organize the title, are “indicating the direction of the author’s opinion”, “emphasizing the methodology used in the research”, “suggesting guidelines”, or “making a comparison” ( 35 ). To get more attention, the use of “effective opening”, “alliteration”, “irony”, “puns”, “humor” or “mystifying” ( 35 ) may also be used. However, the latter styles do help the paper grab readers’ attention, the authors need to ensure they will be understood and appreciated by all readers and are culturally appropriate ( 23 ). One example of referring to a parable in the title is: challenges for measuring oxytocin: the blind men and the elephant? ( 36 ), in which the subtitle refers to the parable of the 6 blind men and the elephant.

5. The Procedure of Writing an Effective Title

Although it is the first section of a paper that is seen ( 3 , 6 , 19 ), title is drawn from other sections of paper ( 3 ) and the final title is usually written as the last part ( 19 ). Good titles are created with care and craft ( 4 ). Writing a good title needs a back-and-forth process by continuous going back to the text with a sharper focus on what the paper is trying to say ( 35 ).

As shown in Figure 1 , a stepwise process is suggested to be followed to draft a title. What the authors need to do in the first step is to consider the manuscript entirely and then try to describe the content of the paper using essential keywords and phrases. Then, they need to make a sentence by the selected keywords and then remove redundant and nonspecific words/adjectives ( 20 ). The keywords used in the title should be the same as that used in the question and answer in the introduction, discussion, and abstract ( 18 ). The initial title must then be reviewed, refined and finally checked for having features of an effective final title. The title should not be hastily finalized; making a consultation with colleagues to get their opinion and possible suggestions can help improve the title ( 23 ). The authors are highly recommended to adhere to the style of the journal that they are submitting to e.g. word count, other instructions such as acceptable types of title (declarative and interrogative ones are unacceptable by some), use of capital letters, hyphens, colon, etc.

6. Features of a Suitable Title

In addition to highlighting the subject matter (be informative), the title of the paper should be eye-catching (be attractive) ( 25 , 37 ). The most important concept should be placed at or near the beginning of the title (where it most readily catches the reader’s eye) ( 25 ). Table 1 describes the features of a good title. In brief, a well-written title should be attractive and engaging ( 4 , 6 , 26 ), comprehensive ( 8 , 37 ), accurate ( 18 ), sufficiently descriptive ( 37 ), complete ( 18 ), informative ( 3 , 4 , 6 , 8 ), and specific ( 4 , 18 , 37 ) as well as be concise ( 3 , 4 , 6 , 8 , 18 , 26 , 37 ), clear (unambiguous) ( 3 , 18 ) and begins with an important term ( 3 , 18 ). The title should not be too general ( 19 , 31 ) or too-detailed ( 31 ), be misleading or unrepresentative ( 26 ), omit major elements ( 19 ), or include unnecessary details ( 19 ).

7. Length of the Title

Although longer titles may provide more information regarding the content, they reduce the interest generated ( 39 ). A short title is easier to understand and can attract a wider readership and increase the influence of the paper ( 40 ). Therefore, the authors are advised to make the title as short as possible without sacrificing accuracy, completeness, specificity, and clarity ( 18 ). High-impact journals usually restrict the length of their papers’ titles ( 40 ).

Try to keep your title shorter than 100 characters (i.e. letters and punctuation marks), including spaces (120 characters are considered the upper limit) ( 18 ). As the rule of thumb, 10 - 12 words may be the ideal length of a paper ( 41 ) and the title should not be more than 12 words ( 31 ).

8. Word Choice in the Title

In addition to being relevant to the target audience ( 3 ), every word (excluding articles e.g. the, a, an, and prepositions e.g. to, about, on) used in the title should add significance ( 28 ). Words in the title need to be checked by Medical Subjects Headings (MeSH) ( 31 ). Using study keywords to formulate a title is highly recommended. Using the most important keywords in the title is essential for appropriate indexing purposes and for retrieval by search engines and available databases ( 38 ). Indexing services (e.g. PubMed) and search engines (e.g. Google) use keywords and terms in the title ( 3 , 6 ). Titles should not start with a numeral, or expressions like “a study of”, “a contribution to”, “investigations on” or “some interesting” ( 20 ). “Influence of” does not evoke much curiosity and if possible should be avoided ( 25 ).

Generally, the use of neutral words (e.g. inquiry, analysis, evaluation, assessment, etc.), that give no information to the readers, is not recommended ( 28 ). However, in some cases, these words may be necessary to inform the scope, intent, or type of a study ( 42 ). Although the use of catchy phrases or non-specific language is not recommended in academic writing, they can be used within the context of the study ( 42 ).

Adjectives (e.g. increased) that modify quantitative words (e.g. metabolic rate) are different from those (e.g. improved) that modify qualitative words (e.g. performance) ( 18 ). Some adjectives such as “novel” or “innovative” need to be replaced by more explicit adjectives to explain to the readers what makes the study novel ( 28 ); e.g. “A noninvasive method of predicting pulmonary-capillary wedge pressure” ( 43 ) or “An ultrasound method for safe and rapid central venous access” ( 44 ). If possible, replace long words with short ones ( 26 ). Try to avoid gerunds (verb forms that end in -ing) in the title as the actor is obscured ( 31 ). Avoid using generic terms such as animal, bacteria, or antibiotic as key terms ( 3 ).

Abbreviations confuse readers and usually are not used by indexing services ( 3 ). In some situations, e.g. long or technical terms in scientific writings, the use of abbreviations can be useful ( 21 ). Using abbreviations that appear as word entries in Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary ( 21 ), are better known than their words (e.g. DNA, AIDS, and FDA) ( 3 , 18 ), or abbreviations for chemicals (e.g. N 2 O 5 ), are acceptable in the title ( 18 ).

9. Word Order in the Title

Paying attention to syntax (word order) in the title is important because it can influence the reader’s interest in the paper ( 3 ). Generally, words at the beginning of the title make the most impact ( 20 ). Put an important word (e.g. independent or dependent variables) first in the title to attract readers ( 3 , 18 , 25 , 26 ). What you want to be emphasized as the primary subject matter i.e. the key concept of the paper needs to appear first and near the beginning of the title ( 3 , 25 ). Because search engines such as Google, typically show only the first 6 - 7 words of a title, most associated terms should, therefore, appear earlier ( 3 ). Using a subtitle (to state-specific topic) following the main title (to state general topic) is a technique for putting an important word or phrase first in the title ( 18 ); e.g. “Holistic review: shaping the medical profession one applicant at a time” ( 45 ) or “Medical school admissions: applicant projections revisited” ( 46 ).

10. Use of Preposition in the Title

A preposition is a word or a group of words used before a noun, pronoun, or noun phrase to show direction, time, place, location, spatial relationships, or to introduce an object. Correct use of prepositions in the title makes it more clear and helps the reader to understand how the title elements are related to each other ( 28 ). Typical prepositions used in the title, are by (to indicate how something is done), for (referring to a purpose), from (referring to the origin of something), in (referring to a location), of (belonging to or regrading) ( 28 ).

11. Running Title

To identify the articles in a journal, short phrases called running titles (running heads) appear at the top or bottom of every page or every other page ( 6 , 18 ). Running titles are short versions of the title ( 6 , 18 ) and help readers to keep track of the article throughout its printed pages ( 21 ). As running titles mostly cannot be longer than 50 characters (including the spaces), authors are recommended to use standard abbreviations and omit the study design ( 21 ). In hypothesis-testing papers, the running title usually names independent and dependent variables ( 18 ). The form “X and Y”, which is unspecific for the title can be used for the running title ( 18 ).

12. Title and Paper Citation

A well-organized title is positively associated with paper citation ( 47 ). Some studies have addressed how the feature and structure of a title can affect pre- and post-publication manuscript success ( 9 ). Association of title’s length and citation of the paper has remained inconclusive ( 47 , 48 ), however, papers with shorter titles ( 40 ) especially when presenting study conclusion ( 49 ) receive more citations ( 40 ). Analysis of published papers in the Lancet journal showed that titles with two components separated by a colon were significantly more common in the well-cited papers ( 47 ). Titles emphasizing broader conceptual or comparative issues get more attention than those being more specific (e.g. use of particular genus or species by their taxonomic name in the title) ( 9 ). Some factors such as referring to a specific country or geographical region may also lead to poor citation of the paper ( 47 , 49 ). Other factors such as punctuations and use of acronyms can also affect the citation rate of a paper ( 47 ). Use of “colon”, “hyphen” and “comma” was most frequent whereas “semi-colon”, “dash” and “single quotation marks” were least frequent punctuation marks in top-cited papers ( 50 ).

13. Conclusions

The essence of research is reflected in its title, which acts as a “signpost” for the main topic of the paper ( 31 ). In addition to presenting the message of the paper, the title should evoke interest in reading the paper. Appropriate types of a title (e.g. descriptive, declarative, interrogative) should be selected by the authors and in all cases, the title should be accurate, unambiguous, interesting, concise, precise, unique, and should not be misleading. “The Title” should present the substance of the work in a clear way.

Authors' Contribution: Study concept and design: Zahra Bahadoran and Asghar Ghasemi; drafting of the manuscript: Zahra Bahadoran, Parvin Mirmiran, and Asghar Ghasemi; critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content: Khosrow Kashfi and Parvin Mirmiran.

Conflict of Interests: The authors have no conflict of interest.

Funding/Support: This study was supported by the Research Institute for Endocrine Sciences, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences.

• Last Updated: Jul 31, 2023 1:47 PM
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APA 6 Style

Biol 160 - general biology (harper): apa 6 style.

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When Should I Cite?

Any time your work contains or refers to someone else's ideas, words, images, media, or sounds  you need to include a citation.

1. In-text citations should be inserted at the point of use in your assignment and indicate that the information you just presented came from a source other than your own brain or common knowledge.

2. A Works Cited or References section should be included at the end of your assignment.

3. In Works Cited / References , list all the works you referred to with in-text citations in the body of your assignment.

4. There are many citation styles, each with it's own precise formatting. The most popular at Clark are MLA and APA .

 According to the  APA as of March 2017 , any of the following formats for digital object identifiers (doi) are correct APA style:

• https://doi.org/10.1037/arc0000014
• http://doi.org/10.1037/arc0000014
• doi:10.1037/arc0000014

Guides from Clark College Libraries and other sources:

• Purdue OWL (Online Writing Lab) APA Guide A great resource!
• APA 6 Style Blog Official companion to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Sixth Edition. It's run by a group of experts who work with APA Style every day.
• Navigating Copyright for Reproduced Images From the APA Style Blog

APA 6 Handouts

• Clark Libraries APA 6 Quick Guide This is the green, 2-page handout that lists lots of examples for citing sources in APA 6 format.
• APA 6 Title Page & Headers, Using Microsoft Word
• Creating an APA title page and headers for Microsoft Word for Mac
• APA 6 Citation, Reference Page Hints
• APA 6 Citation - Where, How and FAQs
• APA 6 Citation - Tips for In-Text Citations

Formatting Title Page and Headers in APA 6

Here is a short step-by-step video of the directions below.

• Open a Word document
• Click on "Insert"
• Choose "Header"
• Choose first option “Blank"
• Check “Different First Page”
• In upper left corner type:  Running head: YOUR TITLE IN ALL CAPS
• Tab over to right margin
• Click on “Page Number”
• Click on “Current Position”
• Choose first option “Plain Number”
• Highlight your text and page number and make sure that both are Times New Roman, size 12
• Close Header and Footer
• Select double spacing and centered in paragraph area. In the top third of the page type: paper title, your name, and institution name. Example:

My Research Paper  Student A. Body Clark College     

• Highlight your text and make sure it is Times New Roman, size 12
• Now enter (return) down to the end of the page until you reach the second page of your document
• Choose first option “Blank”
• In upper left corner type:  YOUR TITLE IN ALL CAPS  (Note: No running head here!)
• Tab over to right margin.
• You’re done – your title page and headers for your APA paper are set up. To change the information on the template, go to Insert, Header and Edit Header.
• Creating an APA 6 title page and headers for Microsoft Word for Mac Steps for creating an APA title page and APA page headers for Word for Mac (2011-2017).

When in Doubt - ASK!

If you have any questions about citations or plagiarism that are not answered on these pages, be sure to ask for clarification from:

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Cite Sources - APA - Books

Citations for Graphs and Images

If you include a graph, table, chart, or image that is not your own in the body of your text or on a presentation slide, use the following citation underneath it:

Figure 1. Description, if needed. Adapted from "Title of Article or Webpage," by Author(s), Year, Title of Journal or Website , Volume, page number, retrieved from URL. Copyright Year by Copyright Holder.

See here and here for specific examples. Also see pages 150-167 of the APA Manual and this APA Style Blog post .

You should also include a full reference citation at the end of your paper or presentation.

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Apa style guide.

Citation resources for APA style

• APA 7th Edition Quick Reference Guide How to format reference list entries for journal articles, books, and chapters in a book.
• APA 7th Edition Reference Examples Provides detailed examples for citing common and uncommon sources.
• APA 7th Edition Tutorials and Webinars The Academic Writer Tutorial: Basics of Seventh Edition APA Style covers the basics of the seventh edition APA Style.
• APA 7th Edition Style Bolg Search the APA's blog to find answers to specific questions.
• APA 6th Edition Resources For the transition period between the 6th and 7th editions, APA has archived their 6th edition style blog, FAQs, and other resources.

Quick Reference

• Referencing and Research Skills Academic scholarship involves properly acknowledging sources. It shows readers where your ideas came from, and gives them the details to find the source themselves. From the Office of Academic Integrity.

Formatting style and grammar resources for APA

• Figures All types of visual displays other than tables are considered figures in APA Style. The rules for figures have been revised from the 6th edition.
• Headings Headings identify the content within sections of a paper. The rules for tables have been revised from the 6th edition.

• Other formatting considerations This present information about APA Style as described in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Seventh Edition.

Citing Images

You must cite the source of an image used in a paper, lab report, presentation or seminar. When citing an image in the body of your paper, cite it in one of two ways:

Credit the source at the end of the image caption:

“Reproduced with permission from (a) H.E. Hoekstra and (c) J.L. Feder.”

“Reproduced from Thakur et al. (2008a) with permission (originally published in Nature, http://www.nature.com).”

Credit images found on the Internet as follows:

Figure 2 .  “Water lily [Nymphaeaceae] blooming in Saint Petersburg’s Botanical Gardens, September 2005,” by A. L. Olsen. Retrieved from the NBII (National Biological Information Infrastructure) Digital Image Library website, maintained by the Center for Biological Informatics of the U.S. Geological Survey, http://life.nbii.gov/dml/mediadetail.do?id=2995

How to cite a video in APA format

Sample citation for YouTube video: 

Sample citation for YouTube channel:

JoVE video with no author listed: 

Jove video with author listed:

The date noted should be the date that the video was uploaded.

Acknowledgement

My thanks to Liaison Librarian, Rebecca Hutchinson, for providing so much of the content for this page:  https://subjectguides.uwaterloo.ca/WATPD/home

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Plagiarism and academic integrity are taken seriously by this university. You, the student, are responsible for making sure you are honestly completing your work. If you have any questions, please review your class syllabus, speak to your professor, or review the university’s guidelines. The UML Library webpage on Academic Integrity has more information.

APA Help from the APA Manual Website

• Sample Papers in APA Style
• Style and Grammar Guidelines, APA Format, 7th Ed.
• APA Manual Home page, 7th Edition

APA Help from Purdue OWL

• Purdue OWL APA Overview
• How to Format In-Text Citations in APA Style
• How to Cite Articles in APA Style
• How to Cite Books in APA Style
• How to Cite Audiovisual Media in APA Style
• General Guide to APA Style
• How to Format a Webpage or Website in APA
• Sample Paper from Purdue OWL Website

APA style is a format for  academic documents  such as  journal articles and books . It was developed by the American Psychological Association (APA)  "to assist reading comprehension in the social and behavioral sciences, for clarity of communication".

There is a  copy of the 7th edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association at the Lydon reference desk. The library also owns an ebook of  The Concise APA Handbook, 7th ed.

APA Specified Title Page for Student Papers

The student title page includes:

• paper title • author names (the byline) • author affiliation  • course number and name  • instructor name • page number.

APA rule of thumb for citations:  write your titles as if they were sentences .  For the article title, that means that the first letter of the first word is capitalized and the rest are lower case unless they are proper nouns.  Also, if there is a colon (":") in the title, you capitalize the next word.  The whole title should also end in punctuation such as a period or a question mark.

Article in an online journal:

Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (Year). Title of article. Title of Periodical, volume number (issue number), pages. https://doi.org/xx.xxx/yyyy

Article in a print journal:

Scruton, R. (1996). The eclipse of listening. The New Criterion, 15 (3), 5–13.

Selected Examples of Changes to APA 7th Edition

Content above adapted from Purdue Owl , Scribbr, and APA Style Manual, 7th ed. Instructional Aids

For complete details on updates to APA style in the 7th edition, see this page.

APA Citation Style for Government Publications

APA Citation Style does not have a separate category for government publications. According to APA, government documents can be considered Books, Technical/Research Reports or Brochures.

Helpful Tips:

• Treat a government document as a book, report, or brochure.
• If a person is named on the title page, use her or him as author.
• If no person is named, use the government agency, department, or branch as a group author.
• Give the name of the group author exactly as it appears on the title page. If the branch or agency is not well known, include its higher department first.
• If the group author is also the publisher, just use the word Author after the location.
• If there is a series or report number, include it after the title.
• The APA manual refers to the GPO (U.S. Gov. Printing Office). Canadian equivalents may be: Queen’s Printer, Ministry of Supply and Services, Canadian Government Publishing, etc.

Group Authors

Group authors are often government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and task forces. Follow these guidelines to format the names of group authors in the reference list.

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APA Title Page

For most assignments written in APA format, a correctly laid out APA title page is essential.

This article is a part of the guide:

• Outline Examples
• Example of a Paper
• Write a Hypothesis
• Introduction
• Example of a Paper 2

Browse Full Outline

• 1 Write a Research Paper
• 2 Writing a Paper
• 3.1 Write an Outline
• 3.2 Outline Examples
• 4.1 Thesis Statement
• 4.2 Write a Hypothesis
• 5.2 Abstract
• 5.3 Introduction
• 5.4 Methods
• 5.5 Results
• 5.6 Discussion
• 5.7 Conclusion
• 5.8 Bibliography
• 6.1 Table of Contents
• 6.2 Acknowledgements
• 6.3 Appendix
• 7.1 In Text Citations
• 7.2 Footnotes
• 7.3.1 Floating Blocks
• 7.4 Example of a Paper
• 7.5 Example of a Paper 2
• 7.6.1 Citations
• 7.7.1 Writing Style
• 7.7.2 Citations
• 8.1.1 Sham Peer Review
• 8.1.2 Advantages
• 8.1.3 Disadvantages
• 8.2 Publication Bias
• 8.3.1 Journal Rejection
• 9.1 Article Writing
• 9.2 Ideas for Topics

A correctly formatted title page is very quick and easy to do, so there is no excuse for getting it wrong. It’s the very first part of your paper that anyone will see, so a glaring mistake here will create a bad impression, long before anybody starts to assess the quality of your work.

It’s a cliché, but people really do judge a book (or research paper !) by its cover.

There is an APA approved standard for title pages but, again, it’s important to inquire about the specific requirements for your department and university. APA, or any other style for that matter, is only a guide, and most departments have developed their own requirements to suit their own needs.

Figure 1 shows an example of an APA title page. Please note that, for clarity, the font size is slightly larger than the recommended 12 pt. Times New Roman.

Creating an APA Title Page

1) The Title

This is the most important part, and should be center aligned, about halfway down the page. This is the full title of the research paper, dissertation or thesis.

2) Personal Details

At the bottom of the page, center aligned, should be your name, your institution and the date of submission.

This is the most variable part of the title page, and you may need to include the name of your supervisor and also the level of paper - dissertation, thesis, and term paper. Check your departmental recommendations.

3) The Running Head

This is a shortened version of the title, no more than 50 characters long, and is the header that you will use at the top of each page. This needs to be left justified.

4) The Page Number

This needs to be made using the header function available in word processing programs. The running header should be separated from the page number by 5 or 7 spaces, and will appear on every page throughout the document. It must be right aligned.

APA Title Page Examples  

Final Remarks

These simple instructions will give you a good title page that will reflect favorably upon all the hard work that you have put into your paper. There is no need to add anything, simply follow the APA guidelines.

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Home » Research Paper Title Page – Example and Making Guide

Research Paper Title Page – Example and Making Guide

Table of Contents

Research Paper Title Page

Research Paper Title Page is the cover page of a research paper that provides basic information about the paper. It typically includes the title of the research paper, the author’s name, the date of submission, and the name of the institution or department where the research was conducted.

The title page of a research paper typically includes the following information:

• Title of the research paper
• Author(s) of the paper (including their name(s), affiliation(s), and contact information)
• Date of submission or publication
• Name of the academic institution or organization where the research was conducted (if applicable)
• Any acknowledgments or funding sources for the research
• Abstract of the research paper (usually a brief summary of the paper’s main findings or arguments)

Research Paper Title Page Example

Notes on formatting:

• The title of your research paper should be centered on the page, and should be written in title case (capitalizing the first letter of each major word).
• Your name should be written underneath the title, centered on the page.
• Your institutional affiliation (e.g. the name of your university or research institution) should be written underneath your name, centered on the page.
• The date of submission should be written underneath your institutional affiliation, centered on the page.

Research Paper Title Page Writing Guide

Here are some guidelines for writing a research paper title page:

• Title of the paper: The title should be concise and descriptive, reflecting the main idea or focus of the research paper. The title should be centered on the page and in title case (capitalize the first letter of each major word).
• Author’s name : The author’s name should be written below the title, also centered on the page. Use first name, middle initial, and last name.
• Institutional affiliation: The institutional affiliation is the name of the university, college, or organization where the research was conducted. It should be listed below the author’s name and centered on the page.
• Date of submission: The date of submission is the date when the research paper is being submitted for review or publication. It should be written below the institutional affiliation and centered on the page.
• Running head: A running head is a short version of the title that is used on subsequent pages of the paper. It should be written in all caps and flush left at the top of each page.
• Page number: The page number should be flush right at the top of each page.
• Font and spacing: Use a standard font such as Times New Roman or Arial in 12-point size. Double-space the entire title page.

Purpose of Research Paper Title Page

The purpose of the research paper title page is to:

• Identify the title of the research paper: The title page provides the title of the paper in a clear and concise manner so that readers can quickly understand the topic of the research.
• Indicate the author(s) of the paper: The title page should include the name(s) of the author(s) who conducted the research and wrote the paper. This information helps to establish credibility and accountability for the research.
• Provide information about the institutional affiliation: The title page should also include the name of the institution where the research was conducted. This information helps readers understand the context of the research and can be useful for citations and further research.
• Give the date of the research: The title page should include the date that the research was conducted or the paper was written. This information helps readers understand the currency of the research and can be useful for citing sources.
• Include other relevant information: Depending on the requirements of the research paper, the title page may also include other relevant information such as the course title, instructor’s name, or a brief abstract of the research.
• Establish a professional appearance : The title page provides an opportunity to present the research paper in a professional and organized manner. A well-designed title page with all necessary information can make a positive first impression on readers and demonstrate the author’s attention to detail.
• Facilitate easy referencing: A properly formatted title page can help readers locate the research paper easily in a database, library, or other sources. This is particularly important for academic and scientific research papers that may be referenced frequently by others.
• Comply with formatting guidelines : Many academic and scientific disciplines have specific formatting guidelines for research papers, including requirements for the title page. Adhering to these guidelines ensures that the research paper is presented in a consistent and standardized format that is familiar to readers in that field.
• Demonstrate compliance with ethical standards: Some academic institutions require that the title page include a statement of compliance with ethical standards for research, such as human subjects’ protection, data privacy, or animal welfare. This information ensures that the research was conducted in an ethical and responsible manner.

Advantages of Research Paper Title Page

There are several advantages to including a title page in a research paper, including:

• Professional Appearance: A title page provides a professional appearance to the research paper. It is the first thing that readers see, and it gives them an impression of the paper’s overall quality.
• Credibility : Including a title page with all the necessary information, such as the author’s name, institutional affiliation, and the date of submission, enhances the credibility of the research paper.
• Easy Identification: A title page makes it easier for readers to identify the research paper among other papers. It provides important information about the paper, such as the title, author’s name, and institutional affiliation.
• Easy Access: A title page provides a quick reference for readers who need to cite the research paper in their own work. The necessary information is all in one place and easily accessible.
• Compliance with Formatting Guidelines: Many academic institutions have specific formatting guidelines for research papers, including the use of a title page. Including a title page ensures compliance with these guidelines and helps avoid any confusion or penalties.

About the author

Muhammad Hassan

Researcher, Academic Writer, Web developer

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Biology Resource Guide: APA-7 Citation Style

• Books & eBooks
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• Evaluating Sources
• General Biology
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• Microbiology
• Environmental Studies This link opens in a new window
• Finding Scholarly Sources
• APA-7 Citation Style
• CSE-8 Citation Style
• Video Tutorials This link opens in a new window

Welcome to the APA-7 Citation Resource

Paper Setup     References List     In-Text Citations

APA Style Resources

The following resources contain examples and/or information to assist in preparing a research paper in APA Citation Style.

OWL Citation Help

• Excelsior OWL Valuable information and resources to help you create your citations.

Video Tutorials

• APA 7 Video Tutorials Check out these step-by-step videos to help you set up your paper, create your reference list, and in-text citations.
• APA Tutorials and Webinars Check out these videos and webinars from the APA website to help you create your APA 7 citations.

Paper Set-up

• APA Title Page Resource Guide This source will give you all the information you need to create the Title Page for your APA style paper.
• Paper Set-up Checklist Use this checklist to make sure you have everything you need to set up your APA paper.
• Paper Set-up Checklist Printout A printout version of the APA paper checklist.
• Citing Websites in APA 7 Use this handout to help you create citations for websites.
• APA Style Formatting and Citing from D2L Use this document to see a title page example, create the proper headings in your paper, and cite sources from your class D2L page.
• APA "And the Band Played On" Scene Log

The APA Citation Style

This resource guide will focus on the 7th edition of the APA publication style developed by the American Psychological Association, which is used by the Social Sciences and other curricular areas.

Take a look at the links on the left for examples of APA 7 in-text citations, reference pages, and some useful sites and tutorials. 

Resources from APA

• APA Inclusive Language Guide View and download the updated APA guidelines for inclusive language
• APA Citation Guide Use this resource to break down the parts of a reference page citation for three commonly cited formats: journal article, book, and chapter in an edited book.
• Sample Paper This example paper will give you a visual of what your finished paper will look like, from title page to references. It also includes notes to identify key parts of your paper.
• Student Paper Sample Download this word document to see what a finished APA style paper looks like.

Setting up an APA Paper

Before you begin writing your research paper, it is important to have it correctly formatted following APA guidelines. This includes setting up a title page, correcting line spacing, text font, and margins in a paper.

To set up your paper for APA formatting you will complete the following: 

• Make sure the margins in your paper are set to 1 inch
• Use one of the approved APA fonts: 11-point Calibri, 11-point Arial, 10-point Lucida Sans Unicode, 12-point Times New Roman, or 11-point Georgia. 
• Set the spacing in your paper to Double. 
• Create a title page. 

To create a title page for your paper, or to see a visual of any of the above formatting guidelines, check out the library's APA 7 video tutorials.  

The   Document Formatting guides   prepared by HCC Learning Support Center staff are a great tool to help you step-by-step through the process of setting up your document.  We recommend you use these guidelines to set up your paper before you begin writing. 

Document Formatting

• Formatting in Google Docs
• Formatting in MS Word Browser
• Formatting in MS Word on MAC
• Formatting in MS Word on PC

Citations are tricky, and there are lots of questions you may have when creating your citations. This guide covers the basics of APA, but for more detailed questions about specific citations, make sure to check out the resources along the left. The Excelsior OWL citation guide is especially helpful for creating citations for different sources. 

Image: Vecteezy

The APA References list

Once you have completed your research and have gathered the information you would like to use to write your paper, your next step should be to create the list of the resources you will use in your paper. This list is called a Reference List  and includes any source (publication, video, lecture, etc.) that you are using information from in your paper. It is very important that you cite sources in your paper because you want to show where you are getting your information from and avoid Plagiarism! 

General formatting tips when creating your references page: 

• The references page will begin on a separate page at the end of your research paper. 
• Each citation will be in alphabetical order based on the authors' last names. If there are not authors, you will alphabetize by the source's title. 
• Double-space all entries. 
• Include a hanging-indent with each citation. To learn how to create a hanging indent, watch the second part of the library's APA Citation Video Tutorials. 
• Include the word References at the top of the page, centered on the page and in bold text. 

For help with creating citations, or how to set up your references page, watch the library's APA Citations Video Tutorials! 

Examples of Common Citations

Use the examples shown below to help you format correct citations for the most popular sources. 

Scholarly article from a database:

Elements : Author's last name, Author's first and middle initials. (Date). Title of article.  Title of Journal, Volume number (issue number, if any), Page numbers. 

Mershon, D.H. (1998, November). Star trek on the brain: Alien minds, human minds.  American Scientist, 86 (6), 585. 

Elements : Author's last name, Author's first and middle initials. (Date published). Title of webpage.  Website Name . URL. 

Price, D. (2018, March 23). Laziness does not exist.  Medium . https://humanparts.medium.com/laziness-does-not-exist-3af27e312d01 

Book by multiple authors (less than 20): 

Elements : Author's last name, Author's first and middle initials. (Year of Publication).  Title of boo k. Publisher. 

Rivano, N. S., Hoson, A., & Stallings, B. (2001).  Regional integration and economic development . Palgrave.

Social Media Post (Instagram): 

Elements : Author's last name, Author's first and middle initials. [@username]. (Year, Month, Day published). Content of the post up to the first 20 words [description of type of post]. Site name. URL. 

Sulic, L. [@lukasulicworld]. (2019, December 31). We wish you a happy new year! [Photograph]. Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/p/B6vTyaZHNU9/?igshid=141g9y12b4gfn 

For more examples of how to cite specific formats, or more specific help with citations, visit the Excelsior Online Writing Lab for detailed descriptions! 

In-Text Citations

In-text citations are the second way you will cite your sources in a research paper. Unlike the citations found in the References page, in-text citations are shorter and appear in the body of the text. Any time you use information from a source (whether you paraphrase it or use a direct quotation), you must include an in-text citation. So you will have multiple in-text citations for one source. 

APA in-text citations will appear in parentheses within the paper you are writing, and will appear at the end of the sentence where the source is being cited. You will include only the author's last name, followed by the date of publication. If a source has two authors, list both names separated by an ampersand (&). If there are more than two authors, list only the first author's last name followed by the phrase 'et al'. 

In-text citation examples: 

Source with three or more authors:.

The concept of social class is rapidly becoming obsolete (Calvert et al., 1987). 

Source with one author, using a signal phrase (a signal phrase uses part of the citation in the body of the text):

Calvert (1982) argued that it is impossible to measure social class. 

Source with two authors:

Two techniques that have been associated with reduced stress and increased relaxation in psychotherapy contexts are guided imagery and progressive muscle relaxation (McGuigan & Lehrer, 2007). 

For more examples of creating in-text citations, check out the library's video tutorials or the Excelsior OWL citation page for help! Or explore the resources on this guide for more information! 

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Title Page in Research Paper: Importance, Guidelines & Examples

Make your research paper stand out with an impressive title page. Learn how to craft the perfect title page in research paper in this guide.

The title page is a crucial component of a research paper, serving as the first point of contact between the reader and the study. It provides readers with a first impression, signaling the credibility and relevance of the work. Beyond conveying essential information, a well-designed title page adds visual appeal to the paper, contributing to its overall presentation. In this article, we will explore the importance of title pages in research papers, exploring how they capture attention, convey vital information, and enhance the overall quality of the study.

Overview of Title Page in Research Paper:

The title page in research paper is typically located at the beginning of the document and provides key information about the paper. The title page presents a professional and organized appearance, setting the tone for the entire research paper.

Purpose of a Title Page

The purpose of a title page in a research paper is to convey important details about the study. It includes the title of the paper, the author’s name, the institutional affiliation, and sometimes additional information such as the course name, instructor’s name, or submission date. The title page helps to identify and differentiate the research paper, making it easier for readers, instructors, and researchers to locate, reference, and cite the work accurately. Additionally, it establishes the credibility and professionalism of the study, demonstrating the author’s attention to detail and adherence to academic standards.

Creating a Title Page

To create a title page for a research paper, start by centering the title of your paper at the top of the page. Then, on separate lines, include your name, your affiliation (university or institution), and the date of submission. Optionally, you can also include the course name, instructor’s name, and any other relevant information specified by your institution or guidelines. Make sure to format the title page according to the required style guide (e.g., APA , MLA ) with consistent font, spacing, and alignment.

Elements of a Title Page

A title page is an essential component of a research paper, providing key information about the study and its authors. The elements commonly included on a title page are:

Title : Choose a concise and descriptive title that accurately reflects the main focus of your research. It should be informative, engaging, and capture the essence of your study.

Author’s Name : Include your full name as the author of the research paper. If there are multiple authors, list them in the order they contributed to the study.

Institutional Affiliation : Mention the name of the institution or organization with which you are affiliated. This could be your university, research institute, or academic department.

Course Information : If the research paper is being submitted for a course, include the course name and number.

Date : Indicate the date of submission or completion of the research paper.

Instructor : Include the instructor’s name below the author’s name, affiliation, and course (if the paper is being submitted for a course), using a centered format.

Page Number : Typically, the title page is counted as page 1, although it is often not numbered. Numbering usually starts on the second page, which is usually the abstract or introduction.

Formatting Guidelines for a Title Page

The formatting guidelines for a title page provide specific instructions on how to structure and present the elements of a title page in a research paper. These guidelines ensure consistency and uniformity in academic writing. They may vary depending on the required citation style, such as APA (American Psychological Association) or MLA (Modern Language Association).

APA Formatting Guidelines

The APA formatting guidelines provide a set of rules for formatting academic papers, including the title page. According to APA guidelines, the title page should include the title of the paper, the author’s name, institutional affiliation, and a running head. The running head is a shortened version of the paper’s title and appears at the top of each page. Additionally, APA guidelines specify the use of specific font size and type, margins, and alignment for the title page.

MLA Formatting Guidelines

The MLA formatting guidelines, commonly used in humanities and liberal arts disciplines, also provide instructions for creating a title page. According to MLA guidelines, the title page should include the title of the paper, the author’s name, the course name and number, the instructor’s name, and the due date. Unlike APA, MLA does not require a running head on the title page. MLA guidelines specify the use of specific font size and type, margins, and alignment for the title page.

Title Page Examples

Title page examples provide visual representations of how a title page should be formatted and organized in different contexts. These examples serve as valuable references for students and professionals to understand the layout and presentation of a title page in various academic or professional settings.

Student Version Example

A student version example of a title page demonstrates how a title page should be formatted for academic papers or assignments completed by students. It typically includes the paper’s title, the student’s name, the course name and number, the instructor’s name, and the date. This example is designed to meet the specific requirements and guidelines provided by the educational institution or instructor.

Professional Version Example

A professional version example of a title page showcases how a title page should be formatted for research papers, articles, or other professional documents. In addition to the title, it typically includes the author’s name, institutional affiliation, and any relevant professional credentials. This example follows the formatting guidelines of the specific citation style used in the professional field, such as APA or MLA, and may also include additional information such as the publication date or the name of the journal or conference.

6 Tips for Writing an Effective Title Page

Here are some tips for writing an effective title page:

1. Follow the formatting guidelines

Familiarize yourself with the specific formatting guidelines provided by your educational institution or the citation style you are using (such as APA or MLA). Adhere to these guidelines for font size, margins, spacing, and other formatting elements.

2. Use a clear and concise title

The title should accurately reflect the content of your paper or document in a concise and descriptive manner. Avoid using vague or ambiguous titles that may confuse readers.

3. Include relevant information

Include essential information such as the author’s name, the title of the work, the course or assignment name (if applicable), the instructor’s name, and the date of submission. Ensure that all required elements are included based on the guidelines provided.

4. Use consistent formatting

Maintain consistency in font style, size, and formatting throughout the title page. This helps create a professional and organized appearance.

5. Consider the placement of elements

Arrange the elements on the title page in a logical and visually appealing manner. Typically, the title is centered at the top, followed by the author’s name and other details.

6. Double-check for accuracy

Before finalizing your title page, review it carefully for any spelling or grammatical errors. Make sure all the information provided is accurate and up to date.

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13.1 Formatting a Research Paper

Learning objectives.

• Identify the major components of a research paper written using American Psychological Association (APA) style.
• Apply general APA style and formatting conventions in a research paper.

In this chapter, you will learn how to use APA style , the documentation and formatting style followed by the American Psychological Association, as well as MLA style , from the Modern Language Association. There are a few major formatting styles used in academic texts, including AMA, Chicago, and Turabian:

• AMA (American Medical Association) for medicine, health, and biological sciences
• APA (American Psychological Association) for education, psychology, and the social sciences
• Chicago—a common style used in everyday publications like magazines, newspapers, and books
• MLA (Modern Language Association) for English, literature, arts, and humanities
• Turabian—another common style designed for its universal application across all subjects and disciplines

While all the formatting and citation styles have their own use and applications, in this chapter we focus our attention on the two styles you are most likely to use in your academic studies: APA and MLA.

If you find that the rules of proper source documentation are difficult to keep straight, you are not alone. Writing a good research paper is, in and of itself, a major intellectual challenge. Having to follow detailed citation and formatting guidelines as well may seem like just one more task to add to an already-too-long list of requirements.

Following these guidelines, however, serves several important purposes. First, it signals to your readers that your paper should be taken seriously as a student’s contribution to a given academic or professional field; it is the literary equivalent of wearing a tailored suit to a job interview. Second, it shows that you respect other people’s work enough to give them proper credit for it. Finally, it helps your reader find additional materials if he or she wishes to learn more about your topic.

Furthermore, producing a letter-perfect APA-style paper need not be burdensome. Yes, it requires careful attention to detail. However, you can simplify the process if you keep these broad guidelines in mind:

• Work ahead whenever you can. Chapter 11 “Writing from Research: What Will I Learn?” includes tips for keeping track of your sources early in the research process, which will save time later on.
• Get it right the first time. Apply APA guidelines as you write, so you will not have much to correct during the editing stage. Again, putting in a little extra time early on can save time later.
• Use the resources available to you. In addition to the guidelines provided in this chapter, you may wish to consult the APA website at http://www.apa.org or the Purdue University Online Writing lab at http://owl.english.purdue.edu , which regularly updates its online style guidelines.

General Formatting Guidelines

This chapter provides detailed guidelines for using the citation and formatting conventions developed by the American Psychological Association, or APA. Writers in disciplines as diverse as astrophysics, biology, psychology, and education follow APA style. The major components of a paper written in APA style are listed in the following box.

These are the major components of an APA-style paper:

Body, which includes the following:

• Headings and, if necessary, subheadings to organize the content
• In-text citations of research sources
• References page

All these components must be saved in one document, not as separate documents.

The title page of your paper includes the following information:

• Title of the paper
• Author’s name
• Name of the institution with which the author is affiliated
• Header at the top of the page with the paper title (in capital letters) and the page number (If the title is lengthy, you may use a shortened form of it in the header.)

List the first three elements in the order given in the previous list, centered about one third of the way down from the top of the page. Use the headers and footers tool of your word-processing program to add the header, with the title text at the left and the page number in the upper-right corner. Your title page should look like the following example.

The next page of your paper provides an abstract , or brief summary of your findings. An abstract does not need to be provided in every paper, but an abstract should be used in papers that include a hypothesis. A good abstract is concise—about one hundred fifty to two hundred fifty words—and is written in an objective, impersonal style. Your writing voice will not be as apparent here as in the body of your paper. When writing the abstract, take a just-the-facts approach, and summarize your research question and your findings in a few sentences.

In Chapter 12 “Writing a Research Paper” , you read a paper written by a student named Jorge, who researched the effectiveness of low-carbohydrate diets. Read Jorge’s abstract. Note how it sums up the major ideas in his paper without going into excessive detail.

Write an abstract summarizing your paper. Briefly introduce the topic, state your findings, and sum up what conclusions you can draw from your research. Use the word count feature of your word-processing program to make sure your abstract does not exceed one hundred fifty words.

Depending on your field of study, you may sometimes write research papers that present extensive primary research, such as your own experiment or survey. In your abstract, summarize your research question and your findings, and briefly indicate how your study relates to prior research in the field.

Margins, Pagination, and Headings

APA style requirements also address specific formatting concerns, such as margins, pagination, and heading styles, within the body of the paper. Review the following APA guidelines.

Use these general guidelines to format the paper:

• Set the top, bottom, and side margins of your paper at 1 inch.
• Use double-spaced text throughout your paper.
• Use a standard font, such as Times New Roman or Arial, in a legible size (10- to 12-point).
• Use continuous pagination throughout the paper, including the title page and the references section. Page numbers appear flush right within your header.
• Section headings and subsection headings within the body of your paper use different types of formatting depending on the level of information you are presenting. Additional details from Jorge’s paper are provided.

Begin formatting the final draft of your paper according to APA guidelines. You may work with an existing document or set up a new document if you choose. Include the following:

• Your title page
• The abstract you created in Note 13.8 “Exercise 1”
• Correct headers and page numbers for your title page and abstract

APA style uses section headings to organize information, making it easy for the reader to follow the writer’s train of thought and to know immediately what major topics are covered. Depending on the length and complexity of the paper, its major sections may also be divided into subsections, sub-subsections, and so on. These smaller sections, in turn, use different heading styles to indicate different levels of information. In essence, you are using headings to create a hierarchy of information.

The following heading styles used in APA formatting are listed in order of greatest to least importance:

• Section headings use centered, boldface type. Headings use title case, with important words in the heading capitalized.
• Subsection headings use left-aligned, boldface type. Headings use title case.
• The third level uses left-aligned, indented, boldface type. Headings use a capital letter only for the first word, and they end in a period.
• The fourth level follows the same style used for the previous level, but the headings are boldfaced and italicized.
• The fifth level follows the same style used for the previous level, but the headings are italicized and not boldfaced.

Visually, the hierarchy of information is organized as indicated in Table 13.1 “Section Headings” .

Table 13.1 Section Headings

A college research paper may not use all the heading levels shown in Table 13.1 “Section Headings” , but you are likely to encounter them in academic journal articles that use APA style. For a brief paper, you may find that level 1 headings suffice. Longer or more complex papers may need level 2 headings or other lower-level headings to organize information clearly. Use your outline to craft your major section headings and determine whether any subtopics are substantial enough to require additional levels of headings.

Working with the document you developed in Note 13.11 “Exercise 2” , begin setting up the heading structure of the final draft of your research paper according to APA guidelines. Include your title and at least two to three major section headings, and follow the formatting guidelines provided above. If your major sections should be broken into subsections, add those headings as well. Use your outline to help you.

Because Jorge used only level 1 headings, his Exercise 3 would look like the following:

Citation Guidelines

In-text citations.

Throughout the body of your paper, include a citation whenever you quote or paraphrase material from your research sources. As you learned in Chapter 11 “Writing from Research: What Will I Learn?” , the purpose of citations is twofold: to give credit to others for their ideas and to allow your reader to follow up and learn more about the topic if desired. Your in-text citations provide basic information about your source; each source you cite will have a longer entry in the references section that provides more detailed information.

In-text citations must provide the name of the author or authors and the year the source was published. (When a given source does not list an individual author, you may provide the source title or the name of the organization that published the material instead.) When directly quoting a source, it is also required that you include the page number where the quote appears in your citation.

This information may be included within the sentence or in a parenthetical reference at the end of the sentence, as in these examples.

Epstein (2010) points out that “junk food cannot be considered addictive in the same way that we think of psychoactive drugs as addictive” (p. 137).

Here, the writer names the source author when introducing the quote and provides the publication date in parentheses after the author’s name. The page number appears in parentheses after the closing quotation marks and before the period that ends the sentence.

Addiction researchers caution that “junk food cannot be considered addictive in the same way that we think of psychoactive drugs as addictive” (Epstein, 2010, p. 137).

Here, the writer provides a parenthetical citation at the end of the sentence that includes the author’s name, the year of publication, and the page number separated by commas. Again, the parenthetical citation is placed after the closing quotation marks and before the period at the end of the sentence.

As noted in the book Junk Food, Junk Science (Epstein, 2010, p. 137), “junk food cannot be considered addictive in the same way that we think of psychoactive drugs as addictive.”

Here, the writer chose to mention the source title in the sentence (an optional piece of information to include) and followed the title with a parenthetical citation. Note that the parenthetical citation is placed before the comma that signals the end of the introductory phrase.

David Epstein’s book Junk Food, Junk Science (2010) pointed out that “junk food cannot be considered addictive in the same way that we think of psychoactive drugs as addictive” (p. 137).

Another variation is to introduce the author and the source title in your sentence and include the publication date and page number in parentheses within the sentence or at the end of the sentence. As long as you have included the essential information, you can choose the option that works best for that particular sentence and source.

Citing a book with a single author is usually a straightforward task. Of course, your research may require that you cite many other types of sources, such as books or articles with more than one author or sources with no individual author listed. You may also need to cite sources available in both print and online and nonprint sources, such as websites and personal interviews. Chapter 13 “APA and MLA Documentation and Formatting” , Section 13.2 “Citing and Referencing Techniques” and Section 13.3 “Creating a References Section” provide extensive guidelines for citing a variety of source types.

Writing at Work

APA is just one of several different styles with its own guidelines for documentation, formatting, and language usage. Depending on your field of interest, you may be exposed to additional styles, such as the following:

• MLA style. Determined by the Modern Languages Association and used for papers in literature, languages, and other disciplines in the humanities.
• Chicago style. Outlined in the Chicago Manual of Style and sometimes used for papers in the humanities and the sciences; many professional organizations use this style for publications as well.
• Associated Press (AP) style. Used by professional journalists.

References List

The brief citations included in the body of your paper correspond to the more detailed citations provided at the end of the paper in the references section. In-text citations provide basic information—the author’s name, the publication date, and the page number if necessary—while the references section provides more extensive bibliographical information. Again, this information allows your reader to follow up on the sources you cited and do additional reading about the topic if desired.

The specific format of entries in the list of references varies slightly for different source types, but the entries generally include the following information:

• The name(s) of the author(s) or institution that wrote the source
• The year of publication and, where applicable, the exact date of publication
• The full title of the source
• For books, the city of publication
• For articles or essays, the name of the periodical or book in which the article or essay appears
• For magazine and journal articles, the volume number, issue number, and pages where the article appears
• For sources on the web, the URL where the source is located

The references page is double spaced and lists entries in alphabetical order by the author’s last name. If an entry continues for more than one line, the second line and each subsequent line are indented five spaces. Review the following example. ( Chapter 13 “APA and MLA Documentation and Formatting” , Section 13.3 “Creating a References Section” provides extensive guidelines for formatting reference entries for different types of sources.)

In APA style, book and article titles are formatted in sentence case, not title case. Sentence case means that only the first word is capitalized, along with any proper nouns.

Key Takeaways

• Following proper citation and formatting guidelines helps writers ensure that their work will be taken seriously, give proper credit to other authors for their work, and provide valuable information to readers.
• Working ahead and taking care to cite sources correctly the first time are ways writers can save time during the editing stage of writing a research paper.
• APA papers usually include an abstract that concisely summarizes the paper.
• APA papers use a specific headings structure to provide a clear hierarchy of information.
• In APA papers, in-text citations usually include the name(s) of the author(s) and the year of publication.
• In-text citations correspond to entries in the references section, which provide detailed bibliographical information about a source.

Writing for Success Copyright © 2015 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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M.S. Qualifying Research Paper Writing Guidelines

An important part of your master’s education is the writing of your final master’s qualifying research paper (also called a master’s thesis). To aid you in this process we have assembled the following guidelines.

Qualifying research papers fall into two categories, those based on laboratory research and those based on literature research. Both types are mentored by a faculty member or principal investigator of a research laboratory sought by the student. For laboratory research, the student will write the paper based on original experimental results obtained in the laboratory of the mentor. For a literature-based thesis, after selection of a suitable topic by the student and mentor, the student will research the topic by reading and analyzing original literature on the subject, and then prepare a substantive analysis that will constitute the paper. All qualifying papers are graded "Pass", "Pass with Distinction" or "Fail". Further information can be found at the  M.S. in Biology website .

STYLE INFORMATION

Qualifying papers in the Department of Biology should follow the structure of the types of papers that appear in the journal Cell. Laboratory research based papers should be modeled after a Cell research style articles and library research based papers should be modeled after Cell review style articles. Example articles with links are listed in the notes below.  

IMPORTANT NOTES

• Plagiarism is an act or instance of using or closely imitating the language and thoughts of another author without authorization and the representation of that author's work as one's own, as by not crediting the original author: This means that you cannot copy lines of text from another source without noting that it is a quote (“put quotes around the text”) and citing the reference. In general avoid direct quotes from other sources unless the quote makes a strong point. General facts do not need to be referenced, but more specific facts and ideas must be referenced, even if they have been rewritten in your own words
• Litertaure Review:  Lopez-Otin et al., 2023. Hallmarks of Aging: An Expanding Universe. Cell 186(2), 243-278 .
• Research Research:  Lyons et al., 2023. Functional partitioning of transcriptional regulators by patterned charge blocks. Cell 186(2), 327-345 . 
• Seek a thesis mentor and decide on a topic to study.
• After beginning your literature research, provide a list of references you are reading to your mentor.
• Proceed to write a brief outline of the paper with subsection ideas, then a more detailed outline with subsection descriptions, and share with mentor for comment.
• Proceed to write a first draft of paper, which the mentor will read and provide suggestions/questions for comment.
• Revise accordingly and submit the final version of your paper (~ 25 pages double spaced and reference list). Use citation format (Jones et al., 2023) and reference list as done in Cell papers (see above links). All figures taken from articles must be cited in the legend.

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Article types

Research articles, short communications, methods & techniques, theory & modelling, commentaries, perspectives, conversation, correspondence, outside jeb, centenary articles.

Research Articles should be fully documented reports of original research and are always peer reviewed. They should be written in as concise a style as possible but should still be accessible to the broad readership of JEB.

The total length of the article should not exceed 7000 words (including the main text and figure legends, but not the title page, abstract, materials and methods section or reference list), with a 250-word abstract and a maximum of 10 display items (figures/tables). Supplementary information (figures, tables, movies, datasets, methods) may be published online at the discretion of the editor and reviewers (a strict limit of 50 Mb of supplementary information exists per article).

Manuscripts should be divided into the following sections, in this order:

• Abstract (max. 250 words)
• Introduction
• Materials and methods
• List of symbols and abbreviations
• Appendix (if applicable)
• Acknowledgements
• Competing interests
• Author contributions
• Data availability
• Figure legends

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Short Communications are short, peer-reviewed articles focusing on a high-quality, hypothesis-driven, self-contained piece of original research and/or the proposal of a new theory or concept based on existing research. They should not be preliminary reports or contain purely incremental data and should be of significance and broad interest to the field of comparative physiology.

The total length of the article (including the main text and figure legends, but not the title page, abstract, materials and methods section or reference list) should not exceed 2500 words, with a 150-word abstract and a maximum of 3 display items (figures/tables). Supplementary information (figures, tables, movies, datasets, methods) may be published online at the discretion of the editor and reviewers (a strict limit of 50 Mb of supplementary material exists per article). 

Articles focusing on original research should be divided into the following sections, in this order:

• Abstract (max. 150 words)
• Results and discussion

Methods & Techniques are short, peer-reviewed articles reporting innovative methodological advances or significant modifications to recognized methods of data collection and analysis.

The total length of the article (including the main text and figure legends, but not the title page, abstract, materials and methods section or reference list) should not exceed 2500 words, with a 150-word abstract and a maximum of 3 display items (figures/tables).

Where possible, the use of the method should be demonstrated by applying it to real physiological data, but it is not necessary to apply the method to test a hypothesis. Methods should be described in enough detail to allow others to replicate and verify the protocol and must show a significant improvement on previous techniques. All methodology should be given within the Materials and methods section, although additional figures, tables and movies may be published online as supplementary information at the discretion of the editor and reviewers (there is a strict limit of 50 Mb per article). Mathematical calculations should be placed in an Appendix if they are likely to interrupt the flow of the manuscript.

Theory & Modelling articles are peer-reviewed research papers that document the development, analysis and/or application of a theory or modelling framework to address a new biological question, without the requirement for substantial new biological data. They should be written in clear, concise language that minimizes technical jargon and should be accessible to the broad readership of JEB.

The total length of the article should not exceed 7000 words [including the main text and figure legends, but excluding the title page, abstract, materials and methods section (or equivalent) and reference list], with a 250-word abstract and a maximum of 10 display items (figures/tables/boxes). Supplementary information (figures, tables, movies, datasets, methods) may be published online (maximum 50 Mb per article). Authors must provide clear and free access to code and data associated with the paper, as detailed in our data deposition policy.

The Discussion must include a section that explains the biological relevance of the theory or model. This section should provide guidance on how the theory or model can aid in interpreting experimental data, explain the testable hypotheses and predictions, and discuss the types of experiments needed to test these hypotheses.

• Materials and methods (or structured with major headings more compatible with theoretical work)
• Results and Discussion (combined or separate) — must contain a section(s) on biological relevance and testable predictions
• Data availability — must include a link and reference to a specific code version

Reviews aim to provide a timely, insightful and accessible overview of a particular field or aspect of experimental biology research, ideally by bringing together data from different fields and organisms. Reviews can take a systematic approach, including incorporating meta-analyses. Although authors are free to express their opinions in a Review, they are asked to provide counterbalancing viewpoints where appropriate and to ensure that opinion and fact are clearly distinguishable.

Reviews are peer-reviewed and predominantly commissioned. They can be up to 7000 words in length, with up to 8 display items (figures, tables or boxes).

Authors wishing to submit an unsolicited Review should first contact the Reviews Editor .

Commentaries aim to convey the author's perspective on a particular topic of relevance to experimental biology. This may include detailing questions that remain unanswered, presenting a fresh viewpoint on existing problems, challenging current paradigms, introducing novel ideas and new hypotheses, and proposing how innovative approaches and methods will advance our understanding of the field.

Commentaries are peer-reviewed and predominantly commissioned. They can be up to 4500 words in length, with up to 5 display items (figures, tables or boxes).

Authors wishing to submit an unsolicited Commentary should first contact the Reviews Editor .

Perspectives aim to offer a contemporary viewpoint on a topic of widespread interest to the JEB community that is not discipline specific. They can include personal thoughts and beliefs that are based on facts. Topics of interest may include (but are not limited to) diversity and inclusion in science, challenges facing ECRs, sustainability, science communication and outreach, and the impacts of these issues upon particular fields or experimental biology generally.

Perspectives are peer-reviewed and predominantly commissioned. They can be up to 2000 words in length, with up to 3 display items (figures, tables or boxes).

Authors wishing to submit an unsolicited Perspective should first contact the Reviews Editor .

Conversation articles take the form of an interview conveying a personal story and our current them is JEB@100 . All articles are edited with approval from the interviewee.

Interviewees are selected by the Editors but if you would like to nominate a researcher to be interviewed, please contact the News & Views Editor .

Should a reader have cogent criticisms of a paper published in JEB, the journal will consider publishing them in the form of a letter. The authors of the original paper(s) under discussion are given the final right to reply, and any such response may be published together with the correspondence.

Correspondence/Response articles should be a maximum of 1000 words, with no more than 10 references and one figure or table.

The journal reserves the right to edit items of correspondence/response and, where appropriate, to have them peer reviewed. As a courtesy, we usually share the contents of the response with the correspondence authors before publication, but it is intended that the correspondence authors focus on the original papers (and not on the response that results from their correspondence).

To submit a correspondence to the journal, please contact the Editorial Office with a brief description of the article.

Inside JEB highlights the key developments in JEB. Written by science journalists, the short reports give the inside view of the science published in the journal. Inside JEB articles are not peer reviewed.

Outside JEB is a monthly feature that reports the most exciting developments in experimental biology. These short articles are selected and written by a team of active research scientists. Outside JEB articles are not peer reviewed.

Centenary Articles are a series of commissioned Commentaries, Reviews and Perspective pieces to mark the Centenary of JEB in 2023. Their aim is to document the past, present and future of experimental biology and to highlight the discipline breadth and depth of JEB over the past 100 years.

Reviews are peer-reviewed, commissioned articles that can be up to 7000 words in length (with up to 8 display items). They recognise and concisely document the history of the discipline, field or subject matter, describing its beginnings and capturing its evolution and progress over the past 100 years through highlighting key advances and developments. See the above section on Reviews for further details.

Commentaries are peer-reviewed, commissioned articles that can be up to 4500 words in length (with up to 5 display items). Although they will have a historical aspect, their core content and focus is on the future of the field and subject matter. This may include detailing questions that remain unanswered, presenting a fresh viewpoint on existing problems, challenging current paradigms, introducing novel ideas and new hypotheses, and proposing how innovative approaches and methods will advance our understanding of comparative physiology and biomechanics, and experimental biology more broadly. See the above section on Commentaries for further details.

Perspectives  can be up to 2000 words (with up to 3 display items) and offer a contemporary viewpoint on a topic of widespread interest to the JEB community that is not discipline specific. They can include personal thoughts and beliefs that are based on facts. Topics of interest may include (but are not limited to) diversity and inclusion in science, challenges facing ECRs, sustainability, acknowledgement of First Nations People, science communication and outreach, and achieving and demonstrating research impact in comparative physiology and biomechanics. See the above section on Perspectives for further details.

Authors wishing to submit an unsolicited Centenary Article should first contact the Editorial Office .

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How to Create a Structured Research Paper Outline | Example

Published on August 7, 2022 by Courtney Gahan . Revised on August 15, 2023.

A research paper outline is a useful tool to aid in the writing process , providing a structure to follow with all information to be included in the paper clearly organized.

A quality outline can make writing your research paper more efficient by helping to:

• Organize your thoughts
• Understand the flow of information and how ideas are related
• Ensure nothing is forgotten

A research paper outline can also give your teacher an early idea of the final product.

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Table of contents

Research paper outline example, how to write a research paper outline, formatting your research paper outline, language in research paper outlines.

• Definition of measles
• Rise in cases in recent years in places the disease was previously eliminated or had very low rates of infection
• Figures: Number of cases per year on average, number in recent years. Relate to immunization
• Symptoms and timeframes of disease
• Risk of fatality, including statistics
• How measles is spread
• Immunization procedures in different regions
• Different regions, focusing on the arguments from those against immunization
• Immunization figures in affected regions
• High number of cases in non-immunizing regions
• Illnesses that can result from measles virus
• Fatal cases of other illnesses after patient contracted measles
• Summary of arguments of different groups
• Summary of figures and relationship with recent immunization debate
• Which side of the argument appears to be correct?

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Follow these steps to start your research paper outline:

• Decide on the subject of the paper
• Write down all the ideas you want to include or discuss
• Organize related ideas into sub-groups
• Arrange your ideas into a hierarchy: What should the reader learn first? What is most important? Which idea will help end your paper most effectively?
• Create headings and subheadings that are effective
• Format the outline in either alphanumeric, full-sentence or decimal format

There are three different kinds of research paper outline: alphanumeric, full-sentence and decimal outlines. The differences relate to formatting and style of writing.

• Alphanumeric
• Full-sentence

An alphanumeric outline is most commonly used. It uses Roman numerals, capitalized letters, arabic numerals, lowercase letters to organize the flow of information. Text is written with short notes rather than full sentences.

• Sub-point of sub-point 1

Essentially the same as the alphanumeric outline, but with the text written in full sentences rather than short points.

• Additional sub-point to conclude discussion of point of evidence introduced in point A

A decimal outline is similar in format to the alphanumeric outline, but with a different numbering system: 1, 1.1, 1.2, etc. Text is written as short notes rather than full sentences.

• 1.1.1 Sub-point of first point
• 1.1.2 Sub-point of first point
• 1.2 Second point

To write an effective research paper outline, it is important to pay attention to language. This is especially important if it is one you will show to your teacher or be assessed on.

There are four main considerations: parallelism, coordination, subordination and division.

Parallelism: Be consistent with grammatical form

Parallel structure or parallelism is the repetition of a particular grammatical form within a sentence, or in this case, between points and sub-points. This simply means that if the first point is a verb , the sub-point should also be a verb.

Example of parallelism:

• Include different regions, focusing on the different arguments from those against immunization

Coordination: Be aware of each point’s weight

Your chosen subheadings should hold the same significance as each other, as should all first sub-points, secondary sub-points, and so on.

Example of coordination:

• Include immunization figures in affected regions
• Illnesses that can result from the measles virus

Subordination: Work from general to specific

Subordination refers to the separation of general points from specific. Your main headings should be quite general, and each level of sub-point should become more specific.

Example of subordination:

Division: break information into sub-points.

Your headings should be divided into two or more subsections. There is no limit to how many subsections you can include under each heading, but keep in mind that the information will be structured into a paragraph during the writing stage, so you should not go overboard with the number of sub-points.

Ready to start writing or looking for guidance on a different step in the process? Read our step-by-step guide on how to write a research paper .

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Gahan, C. (2023, August 15). How to Create a Structured Research Paper Outline | Example. Scribbr. Retrieved April 8, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/research-paper/outline/

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6 Important Tips on Writing a Research Paper Title

When you are searching for a research study on a particular topic, you probably notice that articles with interesting, descriptive research titles draw you in. By contrast, research paper titles that are not descriptive are usually passed over, even though you may write a good research paper with interesting contents. This shows the importance of coming up with a good title for your research paper when drafting your own manuscript.

Importance of a Research Title

The research title plays a crucial role in the research process, and its importance can be summarized as follows:

Why do Research Titles Matter?

Before we look at how to title a research paper, let’s look at a research title example that illustrates why a good research paper should have a strong title.

Imagine that you are researching meditation and nursing, and you want to find out if any studies have shown that meditation makes nurses better communicators.  You conduct a keyword search using the keywords “nursing”, “communication”, and “meditation.” You come up with results that have the following titles:

• Benefits of Meditation for the Nursing Profession: A Quantitative Investigation
• Why Mindful Nurses Make the Best Communicators
• Meditation Gurus
• Nurses on the Move: A Quantitative Report on How Meditation Can Improve Nurse Performance

All four of these research paper titles may describe very similar studies—they could even be titles for the same study! As you can see, they give very different impressions.

• Title 1 describes the topic and the method of the study but is not particularly catchy.
• Title 2 partly describes the topic, but does not give any information about the method of the study—it could simply be a theoretical or opinion piece.
• Title 3 is somewhat catchier but gives almost no information at all about the article.
• Title 4 begins with a catchy main title and is followed by a subtitle that gives information about the content and method of the study.

As we will see, Title 4 has all the characteristics of a good research title.

Characteristics of a Good Research Title

According to rhetoric scholars Hairston and Keene, making a good title for a paper involves ensuring that the title of the research accomplishes four goals as mentioned below:

• It should predict the content of the research paper .
• It should be interesting to the reader .
• It should reflect the tone of the writing .
• It should contain important keywords that will make it easier to be located during a keyword search.

Let’s return to the examples in the previous section to see how to make a research title.

As you can see in the table above, only one of the four example titles fulfills all of the criteria of a suitable research paper title.

Related: You’ve chosen your study topic, but having trouble deciding where to publish it? Here’s a comprehensive course to help you identify the right journal .

Tips for Writing an Effective Research Paper Title

When writing a research title, you can use the four criteria listed above as a guide. Here are a few other tips you can use to make sure your title will be part of the recipe for an effective research paper :

• Make sure your research title describes (a) the topic, (b) the method, (c) the sample, and (d) the results of your study. You can use the following formula:

[ Result ]: A [ method ] study of [ topic ] among [ sample ] Example : Meditation makes nurses perform better: a qualitative study of mindfulness meditation among German nursing students

• Avoid unnecessary words and jargons. Keep the title statement as concise as possible. You want a title that will be comprehensible even to people who are not experts in your field. Check our article for a detailed list of things to avoid when writing an effective research title .
• Make sure your title is between 5 and 15 words in length.
• If you are writing a title for a university assignment or for a particular academic journal, verify that your title conforms to the standards and requirements for that outlet. For example, many journals require that titles fall under a character limit, including spaces. Many universities require that titles take a very specific form, limiting your creativity.
• Use a descriptive phrase to convey the purpose of your research efficiently.
• Most importantly, use critical keywords in the title to increase the discoverability of your article.

Resources for Further Reading

In addition to the tips above, there are many resources online that you can use to help write your research title. Here is a list of links that you may find useful as you work on creating an excellent research title:

• The University of Southern California has a guide specific to social science research papers: http://libguides.usc.edu/writingguide/title
• The Journal of European Psychology Students has a blog article focusing on APA-compliant research paper titles: http://blog.efpsa.org/2012/09/01/how-to-write-a-good-title-for-journal-articles/
• This article by Kristen Hamlin contains a step-by-step approach to writing titles: http://classroom.synonym.com/choose-title-research-paper-4332.html

Are there any tips or tricks you find useful in crafting research titles? Which tip did you find most useful in this article? Leave a comment to let us know!

• Hairston, M., & Keene, M. 2003. Successful writing . 5th ed. New York: Norton.
• University of Southern California. 2017. Organizing your social sciences research paper: choosing a title . [Online] Available at: http://libguides.usc.edu/writingguide/title

Thank you so much:) Have a nice day!

Thank you so much, it helped me.. God bless..

Thank you for the excellent article and tips for creating a research work, because I always forget about such an essential element as the keywords when forming topics. In particular, I have found a rapid help with the formation of informative and sound titles that also conforms to the standards and requirements.

I am doing a research work on sales girls or shop girls using qualititative method. Basicly I am from Pakistan and writing on the scenario of mycountry. I am really confused about my research title can you kindly give some suggestions and give me an approperaite tilte

Hi Zubair, Thank you for your question. However, the information you have provided is insufficient for drafting an appropriate title. Information on what exactly you intend to study would be needed in order to draft a meaningful title. Meanwhile, you can try drafting your own title after going through the following articles our website: https://www.enago.com/academy/top-10-tips-on-choosing-an-attractive-research-title/ , https://www.enago.com/academy/writing-a-good-research-title-things-to-avoid/ , https://www.enago.com/academy/write-irresistible-research-paper-title/ We would be happy to give you feedback and suggest changes if required. Did you get a chance to install our free Mobile App? https://www.enago.com/academy/mobile-app/ . Make sure you subscribe to our weekly newsletter https://www.enago.com/academy/subscribe-now/ .

thanks for helping me like this!!

Thank you for this. It helped me improve my research title. I just want to verify to you the title I have just made. “Ensuring the safety: A Quantitative Study of Radio Frequency Identification system among the selected students of ( school’s name ).

(I need your reply asap coz we will be doing the chap. 1 tomorrow. Thank u in advance. 🙂 )

I am actually doing a research paper title. I want to know more further in doing research title. Can you give me some tips on doing a research paper?

Hi Joan, Thank you for your question. We are glad to know that you found our resources useful. Your feedback is very valuable to us. You can try drafting your own title after going through the following articles on our website: https://www.enago.com/academy/top-10-tips-on-choosing-an-attractive-research-title/ , https://www.enago.com/academy/writing-a-good-research-title-things-to-avoid/ , https://www.enago.com/academy/write-irresistible-research-paper-title/

We would be happy to give you feedback and suggest changes if required. Did you get a chance to install our free Mobile App? https://www.enago.com/academy/mobile-app/ . Make sure you subscribe to our weekly newsletter https://www.enago.com/academy/subscribe-now/ .

That really helpful. Thanks alot

Thank you so much. It’s really help me.

Thanks for sharing this tips. Title matters a lot for any article because it contents Keywords of article. It should be eye-catchy. Your article is helpful to select title of any article.

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This blog is very informative for me. Thanks for sharing.

nice information that you have shared

i’m found in selecting my ma thesis title ,so i’m going to do my final research after the proposal approved. Your post help me find good title.

I need help. I need a research title for my study about early mobilization of the mechanically ventilated patients in the ICU. Any suggestions would be highly appreciated.

Thank you for posting your query on the website. When writing manuscripts, too many scholars neglect the research title. This phrase, along with the abstract, is what people will mostly see and read online. Title research of publications shows that the research paper title does matter a lot. Both bibliometrics and altmetrics tracking of citations are now, for better or worse, used to gauge a paper’s “success” for its author(s) and the journal publishing it. Interesting research topics coupled with good or clever yet accurate research titles can draw more attention to your work from peers and the public alike. You can check through the following search results for titles on similar topics: https://www.google.com/search?q=early+mobilization+of+the+mechanically+ventilated+patients+in+the+icu&rlz=1C1GCEU_enIN907IN907&oq=&aqs=chrome.0.69i59.4920093j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 .

We hope this would be helpful in drafting an attractive title for your research paper.

Please let us know in case of any other queries.

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In case the topic is new research before you’re writing. And then to stand out, you end up being different.and be inclined to highlight yourself.

There are many free directories, and more paid lists.

To be honest your article is informative. I search many site to know about writing but I didn’t get the information I needed. I saw your site and I read it. I got some new information from here. I think some of your tips can be applied to those too! Thank you so very much for such informative and useful content.

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The monthly regeneration of human endometrial tissue is maintained by the presence of human endometrial mesenchymal stromal/stem cells (eMSC), a cell population co-expressing the perivascular markers CD140b an...

Embryo development is impaired by sperm mitochondrial-derived ROS

Basal energetic metabolism in sperm, particularly oxidative phosphorylation, is known to condition not only their oocyte fertilising ability, but also the subsequent embryo development. While the molecular pat...

Fibroblasts inhibit osteogenesis by regulating nuclear-cytoplasmic shuttling of YAP in mesenchymal stem cells and secreting DKK1

Fibrous scars frequently form at the sites of bone nonunion when attempts to repair bone fractures have failed. However, the detailed mechanism by which fibroblasts, which are the main components of fibrous sc...

MSC-derived exosomes protect auditory hair cells from neomycin-induced damage via autophagy regulation

Sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) poses a major threat to both physical and mental health; however, there is still a lack of effective drugs to treat the disease. Recently, novel biological therapies, such as ...

Alpha-synuclein dynamics bridge Type-I Interferon response and SARS-CoV-2 replication in peripheral cells

Increasing evidence suggests a double-faceted role of alpha-synuclein (α-syn) following infection by a variety of viruses, including SARS-CoV-2. Although α-syn accumulation is known to contribute to cell toxic...

Lactadherin immunoblockade in small extracellular vesicles inhibits sEV-mediated increase of pro-metastatic capacities

Tumor-derived small extracellular vesicles (sEVs) can promote tumorigenic and metastatic capacities in less aggressive recipient cells mainly through the biomolecules in their cargo. However, despite recent ad...

Integration of ATAC-seq and RNA-seq identifies MX1-mediated AP-1 transcriptional regulation as a therapeutic target for Down syndrome

Growing evidence has suggested that Type I Interferon (I-IFN) plays a potential role in the pathogenesis of Down Syndrome (DS). This work investigates the underlying function of MX1, an effector gene of I-IFN,...

The novel roles of YULINK in the migration, proliferation and glycolysis of pulmonary arterial smooth muscle cells: implications for pulmonary arterial hypertension

Abnormal remodeling of the pulmonary vasculature, characterized by the proliferation and migration of pulmonary arterial smooth muscle cells (PASMCs) along with dysregulated glycolysis, is a pathognomonic feat...

Electroacupuncture promotes neurogenesis in the dentate gyrus and improves pattern separation in an early Alzheimer's disease mouse model

Impaired pattern separation occurs in the early stage of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and hippocampal dentate gyrus (DG) neurogenesis participates in pattern separation. Here, we investigated whether spatial memo...

Role of SYVN1 in the control of airway remodeling in asthma protection by promoting SIRT2 ubiquitination and degradation

Asthma is a heterogenous disease that characterized by airway remodeling. SYVN1 (Synoviolin 1) acts as an E3 ligase to mediate the suppression of endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress through ubiquitination and de...

Advances towards the use of gastrointestinal tumor patient-derived organoids as a therapeutic decision-making tool

In December 2022 the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) removed the requirement that drugs in development must undergo animal testing before clinical evaluation, a declaration that now demands the establish...

Melatonin alleviates pyroptosis by regulating the SIRT3/FOXO3α/ROS axis and interacting with apoptosis in Atherosclerosis progression

Atherosclerosis (AS), a significant contributor to cardiovascular disease (CVD), is steadily rising with the aging of the global population. Pyroptosis and apoptosis, both caspase-mediated cell death mechanism...

Prenatal ethanol exposure and changes in fetal neuroendocrine metabolic programming

Prenatal ethanol exposure (PEE) (mainly through maternal alcohol consumption) has become widespread. However, studies suggest that it can cause intrauterine growth retardation (IUGR) and multi-organ developmen...

Autologous non-invasively derived stem cells mitochondria transfer shows therapeutic advantages in human embryo quality rescue

The decline in the quantity and quality of mitochondria are closely associated with infertility, particularly in advanced maternal age. Transferring autologous mitochondria into the oocytes of infertile female...

Development of synthetic modulator enabling long-term propagation and neurogenesis of human embryonic stem cell-derived neural progenitor cells

Neural progenitor cells (NPCs) are essential for in vitro drug screening and cell-based therapies for brain-related disorders, necessitating well-defined and reproducible culture systems. Current strategies em...

Heat-responsive microRNAs participate in regulating the pollen fertility stability of CMS-D2 restorer line under high-temperature stress

Anther development and pollen fertility of cytoplasmic male sterility (CMS) conditioned by Gossypium harknessii cytoplasm (CMS-D2) restorer lines are susceptible to continuous high-temperature (HT) stress in sum...

Chemogenetic inhibition of NTS astrocytes normalizes cardiac autonomic control and ameliorate hypertension during chronic intermittent hypoxia

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is characterized by recurrent episodes of chronic intermittent hypoxia (CIH), which has been linked to the development of sympathoexcitation and hypertension. Furthermore, it has ...

SARS-CoV-2 spike protein S1 activates Cx43 hemichannels and disturbs intracellular Ca 2+ dynamics

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) causes the ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). An aspect of high uncertainty is whether the SARS-CoV-2 per se or the systemic inflammation ...

The effect of zofenopril on the cardiovascular system of spontaneously hypertensive rats treated with the ACE2 inhibitor MLN-4760

Angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) plays a crucial role in the infection cycle of SARS-CoV-2 responsible for formation of COVID-19 pandemic. In the cardiovascular system, the virus enters the cells by bind...

Two murine models of sepsis: immunopathological differences between the sexes—possible role of TGFβ1 in female resistance to endotoxemia

Endotoxic shock (ExSh) and cecal ligature and puncture (CLP) are models that induce sepsis. In this work, we investigated early immunologic and histopathologic changes induced by ExSh or CLP models in female a...

An intracellular, non-oxidative factor activates in vitro chromatin fragmentation in pig sperm

In vitro incubation of epididymal and vas deferens sperm with Mn 2+ induces Sperm Chromatin Fragmentation (SCF), a mechanism that causes double-stranded breaks in toroid-linker regions (TLRs). Whether this mechani...

Focal ischemic stroke modifies microglia-derived exosomal miRNAs: potential role of mir-212-5p in neuronal protection and functional recovery

Ischemic stroke is a severe type of stroke with high disability and mortality rates. In recent years, microglial exosome-derived miRNAs have been shown to be promising candidates for the treatment of ischemic ...

S -Nitrosylation in endothelial cells contributes to tumor cell adhesion and extravasation during breast cancer metastasis

Nitric oxide is produced by different nitric oxide synthases isoforms. NO activates two signaling pathways, one dependent on soluble guanylate cyclase and protein kinase G, and other where NO post-translationa...

Identifying pyroptosis- and inflammation-related genes in intracranial aneurysms based on bioinformatics analysis

Intracranial aneurysm (IA) is the most common cerebrovascular disease, and subarachnoid hemorrhage caused by its rupture can seriously impede nerve function. Pyroptosis is an inflammatory mode of cell death wh...

Drosophila Atlastin regulates synaptic vesicle mobilization independent of bone morphogenetic protein signaling

The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) contacts endosomes in all parts of a motor neuron, including the axon and presynaptic terminal, to move structural proteins, proteins that send signals, and lipids over long dist...

Mucin1 induced trophoblast dysfunction in gestational diabetes mellitus via Wnt/β-catenin pathway

To elucidate the role of Mucin1 (MUC1) in the trophoblast function (glucose uptake and apoptosis) of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) women through the Wnt/β-catenin pathway.

Human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells (hUC-MSCs) alleviate paclitaxel-induced spermatogenesis defects and maintain male fertility

Chemotherapeutic drugs can cause reproductive damage by affecting sperm quality and other aspects of male fertility. Stem cells are thought to alleviate the damage caused by chemotherapy drugs and to play role...

Exploring the Neandertal legacy of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma risk in Eurasians

The genomes of present-day non-Africans are composed of 1–3% of Neandertal-derived DNA as a consequence of admixture events between Neandertals and anatomically modern humans about 50–60 thousand years ago. Ne...

Identification and analysis of key hypoxia- and immune-related genes in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), an autosomal dominant genetic disease, is the main cause of sudden death in adolescents and athletes globally. Hypoxia and immune factors have been revealed to be related to ...

How do prolonged anchorage-free lifetimes strengthen non-small-cell lung cancer cells to evade anoikis? – A link with altered cellular metabolomics

Malignant cells adopt anoikis resistance to survive anchorage-free stresses and initiate cancer metastasis. It is still unknown how varying periods of anchorage loss contribute to anoikis resistance, cell migr...

Single nucleotide polymorphisms associated with wine fermentation and adaptation to nitrogen limitation in wild and domesticated yeast strains

For more than 20 years, Saccharomyces cerevisiae has served as a model organism for genetic studies and molecular biology, as well as a platform for biotechnology (e.g., wine production). One of the important eco...

Investigating the dark-side of the genome: a barrier to human disease variant discovery?

The human genome contains regions that cannot be adequately assembled or aligned using next generation short-read sequencing technologies. More than 2500 genes are known contain such ‘dark’ regions. In this st...

Hyperbaric oxygen treatment increases intestinal stem cell proliferation through the mTORC1/S6K1 signaling pathway in Mus musculus

Hyperbaric oxygen treatment (HBOT) has been reported to modulate the proliferation of neural and mesenchymal stem cell populations, but the molecular mechanisms underlying these effects are not completely unde...

Polar microalgae extracts protect human HaCaT keratinocytes from damaging stimuli and ameliorate psoriatic skin inflammation in mice

Polar microalgae contain unique compounds that enable them to adapt to extreme environments. As the skin barrier is our first line of defense against external threats, polar microalgae extracts may possess res...

Correction: Utility of melatonin in mitigating ionizing radiation‑induced testis injury through synergistic interdependence of its biological properties

The original article was published in Biological Research 2022 55 :33

Beyond energy provider: multifunction of lipid droplets in embryonic development

Since the discovery, lipid droplets (LDs) have been recognized to be sites of cellular energy reserves, providing energy when necessary to sustain cellular life activities. Many studies have reported large num...

Retraction Note: Tridax procumbens flavonoids: a prospective bioactive compound increased osteoblast differentiation and trabecular bone formation

Electroacupuncture protective effects after cerebral ischemia are mediated through mir-219a inhibition.

Electroacupuncture (EA) is a complementary and alternative therapy which has shown protective effects on vascular cognitive impairment (VCI). However, the underlying mechanisms are not entirely understood.

Topsoil and subsoil bacterial community assemblies across different drainage conditions in a mountain environment

High mountainous environments are of particular interest as they play an essential role for life and human societies, while being environments which are highly vulnerable to climate change and land use intensi...

Functional defects in hiPSCs-derived cardiomyocytes from patients with a PLEKHM2-mutation associated with dilated cardiomyopathy and left ventricular non-compaction

Dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) is a primary myocardial disease, leading to heart failure and excessive risk of sudden cardiac death with rather poorly understood pathophysiology. In 2015, Parvari's group ident...

Human VDAC pseudogenes: an emerging role for VDAC1P8 pseudogene in acute myeloid leukemia

Voltage-dependent anion selective channels (VDACs) are the most abundant mitochondrial outer membrane proteins, encoded in mammals by three genes, VDAC1 , 2 and 3 , mostly ubiquitously expressed. As 'mitochondrial ...

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97 Biology Essay Topics

🏆 best essay topics on biology, ✍️ biology essay topics for college, 👍 good biology research topics & essay examples, 📌 easy biology essay topics, 🎓 most interesting biology research titles.

• How Do People Use Biology in Their Everyday Life?
• Fiji Water Quality: Biology Lab Experiment
• Biology as the Branch of Science
• Crime Explanation Using Biology and Psychology
• Relations Between Biology and Culture
• Biology and Culture of Gender Color Stereotypes
• My Journey in Biology
• Biology: Aspects of Fruits The paper discusses fruits. A fruit is the fleshy and sweet part of a tree or any flowering plant that contains seeds. Some fruits are poisonous while some are edible.
• Designing Oligonucleotide Primers in Biology Molecular biology tools include polymerase chain reaction (PCR) which requires an mRNA template or a cDNA template, polymerase enzyme, and a primer.
• Homologous and Analogous Structures in Biology Homologous structures are found in organisms with a shared origin, while analogous structures have the same function but in organisms that do not share a common ancestor.
• Human Biology and Culture Connection The paper states that it is anthroposociogenesis that explains the dichotomy between biology and culture and the connection with human evolution.
• Environmental Biology: Green Energy a precise definition of green energy is manifested in its source, which must be natural, such as the sun or geothermal sources.
• The Egg White Denaturation as a Concept of Biology Denaturation is the process of breaking down the secondary and tertiary structures of a protein by external factors such as temperature.
• Role of Human Biology in Contemporary Criminal Justice Focus of analysis of the paper will be on theories developed to explain criminology with a special emphasis on Biological positivism theory
• Biology and Social Influence Genetics plays an indispensable role in facilitating inherent-acquired behaviors, while others claim the environment contributes to shaping an individual’s personality.
• Biology: The Definition of the Genotype The paper discusses the genotype. It is composed of a pair of alleles and it is what is manifested as the phenotype or observable characteristics of an organism.
• Marine Biology: Description and the Key Features Marine Biology is an open area of the coast line that is exposed to ocean currents and tides. This is a backwater area with occasional flooding of sea water.
• Transcription and Translation in Molecular Biology The Central Dogma describes the basic principles of genetic information transfer: transcription and translation. The paper distinguishes these two processes.
• Concepts of Biology: HIV and AIDS The primary purpose of the paper is to examine the symptoms and the effects that HIV and AIDS have on a human being.
• Cell Biology: Cell Sizes, Types, and Theories The Cell Theory propounds that all organisms are made of cells, the cell is the basic unit of life and all cells descend from older cells.
• Biology: Comparison and Contrast of Cats and Dogs It is important to discuss the eating habits of cats and dogs. In particular, one should mention that they are mammals, and they are fed with milk during childhood.
• Organismal Biology: Succession and Its Characteristics Succession is an ecological phenomenon during which a successive change of biological communities occurs in a particular territorial area over time.
• Atoms and Molecules as Concepts in Biology Atoms are the fundamental building block of chemical elements and the smallest unit into which matter can be divided.
• Molecular Biology and Its Central Dogma The central dogma of molecular biology is a principle describing the transfer of molecular information in the Nucleus of the DNA.
• Herbert Spencer – Scientists of Biology Herbert Spencer is one of the outstanding scientists belonging to the sphere of biology, sociology, and anthropology.
• An Aspect of Evolutionary Biology as Phylogenetic Analysis The paper explores an aspect of evolutionary biology as phylogenetic analysis. Phylogenetic analysis is a tool in the hands of biologists.
• Human Biology – Scientific Method In the study of biology, knowledge of proteins is very important as it enables a person to make informed decisions while choosing a balanced diet.
• Human Biology: Genes and Genes Mutations Mutations in certain regions of DNA can cause pathological metabolic abnormalities or hereditary features realized through dysfunctional disorders.
• Human Biology Review Essay of Our Body, Every Cells The collection of like cells that have an identical origin that carries out a definite function together is what I am.
• Is PCR the Most Important Invention in Molecular Biology to Date? This essay provides different reasons that have made the PCR technique a significant invention in molecular biology to date.
• Cancer Biology: Oncogenes and Tumor Suppressor Genes This paper seeks to interpret the role oncogenes and tumor suppressors play in transformation during cancer formation.
• Biology Food Chain The body coordination in an organism are carried out in the central nervous system that depends entirely on the neurons conducted from the receptor sites to the effectors’ sites in the body.
• Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Are Fundamental to the Life Sciences Some molecules are often recognized as building blocks for cell formation, implying that they are fundamental to the physiology of humans.
• “Genbank” Impact on Modern Molecular Biology Research GenBank is the fundamental element of Molecular biology. It is the sequence formed and stored in the database of the entire genome of life.
• Conservation Biology and Preservation of the Biodiversity The Theory of Island Biogeography is the most significant contribution toward the scientific understanding of both the process and how to measure the rate of species extinction.
• Biology Lab: Why Ice Floats Ice is usually considered to be a mineral that consists of hydrogen oxide; when ice is frozen at a constant pressure of 1 atmosphere, the resultant effect.
• Mirror-Image Biology to Enhanced Therapeutic Proteins The concepts described in “From Mirror-Image Biology to Enhanced Therapeutic Proteins” exemplify the potential of cell chemical biology generally and mirror-image forms.
• Biology: Application of the Holobiont in Humans When it comes to the formation of a unique environmental unit, a holobiont can link an individual host to a variety of interactive microorganisms and microbiota.
• Biology. Glial Cells and Their Subtypes Due to the distinctive features of some glial cells, they are divided into different subtypes, including ependymal cells, oligodendrocytes and astrocytes, and microglia cells.
• Biology and Happiness Relationship Human beings engage in numerous activities, establish appropriate relationships, and formulate decisions that can eventually make them happy.
• Psychobiology: Biology of Behavior This report researches to what extent psychological and physiological factors influence a person’s character, reactions, and behavior using findings of psychobiology.
• Biology Postgraduate Education and Its Advantages If you want to become a biologist in the future or just want to evaluate the pros of this occupation, this article may become more than useful for you.
• Biology: Mechanical Signals Regulating Development The paper will highlight several control effects of mechanical forces on various cell activities, including early embryonic development, tissue morphogenesis, and organ formation.
• Cultural Variations in Environment and Biology: AIDS The research studies the prevalence of AIDS among ethnic groups in the United States and suggests patient education interventions, which can be performed by nurses.
• Cancer Risk Factors: Biology Concepts The development of cancer cells is associated with the halting of the process of cell generation and decay that may be considered one of the basic aspects of the physical health.
• Substance Abuse: Environmental Influences and Biology Substance abuse is not a new problem the human society faces. This paper examines different ways biological and environment influences interact and affect drug taking behavior.
• Happiness in Biology, Culture, Experience It isn’t easy to understand what happiness is. However, it is still possible to identify some factors that are likely to affect the degree of happiness.
• Bringing Culture Into Human Biology and Biology Back Into Anthropology
• The Relationship Between Evolutionary Biology and Religion
• Cell Biology of Stem Cells: An Enigma of Asymmetry and Self-Renewal
• An Intricate Relationship Between Biology and Art
• Computing Has Changed Biology: How Biology Education Can Catch Up
• Common Ground Between Anthropology and Conservation Biology
• The Evolution of Molecular Biology Into Systems Biology
• Scientific and Public Functions of Models in the 19th-Century Biology
• Biology and Ethics: The Paradoxes of the Natural
• Use, Overuse, and Misuse of Significance Tests in Evolutionary Biology
• The Autonomy of Biology: The Position of Biology Among the Sciences
• Joseph Gottlieb Kolreuter’s Contributions to Biology
• Chemical Bridge Between Ecosystem Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
• The Ethics of Biological Studies With Living Organisms
• Biological Function and Teleology: Implications for Biology Education
• Adaptationism and the Challenge From Developmental Biology
• Quality Assured Science: Managerialism in Forensic Biology
• Essence and Natural Kinds in Aristotle’s Biology: Was It Sexist?
• The Biological Weapons Convention: Securing Biology in the 21st Century
• Molecular Biology Techniques Used in Wastewater Treatment
• The Biology of Stupidity: Genetics, Eugenics, and Mental Deficiency
• Existentialism and Feminism: The Rhetoric of Biology in the Second Sex
• Kant, Blumenbach, and Vital Materialism in German Biology
• How the Mind Grows: A Developmental Perspective on the Biology of Cognition
• Biology and Society in the Age of Enlightenment
• Negotiating the Place of Molecular Evolution Within Evolutionary Biology
• Global Change: Increasing the Success of Biological Invaders?
• On the Relations Between History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences and Biology
• Civic Biology: The Origin of the School Anti-Evolution Movement
• Reductionism in Biology: Prospects and Problems
• Factors Shaping Ernst Mayr’s Concepts in the History of Biology
• Building Simulations: Modeling and Theory in Systems Biology
• The Role of Information Technology in Biology Education
• What Difference Does Quantity Make: On the Epistemology of Big Data in Biology
• Causality, Teleology, and Thought Experiments in Biology
• Applying the Principles of Stem-Cell Biology to Cancer
• The Moral Impact of Synthesizing Living Organisms: Biocentric Views on Synthetic Biology
• Applying Evolutionary Biology to Address Global Challenges
• Water as an Active Constituent in Cell Biology
• The Importance of Feminist Critique for Contemporary Cell Biology
• Marine Molecular Biology as an Emerging Field of Biological Sciences
• Trends, Priorities, and Needs in Systematic and Evolutionary Biology
• Development of Biology in Aristotle and Theophrastus: Theory of Spontaneous Generation
• Why Values Are a Good Thing in Conservation Biology
• Biology and Equality: A Perspective on Sex Differences
• Recent Advances of Deep Learning in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology
• Bioimage Informatics: A New Area of Engineering Biology
• Reflecting on the History of Biology as a Field
• Molecular Biology vs. Organicism: An Enduring Dispute Between Mechanism and Vitalism
• The Role of Reductionism in the Development of Molecular Biology

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StudyCorgi . "97 Biology Essay Topics." May 7, 2023. https://studycorgi.com/ideas/biology-essay-topics/.

StudyCorgi . 2023. "97 Biology Essay Topics." May 7, 2023. https://studycorgi.com/ideas/biology-essay-topics/.

These essay examples and topics on Biology were carefully selected by the StudyCorgi editorial team. They meet our highest standards in terms of grammar, punctuation, style, and fact accuracy. Please ensure you properly reference the materials if you’re using them to write your assignment.

This essay topic collection was updated on December 27, 2023 .