Thursday, May 25, 2006

Catchy titles

Nothing pleases me more than having a clever title for an academic paper. Some that myself, co-authors or others have suggested for my papers include "First Author Conditions," "Licensing the Gale of Creative Destruction," "Inside the Black Box: A Look at the Container," and, of course, "Knowledge of Growth and the Growth of Knowledge."

[From Marginal Revolution] Hugo Mialon (Emory) has studied citation rates on academic papers in economics and has found, among other things, that catchy titles tend to increase citation rates for empirical papers but lower them for theoretical ones. Suffice it to say, most of my papers are theoretical, so this is bad news for me. I had better stick to titles like "Regulating Private Infrastructure Investment: Optimal Pricing for Access to Essential Facilities."

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I need a catchy title for my essay. My essay is about how English should become America's national language.

Anonymous said...

I have no idea what to do for my title. I am writing an essay about binge drinking. Help?

Anonymous said...

I know it is late now but if anyone else has to write a paper about drinking call it: dirty water; of course you have to tie it in but that is easy. Like all life needs water binge drinkers feel they need alcohal; or something like that.

Anonymous said...

i need a title for a paper on symbolism for lord of the flies?

Anonymous said...

i need a title for a paper on symbolism for the book lord of the flies

Anonymous said...

i need a title for an essay on how stalinist russia was a cult