Editorial pubs.acs.org/OPRD
What’s in a Title (and an Abstract)?
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Otherwise they may not be easily discovered in a literature search. Finally, discoverability can be enhanced by the use of appropriate key words. In the future I will be more vigilant in suggesting alternative titles or modifications to abstracts of papers to ensure not only that the title reflects the important aspects of the content but also that the title/abstract is concise as well as being discoverable. Hopefully this will lead to even more chemists and engineers, who may only be occasional readers, discovering the delights of OPR&D.
he way authors entitle papers is a subject which has increasingly concerned me over the years. Recently we have received several papers in succession with titles such as “Scale-Up of the Synthesis of an XYZ Antagonist”. Just that! No additional, more detailed phrasing which would tell the reader what to expect in the article, particularly if he/she did not know what an XYZ antagonist was. For those of you who, like me, have never worked in medicinal chemistry and do not follow the medicinal chemistry literature, the title is less than helpful. I am sure it is not relevant to the process chemistry discussed in the paper whether the compound is an abc antagonist or an XYZ antagonist. In fact the word XYZ antagonist rarely appears in the paper outside the title and the opening introductory paragraph. Organic Process Research & Development (OPR&D) is a multidisciplinary journal and not just for the pharmaceutical industry. Thus, I would like to encourage authors to use more reader-friendly titles, titles that are particularly meaningful to chemical engineers or to readers from other industries. All these manuscripts that I refer to were very good, sometimes excellent, papers describing a great deal of synthetic process chemistry as well as scale-up studies. Sometimes additional data of relevance to process chemists regarding purification and crystallisation steps were presented. Some of them describe novel catalysis; others, interesting heterocyclic chemistry; while many had useful optimisation strategies; however, none of this is mentioned in any of the titles. An example of a short but informative title would be “Scale-Up of a Novel Synthesis of a Triazolopyrimidine Derivative Involving a Catalytic Aromatic C−N Bond Formation”. Other aspects of the manuscript title can also unintentionally mislead. Use of words such as efficient, cost-effective, green, or environmentally friendly should not be used in the title unless there is clear evidence presented in the paper, preferably with some numerical measure, to demonstrate the efficiency or greeness. Even when words such as improved synthesis are used, they should compare the synthesis to the latest published or patented work, and not to a medicinal chemistry synthesis of 20 years ago which has long ago been superseded by a new development or manufacturing process on kilogram or tonne scale. Similarly, in the abstract of the paper, the correct, concise wording is needed to enhance the discoverability (by search engines such as Google, SciFinder, etc.) from databases which may have used the abstract verbatim. The abstract should, as far as possible, be self-sufficient and without the reader’s needing to refer to the main article to get a true understanding of the contents of the paper. Vague statements such as “A new synthesis of an XYZ antagonist is described” do not tell the reader what the key points are in the paper. Papers in OPR&D are particularly rich in additional information which might be best described as “tricks of the trade” for work-up and product isolation, impurity control and identification, polymorph and solvate screening, novel equipment, etc.; these need to be mentioned in the abstract if relevant to the chemistry described. © 2012 American Chemical Society
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Trevor Laird, Editor AUTHOR INFORMATION
Notes
Views expressed in this editorial are those of the author and not necessarily the views of the ACS.
Published: December 28, 2012 1
dx.doi.org/10.1021/op300357u | Org. Process Res. Dev. 2013, 17, 1−1
