IEEE Writing and Citation Style

Welcome to this IEEE author education course, which will provide some best practices for writing your article's title and abstract. A well written title and abstract could help your article be more visible and attractive to readers.

By the end of this course, you'll learn a variety of tips on how to craft your article title. You'll also be prepared with points to keep in mind when writing your article and selecting keywords. Finally, you will learn how to make strategies for search engine optimization or SEO work for you.

Your article's title is critically important since it's the first impression that a potential reader sees of your work. If the title is not interesting, the reader will not continue on to read the rest of the article. The title is your best chance to catch your reader's attention and inform them of your findings. To start off, we will look at some good practices to follow when writing your article title. The first rule of writing a good article title is to be concise, generally within 10 to 15 substantive words.

Many readers will not take the time to read and understand an overly complex title with lots of phrases or punctuation. Rather than communicating all of the nuances of your work in the title, you want to focus on communicating a key takeaway message regarding the subject and scope of your work. This will interest the reader and enticed them to read the full article for the finer details of your work. A good way to free up space in your title is to avoid words like new or novel since the reader already knows your research must be novel in order to qualify for publication. Replace new or novel with more descriptive words that better communicate your key message to the reader.

Also, keep in mind that your title needs to be very specific. An ambiguous or overly general title causes potential readers to lose interest because they would need to invest time and effort in determining exactly what you meant. Make your article more attractive to readers by being as clear and specific as possible.

Another way to offer clarity to your reader is to avoid unfamiliar jargon, buzz words or abbreviations in favor of simple, clear descriptions or well-established terms in your field. Again, readers are unlikely to invest time if they don't understand the title, so using familiar terms and descriptions is key. Finally, try to write your title as a declarative statement rather than a question. Questions can introduce ambiguity into your title, which as we discussed, may discourage potential readers from reading your article. In fact, rather than raising questions, your title should be a spoiler for your article's conclusion.

Writing a good article title is not easy and you may need to edit it and rewrite your title several times before article publication. We recommend that you create a working title for your article early on. This will help you refocus on your key message if you see yourself drifting off topic while you're writing the article. The working title is just for your benefit, so you don't need to spend too much time crafting it, especially since it will probably evolve during the writing process.

Once you finish writing your article, it's time to get your work ready for peer review, and that includes your title. Revise your working title to ensure that it abides by good practices mentioned earlier, including being concise, specific and clear. Delete any unnecessary words, define abbreviations and ensure that the title is communicating your key message while the body of the article supports and expands on that message.

Most articles are revised at least once during peer review. Whenever you revise the article, make sure that you also revisit your title and adjust it as necessary so that the title continues to communicate your key message. By the time your article is accepted for publication, your title should be a finely honed description of your work.

In addition to your articles title, your abstract and keywords are also very important for making your article more discoverable and interesting to readers. An abstract is a brief summary of your work that highlights what is novel in your work and attracts a reader to read the entire article. The content of your abstract should follow this order. The purpose of the study, the design of the study, your major findings, and any potential implications.

Regarding how the abstract is written, it must be 250 words or less and be self-contained, which means that the abstract should be able to stand alone and should not have any unfamiliar terms, abbreviations, footnotes, references or equations. It should also consist of complete sentences and correct grammar in order to best communicate with the reader. Finally, just like your title, the words used in your abstract should be clear, concise, and unambiguous.

When you are writing your abstract, your primary objective is to ensure that the abstract covers all the important points of your article. For that reason, most authors write the abstract after they finish writing the article itself to ensure that the abstract is comprehensive. An easy way to get started writing your abstract is to go through your article and select important phrases and sentences from the different sections of the article.

Put those phrases in sequence. Add any connecting words and phrases necessary to make it a cohesive unit and edit the abstract down to 250 words by removing unnecessary words and phrases. When you're done, reread what you've written to be sure it makes sense and it covers all the key points in the article. Finally, just like your article title, you will need to revisit your abstract whenever you revise the body of the article to ensure that the abstract is still communicating all necessary points.

IEEE publications allow for the inclusion of an online graphical abstract in addition to the usual text abstract. A graphical abstract is a visual summary of your article, and it's a great way to enhance your content. The graphical abstract can be an image, a video file, an audio file or even a PowerPoint file, and it should be accompanied by a caption. If you choose to create a graphical abstract for your article, submit it along with the article itself for consideration during peer review.

For more information on including a graphical abstract in your article, please visit the IEEE Author Center at ieeeauthorcenter.ieee.org.

Including 3 to 5 keywords with your article will inform both readers and search engines about your topic and make your article more discoverable. When selecting your keywords, keep in mind the key message that you're communicating in your article title and choose keywords that relate to that message.

However, avoid overlapping keywords that are synonymous with each other in favor of unique terms that each communicate something specific to the reader. If you need help on where to begin, the IEEE thesarus and taxonomy are useful documents that are available in the IEEE Author Center.

In the last section of this presentation, we will discuss techniques for search engine optimization or SEO. An article that's optimized for search engines will appear higher in search results when a potential reader enters a search term relevant to that article's topic. By being aware of SEO and employing a few simple techniques, you can make your article more discoverable and attract more readers. First, let's take a look at how SEO works. Search engines scan your article to determine its topic. Areas that are scanned include the title, abstract, keywords, and a description of images or videos.

Over the next few slides, we'll take a look at how to optimize these areas to improve your article's search ranking. In order to make SEO work for you, you will need to select the best keywords and phrases to describe your work. In order to do this, put yourself in the shoes of your future reader and think about the search terms that the reader would use to find articles on your topic. Once you have a list of 3 to 5 terms, test them out by doing a keyword search in a scientific search engine to see if you receive the results you are expecting. If you receive radically different results, such as from a different scientific field entirely, you may want to revise your list of keywords, then try again. Make sure that you're including both broad and narrow terminology to provide maximum information.

Once you have your list of search terms, seed them throughout your title and abstract, so readers searching on those terms is more likely to find your article. You will also want to include the search terms throughout the article itself, especially in section headings, which search engines use to define the structure of the article. However, avoid keyword stuffing, which is excessive repetition of keywords and phrases.

Be sure that you're using your terms correctly and in an appropriate context. The title and the abstract shown here are good examples of search engine optimization. The author has included the broad phrase deep learning, but also uses narrower phrases such as data driven models or artificial neural networks. Both the search engine and the human reader would be able to tell at a glance what this article is about.

There are a few more techniques you can use to improve your articles SEO. First, ensure that the captions for your figures, tables, and videos are complete and can be understood independently from the article itself. Second, ensure search terms are spelled correctly and used consistantly. If a term has a spelling or abbreviation varient, choose one and use that form consistently throughout. Finally, link to your article once it's published from your institutional site, your social media sites, or anywhere else you can showcase your work. Search engines, such as Google, value content more highly if it has more inbound links.

In conclusion, remember that your title, abstract, and keywords should be specific, concise, and descriptive. They should feature keywords and phrases to help readers find your work. You should refine these elements over time as your article is revised.

We hope that you found this IEEE author education course both interesting and informative. We encourage you to share it with your colleagues to help promote best practices for writing your title and abstract. You can visit the IEEE Author Center for additional information on this subject or contact the IEEE Author Engagement Team at authors@ieee.org talk with any questions. Thank you.