学术论文英文标题的结构和常见错误

Contents
Abstract (i)
摘要................................................................................................................................................. i i I. Introduction . (1)
A. Research Background (1)
B. Significance and Objectives of the Research (3)
C. Organization of the Thesis (4)
II. Literature Review (5)
A. The Notion of English Titles (5)
B. General Functions of English Titles (5)
1. Summarizing the Text (6)
2. Attracting the Reader (6)
3. Facilitating the Retrieval (7)
C. Linguistic Features of English Titles (8)
1. Language Formality (8)
2. Special Words Choice (9)
3. Incomplete Sentence (9)
III. Writing Requirements and Standards of English Academic Titles (10)
A. Requirements of English Title (10)
1. Be Brief and Concise (10)
2. Be Specific (11)
3. Avoid Question Title (12)
4. Being Standard (13)
B. Standards of Academic Paper`s English Titles (14)
IV. Analysis of Structural Sorts and Main Errors of English Titles (15)
A.Research design (15)
B. Data Collection (16)
C. Data Analysis of Structural Sorts in English Title Writing (16)
D. Description of Structural Sorts in English Title Writing (21)
1. Noun Phrase Structure (21)
2. Non-finite verb structure (25)
3. Prepositional phrase (26)
4. Sentence structure (26)
5. Theme and subtitle structure (26)
E. Main types of errors in samples (27)
V. Issues Needing Attention in English Title Writing (29)
A. Vocabulary and Sentential Form (29)
1. Vocabulary (29)
2. Sentential Form (31)
B. Tense and Voice (31)
C. Using Omission and Abbreviations (32)
VI. Conclusion (35)
A. Major Findings in the Research (35)
B. Limitations of the Research (36)
C. Suggestions for Further Research (36)
References (37)
Acknowledgements (39)
Abstract
Based on the requirements and standards of academic English title writing, the thesis analyzed the structural sorts and main errors of English title. By random sampling, totally 100 pieces of paper written by graduate students were selected in base of NCEPU from electric, power engineering, business administration, and computer science and technology, etc. Taking their English titles as the data, the author carried out quantitative analysis of structural sorts and main errors, recorded the frequency and rate of each sorts and errors. It proved that the English learners are trend to use noun phrase structural, and the next is non- finite verb structural. And in main errors, the English learners always add redundancy words ; the other is that the title is too long to make the readers understand the paper well ; another error is choosing the wrong structure. Finally, the thesis put forward some practical implications, that is, noun phrase structure should be chosen to make the title concise ; the length of title should be less than twenty words ; the simple present tense and passive voice should be used; and the proper abbreviations can be chosen.
Key Words: English academic title structural sorts main errors issues needing attention
摘要
本文以学术论文英文标题的写作要求和标准为基础，分析了学术论文英文标题的结构和常见错误。

在此基础上，作者从华北电力大学硕士生论文库随机抽取了电气、动力、工商管理、计算机技术和科学、环境工程等专业硕士研究生毕业论文标题共一百例，对其英文标题的结构及常见错误进行了定量分析，统计了各结构的使用率，并分析了其中出现的错误及错误的比率。

据统计结构表明，在英文标题写作中，本校学习者倾向于使用名词短语结构，其次是非谓语动词结构。

在常见错误中，本校学习者经常会在标题前面加上冗余词组；其次是英文标题过长，不方便读者阅读和理解；而在结构的选择，学术论文中应尽量避免出现句子结构和介词短语结构。

最后，本文针对毕业论文英文标题的写作提出：尽量使标题简洁明了，多选取名词短语结构；控制论文英文标题的长度，使其保持在20词之内；注意使用一般现在时和被动语态；选取缩略词要符合国际标准化组织要求。

关键词：学术英语标题结构常见错误注意事项
Chapter One Introduction
A. Research Background
Over the past several decades, with the internet making great progress, a large quantity of information include articles has been produced to show the human-beings achievements and success. However, an universal inevitable problem the people face is that the time available is not sufficient for them to read through all those papers to find out whether they could meet their needs. Therefore, a number of written forms known as abridged edition come into being in history. Title, being one of them was bought up to existence to appear as a most useful means to solve this problem. Several scholars have made this point clear that title is a very essential part of a academic paper. Later it is believed to be a useful tool to deal with the ever increasing information flow in the circle of science. Accounting to the survey of the American advertisement specialists, the number of people who read the paper`s title is more than five times of the people who read the whole paper. Therefore to make the academic title play "rather critical" role has become really important.
The research of theme/ topic began from the mid-19th century, and this concept originated from the research of logic described by the ancient Greek scholar. Representatives in the early theme- researching are Mathesius(1882 - 1945) and Danes(1974) , founders of Prague School which appeared in half of the 20th century. Mathesius described the difference between the clause`s starting point and the theme in the research of Functional Sentence Perspective. He believed that a sentence`s starting point is discourse from the theme, which can coincidence with subject of the sentence, or just part of it.
In most previous studies on titles, “genre analysis” has been emphasized with attention being given to words, syntax, and other linguistic features. Several researchers, for instance, Graetz (1985) have theoretically investigated the structure of research article titles. Dick (Dick, 1977, 1981) noted that title has the sequence characteristics. He believes that the theme is organizing the whole information of the segments. Most researchers at home have mainly focused on the linguistic features in titles, such as, in Tian `s(田俊英，2008) study, medical English titles has been carried out with the focus on the common structure and English translation. Bai (拜小剡，2010) has conducted an investigation of the discourse analysis of Chinese pharmaceutical paper`s English title. In Li`s (李绍宠，2000) research, the tense and the rhetoric are the main concern. Su (苏四清，2002) put her attention on the styles of literature of academic paper titles.
Due to the importance of titles, many foreign researchers have carried out relative study concerning its significance, evaluation, rhetorical structure, and other aspects. For example, Day (1995:29-32) has discussed the way to write and publish a scientific paper, and Goutsos (1997) elaborates the mode of the discourse`s title systematically from linear and hierarchical aspects.
While in China, Liu( 刘前进，2003) has studied the functions and features of English titles; Zong(宗兰英，2009) has studied the translation of academic papers from Chinese to English; He (何岚兰，2009) has given a contrastive study of English titles written in English and Chinese.
Apart from that, much work has been done by researchers from home and abroad on academic journal titles from different angles. One is prescriptive study of academic journal titles, that is, putting forward the requirements from the angle of academic criterion. Wu Jinming, Zhu Yaoshun(2008) played a major role in this field. Another is from linguistic angle, taking titles as
a kind of descriptive study. Here, Li Guirong (2004) has described the tense, voice, and other specific language features on microcosmic level. And also Ling Min (2000) has proved into the macroscopically stylistic structure of academic titles.
Although more and more scholars began to aware of the importance of investigating the title, and carried out great numbers of experiments on titles from many different aspects, and their works also prove useful in the practice of writing titles, they have limitations on the scope of the study. What is more, the researches of the structural sorts and main errors of academic paper`s English title are seldom mentioned. The present study will focus on the analysis of structural sorts of academic English titles, which is also becoming reasonable and practical.
B. Significance and Objectives of the Research
According to the standards and requirements of academic paper`s title writing, the present study will examine 100 pieces of English titles written by Chinese non-English major graduate students.
The special objectives of this thesis are as follows:
The reason why this paper focuses on the structural sorts in title writing is that titles play an important role in academic papers. It is the summary of the content of the whole paper, and can serve as a useful means to help the reader immediately find out the key information and capture the main idea of the paper. What`s more, a very intelligent academic paper is important, making a good title is even more important.
More significantly, this investigation is suggestive and helpful for writing a good piece of title. By classifying the main sorts of the English title and pointing out the issues needing attention, it is especially useful for Chinese learners of English to notice their own problems in title writing, choose appropriate sots and decided which sort of title can be used correctly.
C. Organization of the Thesis
This thesis is composed of six chapters. Chapter one serves as an introduction to this study. Chapter two is the part of literature review. It looks back on previous studies of title writing. Chapter three expresses the requirements and standards of English titles. Chapter four gives a detailed discussion of the structural sorts and main errors of English titles. In chapter five, some issues needing attentions in English titles are present, which can help the readers to avoid making mistakes in further study. Finally, a conclusion is drawn in the sixth chapter, major findings, and limitations of this study are stated. Moreover, some suggestions for further study are proposed.
Chapter two Literature Review
A. The Notion of English Titles
Though researchers have made quite different definitions of title, they all agree to several basic ideas. Titles are the eyes of articles. If we want to write effective and impressive academic articles, we have to be good at writing impressive titles. A good title should be short and specific to the document's content so that it can be used as a title for a user's bookmark, a title for the display window, and a link from a search engine. A good title may have a role of “adding the finishing touch” to the whole paper. Titles are the first part of the w hole paper which is read by readers. Thus to every author, it is necessary to spend his efforts to work out an excellent title. In addition, the proper expression of authors’ affiliation is also very important and a suggested limitation for the number of words in a title is 15 to 20.
B. General Functions of English Titles
With the advent of title databases, many readers will see the title separately from the rest of the paper. Therefore, writing an excellent title is vital to encourage them to obtain the full paper, read it, and cite it. The writer needs to get the attention of the readers with the title making them interested in his work, for the title is the first impression of your paper. A well-written title will surely bring a good mark to your paper in the reader`s mind, better chances to be quoted by other colleagues. If we regard a paper as a store, then the title is its door. If the storekeeper wants to make the people enter the store for shopping, he should have a beautiful door to attract the people. Similarly, if the writer wants to make the person this article, he should choose a good title. Obviously, the relationship between a title and a paper is as well as a name and a person.
However, the analogy between these two pairs dose not reveal the function of a title entirely, because though a name , people cannot know the characters of the person who own this name. Yet from a simple door, it is difficult to say clearly weather the store is good or bad. But from a title, people can know the general content of the text. A title can be vividly described as the “Abstract of an Abstract." Title is the topic or subject of one paper, which can represent the thesis`s special content through proper, concise and logical words.
The title is the summary and showcase of one paper. Therefore, the quality of paper`s title directly affect the rates of the retrieval and frequency of citation. A good title is not only arose the readers` interesting but also increase the retrieval`s rate.
1. Summarizing the Text
A title should summarize the central idea of the paper concisely and correctly. It must be consistent with the contents of the document, and be highly representative of the central idea of the paper. By scanning the title, the reader will immediately capture the important information. Therefore, the title should be too different and impressed to be missed by the readers when they want to find some information in the given field.
For example, Silence is Killing You Company-----《沉默正在毁掉你的公司》。

From this title，the reader can know that the writer want to express that a good and active work environment is very important for a company.
A title should use the most succinct and definite words to condense and summarize the whole paper. So it must have a strong general function. In a word, capitalize all the words in a title - except all the articles, coordinate conjunctions, and prepositions, regardless of length.
2. Attracting the Reader
There is so much information which as vast as the open sea in this internet world, and each one does not have sufficient time to read all of these messages. “How do I go for more readers” is every writer`s question. Thus an interesting title is necessary. When writing your title, think of your audience. The title should be easy for them to understand, as well as appeal to them. For example: If you are writing for teens, your title should appeal to that age group; and if you are writing for adults, your title should be attractive enough for them to want to read on. It may draw particular attention among readers, for only when readers are interested in the title will they decide to read the whole paper. On the contrary, a less attractive title will cause the loss of a large number of readers of the paper. Ideally the title should be such that, by reading it, any professional reader can see whether the paper is worth reading at all.
In the social sciences titles, writers can use the rhetoric methods on semantics, structure and meaning to make it more beautiful. Through the semantics rhetoric such as metaphor, allusion, hyperbole, metonymy, irony and contrast, and the structure rhetoric like parallelism and antithesis, the artistic effect can be seen. For example, a title, A Tale of Two Hearts---《两颗心的故事》，telling the story of that one person exchange one artificial heart, is coming Charles Dickens`s famous work, A Tale of Two Cities---《双城记》. When the readers scan the information, they may be attracted by this title, and read the whole paper. The title is the most important aspect of writing. A good title is what decides whether your work will be read or passed by. Make it powerful enough to attract readers, yet simple and clear enough to appeal to them.
3. Facilitating the Retrieval
With the development of the internet, the quantity of the information is increased by a light
speed. Therefore, the people should find out a useful way to inquire about the information which they need, and the title is proved to be up to the mustard of the retrieval demand. A good title can help the readers find the useful information in shortest time. During the process of the paper retrieval the title is always the first piece of information the reader acquires. So a title serves as an important index of information retrieval to meet the needs of extensive paper communication and information dissemination. For example, if we want to find some message about “The Functions of Titles”, we can taping this title in the search engine, then there are a great number of papers about this title appeared in which we can chase down the information matched our demand.
C. Linguistic Features of English Titles
As the eye, title, concise, vivid and free, has played an important role in report. English titles have been uniquely endowed with connotation and expression, representing certain aesthetic and informative functions, which can enlighten the papers. Starting from the comprehensive study of the characteristics of English paper titles in terms of language, rhetoric and cultural connotation, the article attempts to explore and summarize features of English titles.
An English title, as a kind of genre, has its own unique linguistic features, such as, language formality, special words choice, and the incomplete sentence, etc.
1. Language Formality
The English titles of the thesis generally have strong academic technicality. Therefore, their language tends to use formal style. From the perspective of the vocabulary, the form language style could be embodied from two aspects. Firstly, the vocabulary is mostly derived from Latin or Greek languages, for those words have the characteristics of serious, strict and standard,
which are more formal than general English. Secondly, the words or phrase used in a title are often nouns, noun phrases, or gerunds, nominalization, which usually are keywords for the paper, having the ability to sum up the whole text. For example, we may easily find such titles as Database Logic, Growth Mechanism and Treatment for Defect Removal, Writing and Publishing Professional Papers, etc.
2. Special Words Choice
Except the formality characteristic, there are some special words choices. The title`s concise made it is necessary to use some midget words to replace the difficult ones. Therefore the verbs, nouns and noun phrases with short glyphs, few syllables have been chosen usually, which made the titles have the vivid impression and attractiveness. In titles, “aid”always replaces “assistance”; and “ban”is often used to substitute for “prohibit”and “forbid”; and “end”takes place of “terminate”. And the writer always choose“data transmission systems (数据传输系统)”and “hall form design methodology (壳体式设计方法)”, but do not choose “systems for transmission of data”and “the methodology for designing the form of hall”. It is because the former is concise and simple.
3. Incomplete Sentence
A title is just a label or appellation of the paper, reflecting the main idea of the content, thus even when there is a need to give a title in the form of a sentence, it does not need to be a complete sentence. And there is usually using Non-finite Verbs. For example,
Several Procedures to Solve Uneconomic Operating Transformers,《几个步骤解决非经济运行变压器》；Measures to Remove Dust,《除尘措施》
Chapter Three Writing Requirements and Standards of English
Academic Titles
The title is the concentration and epitomizer of paper`s basic thought and content. A good title can summarize the whole paper exactly and briefly, which can help the readers judge the general idea of the paper quickly before they read the abstract and content, and then they can decide whether read or not. But how to write a paper`s title which is not only match the international standard but also summarize the basic thought of the paper? There are some important requirements and standards for English title writing.
A. Requirements of English Title
1. Be Brief and Concise
The title of the paper should be concise and succinct. Generally, a title is composed of no more than twenty words. It is advisable to avoid such a title of more than twenty words as the One in the Journal of North China Electric Power University: Design of Index System and Study of Method about Comprehensive Evaluation of Province-Level Power Grid Enterprise Informatization《省网企业信息化综合评价指标体系构建与方法研究》（May 30,2007）Generally speaking, the main reason of a long title is because the title contains too much redundancy knobby words except academic information. For example, in an overseas` journal, a Chinese scholar write a title like this:”Discussion on Several Academic Problems in the Book The Modern History of Chinese Paper Money《<中国近代纸币史>中几个学术问题的探讨》. And the word of “discussion on, the book, academic” is ineffective words. Because academic journals published papers may not discuss non-academic questions, thus the word “academic” is useless. And in English title, the words like “study on，studies on，study of，discussion on，
research on，observation on，investigation on（of），some thoughts on，a final report on” only increase the length of title but don`t supply the new information for readers, thus they have not been used. The title can be changed into Several Questions in Modern History of Chinese Banknotes.
If a title is too long, it would be difficult for readers to catch the meaning of the content and remember it. If the writer fails to state his idea clearly in a few words, he can use a subtitle, for example, 《电力系统A VR 和PSS 的有效作用——频率反应分析》,The Effective Role Of AVR And PSS In Power Systems : Analysis of Response`s Frequency. To be brief and concise, professional papers seldom use such decorative locutions as “A Preliminary Study on⋯, A Free Talk About⋯, My Own Opinions on⋯, on the…, regarding…, investigation on…, the method of…, something thoughts on…, a research of…, which lead to redundancy. For example,《变电站35KV系统小电阻接地方案研究》，Study on Grounding via Small Resistance of 35KV System in Substation ,in this title,“Study on”can be cancelled, becoming into Grounding via Small Resistance of 35KV System in Substation .Of course, the title must be long enough to describe the content of the paper. A too short title, sometimes, may bring about confusing. So the writer must remember a tip “Make your titles short, simple, and clear. Long and complicated titles usually get passed over.”
2. Be Specific
The title should properly reflect the specific content, including the research scope and discussion level, thus a general and abstract title should be avoided. For example, such a title as Computer Retrieval will be regarded as too general and global, vague and empty, telling the readers nothing specific. It`s had better to change the title into something like Computer
Retrieval on Literature of Physics, or Computer Retrieval on International Conference Information, according to the content of the paper. The above revised title can greatly highlight the emphasis and particularity of the work. And another example: a title like Innovation and the Materials Revolution is too general, when the readers search the title, they don’t know the basic idea of the paper and the specific aspect of the thesis. Therefore when the writer chooses one title, he must find the special spark of the paper, and some keywords to express the main idea of the whole paper.
And in a title, the writer can select the keywords as much as possible. On one hand it can summarize the basic ides of the paper and reduce the number of words, on the other hand, it can increase the searching number of the paper, which due to the reason that when the readers retrieval the information with a machine, it appears the keywords in the title. Therefore the use of keywords in a title should be noticed by the writers of papers and the editors of the journals.
3. Avoid Question Title
A question title means a complete sentence in the question form. Such titles are usually not used in an academic paper (especially in natural sciences), because they always include some redundant question words and marks, for example, “Is there…?”, “when does…?”, “Should the…?”, “Is there…?” and so on. What is worse, this kind of title is inconvenient for information retrieval. If your title really contains an interrogation, you can use the form of “question word+ infinitive”, for example, Essential Steps for Writing a Title Page: How to Prepare the Title, Authors/Affiliations and keywords. Another example: “Can the Rate of Wash Load Be Predicted from the Bed Load Function?” can be changed into “The Prediction of Wash Load Rate by the Bed Load Function”.
4. Being Standard
General speaking, nonstandard abbreviations and symbols, and/or any terms or phraseology intelligible only to the specialist should be avoided, because the use of them could be inimical to make information retrieval efficient. Whether all the first letters of the principal words in a title should be capitalized or not, may depend upon the specific requirements set forth by the journal to which your manuscript is to be submitted. According to the international standard, the word`s number of English title is ten to twelve. Except for the common abbreviations and special symbols, there is not using abbreviations, symbols and Chemical formula and so on in titles. And on the word`s choice, there should be find out the accurate words. For example, “normal” usually means “non-special”, but in the field of mathematics, its meaning is “vertical”, and in the field of chemistry, its meaning is “neutral”. Therefore in order to ensure the standard of the papers, it should find the best word to express the idea. When translating the Chinese title into English, the writer should understand the deep meanings of the original text and avoid interpreting the words too literally. “问题”, a common word in Chinese, is always translated to “problem” or “question”. But sometimes, it is not accurate. An objective state of difficulty that needs to be resolved can be called “problem”, and an important question that is in dispute and must be settled is called “issue”, and a sent ence of inquiry that asks for a reply is called “question”. In fact, it is unnecessary to translate the Chinese word of “问题”. For example, “理论和方法问题”, “the theory and method”. Another example, the accurate translation of the title 《科技论文作者文摘的人称问题》is Personal Pronouns in English Abstracts of Science-tech Papers. But the word “问题”in the title of 《科技期刊编译和校对工作的几个问题》should be interpreted into “problem” and the English title is Problems in Editing and Proof reading of
Science-tech Journal.
B. Standards of Academic Paper`s English Titles
There are also some important standards in the English title writing of academic paper. These standards, which would be listed below, should be noticed by the writers of academic paper.
1. The title should use the brief and exact words to reflect the main and specific content of the paper. And it should meet the demands of edit, index and retrieval.
2. English title generally should not be more than twenty words, and the subtitle can be used when necessary.
3. Titles should avoid to using the acronym, characters and symbols, which are the non-public known, and don't appear structured and mathematics.
4. Titles should be smooth, and match with the grammatical requirements.
5. Titles should be clear and definite. It should reveal manuscripts content, and make the readers understand the main meaning of the paper, avoiding ambiguous.
6. Title should be tally with the content of paper. Therefore it should obey, reflect, generalize, reveal the manuscripts content.
7. Title should be consistent with the style of the paper. The title is only relative independence to the content, but more important is its dependent on manuscripts content.
These standards are useful and helpful for writing English academic title. The writers can make a good title if they notice these standards.
Chapter Four Analysis of Structural Sorts and Main Errors of English
Titles
A.Research design
The present study examines the structural sorts and main types of errors in samplesof English titles written by Chinese non-English major students in the graduation paper. The students involved in the study are from different majors of North China Electric Power University. The majors include business administration, electric,power engineering, and computer science and technology, etc.
The first stage of the present study is to select the samples in data base of NCEPU. After collecting language and materials, quantitative analysis of the data will be carried out, the result of which will disclose the distribution of structural sorts, including the structural sorts percentage of the English titles it concerned, and the main types of error in these 100 pieces samples.
Through analyzing the structural sorts of English titles, the paper intends to answer the following questions.
1)What is the percentage of structural sorts used in the sample titles written by Chinese non-
English major students?
2)What is the percentage of main errors in the samples titles?
3)Which issues need attention in English title writing?
The main research concern of this thesis is to gain the distribution of structural sorts and main errors of English titles, which could be find its answer from questions 1 and 2. Next, the thesis will point some issues needing attention when writing the English title. Finally the thesis。