Background: The title of a scientific article is important for several reasons. Does the title of a manuscript submitted for publication in a medical journal reflect the quality of the manuscript itself?
Material and method: We prepared criteria for poor, fair and good titles and tested them in pilot studies. All manuscripts submitted to the Journal of the Norwegian Medical Association during the period 1 September 2009-31 August 2011 as original articles (n = 211) or review articles (n = 110) were recorded. The quality of the titles was scored by two former editors. Primary outcome measures were rejection rates and odds ratio for rejection of manuscripts with a poor title compared to those with a good title.
Results: For original articles, the rejection rate for manuscripts with a poor, fair or good title amounted to 88%, 73% and 61% (p = 0.002) respectively, and for review articles 83%, 56% and 38% (p < 0.001). The odds ratio for rejection of manuscripts with a poor title compared to those with a good title was 4.6 (95% CI: 1.7-12.3) for original articles and 8.2 (95% CI: 2.6-26.4) for review articles. In a logistic regression model, the quality of the title explained 14% and 27% of the variance in outcome for original articles and review articles respectively.
Interpretation: In this study, a poor manuscript title was significantly associated with manuscript rejection. This indicates that the quality of the title often reflects the quality of the manuscript itself.