HOW TO WRITE AN EFFECTIVE

TITLE
AND ABSTRACT
AND CHOOSE APPROPRIATE
KEYWORDS
PhD. Nguyen Thu Nga
Department of Communication Engineering
 Why they play a pivotal role in the communication of research?

◦ 1. Most electronic search engines, databases, or journal websites will use the
words found in your title and abstract, and your list of keywords to decide
whether and when to display your paper to interested readers. Thus, these 3
elements enable the dissemination of your research; without them, readers
would not be able to find or cite your paper.
◦ 2. The title and abstract are often the only parts of a paper that are freely
available online. Hence, once readers find your paper, they will read through the
title and abstract to determine whether or not to purchase a full copy of your
paper/continue reading
◦ 3. Finally, the abstract is the first section of your paper that journal editors and
reviewers read. While busy journal editors may use the abstract to decide
whether to send a paper for peer review or reject it outright, reviewers will form
their first impression about your paper on reading it.
 Writing a title…..Shouldn’t
• Too long, this usually indicates there are too many unnecessary words.
• Language, such as, "A Study to Investigate the...," or "An Examination of the...."
• Too short , For example, a paper with the title, "African Politics"
• Use words or phrases that do not help the reader understand the purpose of your paper.
• Humorous or clever journalistic styles of phrasing
- Journalistic headlines often use emotional adjectives [e.g., incredible, amazing, effortless] to
highlight a problem experienced by the reader or use "trigger words" or interrogative
- A reader does not need clever or humorous titles to catch their attention because the act of
reading is assumed to be deliberate based on a desire to learn and improve understanding of the
research problem. In addition, a humorous title can merely detract from the seriousness and
authority of your research.
• Have to adhere to rigid grammatical or stylistic standards.
It could be appropriate to begin a title with a coordinating conjunction [i.e., and, but, or, nor, for, so,
yet] if it makes sense to do so and does not detract from the purpose of the study [e.g., "Yet
Another Look at Mutual Fund Tournaments"] or beginning the title with an inflected form of a verb
such as those ending in -ing [e.g., " Optimizing Social Welfare of Live Video Streaming Services in
Mobile Edge Computing].
 Formulate a suitable research paper title:

- The purpose of - The scope of - The narrative - The methods

the research the research tone of the paper used to study the
[typically defined problem
by the type of
the research]
The initial aim of a
title is to capture
the reader’s
attention and to
highlight the
research problem
under investigation.
 Step of writing a title

◦1. Answer the questions: What is my paper about? What

techniques/ designs were used? Who/what is studied? What
were the results?
◦2. Use your answers to list key words.
◦3. Build a sentence with these key words.
◦4. Delete all waste words (e.g., study of, investigates) and
repetitive words; link the remaining.
◦5. Delete non-essential information and reword
Create a Working Title
◦Typically, the final title you submit to your professor
is created after the research is complete so that the
title accurately captures what has been done.
◦ The working title should be developed early in the research
process because it can help anchor the focus of the study in
much the same way the research problem does. Referring
back to the working title can help you reorient yourself back
to the main purpose of the study if you find yourself drifting
off on a tangent while writing.
 The Final Title
• Suggest a relationship between
• Indicate accurately the subject and variables which supports the major
scope of the study, hypothesis,
• Rarely use abbreviations or acronyms • Is limited to 5 to 15 substantive words,
unless they are commonly known,
• If you use a quote as part of the title,
• Use words that create a positive
the source of the quote is cited [usually
impression and stimulate reader
using an asterisk and footnote],
interest,
• Use current nomenclature from the • Use correct grammar and capitalization
field of study, with all first words and last words
capitalized, including the first word of a
• Identify key variables, both dependent
subtitle. All nouns, pronouns, verbs,
and independent
adjectives, and adverbs that appear
• Reveal how the paper will be between the first and last words of the
organized title are also capitalized
 Twenty Titles for the Writer

◦ 1. Copy out of your draft a sentence that could serve as a title.

◦ 2. Write a sentence that's not in the draft to use as a title.
◦ 3. Write a title that is a question beginning with What, Who, When, or Where.
◦ 4. Write a title that is a question beginning with How or Why.
◦ 5. Write a title that is a question beginning with Is/Are, Do/Does, or Will.
◦ 6. Pick out of the essay some concrete image—something the reader can hear, see,
taste, smell, or feel—to use as a title.
◦ 7. Pick another concrete image out of the essay. Look for an image that is a bit
unusual or surprising.
◦ 8. Write a title beginning with an -ing verb (like “Creating a Good Title”).
◦ 9. Write a title beginning with On (like “On the Titles of Essays”).
◦ 10. Write a title that is a lie about the essay. (You probably won't use this one, but it
might stimulate your thinking.)
Twenty Titles for the Writer

◦ 11. Write a one-word title—the most obvious one possible.

◦ 12. Write a less obvious one-word title.
◦ 13. Write a two-word title.
◦ 14. Write a three-word title.
◦ 15. Write a four-word title.
◦ 16. Write a five-word title.
◦ 17. Think of a familiar saying, or the title of a book, song, or movie, that
might fit your essay.
◦ 18. Take the title you just wrote and twist it by changing a word or
creating a pun on it.
◦ 19. Do the same with another saying or title of a book, song, or movie.
◦ 20. Find two titles you've written so far that you might use together in a
double title. Join them together with a colon [ : ].
 IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing
1.A. Sivanathan et al., "Classifying IoT Devices in Smart Environments Using Network Traffic
Characteristics," in IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, vol. 18, no. 8, pp. 1745-1759, 1 Aug. 2019.
doi: 10.1109/TMC.2018.2866249.
2.J. Dong, M. Noreikis, Y. Xiao and A.Ylä-Jääski, "ViNav: A Vision-Based Indoor Navigation System for
Smartphones," in IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, vol. 18, no. 6, pp. 1461-1475, 1 June 2019. doi:
10.1109/TMC.2018.2857772.
3 .L. Huang, S. Bi and Y. J. Zhang, "Deep Reinforcement Learning for Online Computation Offloading
in Wireless Powered Mobile-Edge Computing Networks," in IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing.
doi: 10.1109/TMC.2019.2928811.
4. A. Mehrabi, M. Siekkinen and A. Ylä-Jääski, "Edge Computing Assisted Adaptive Mobile Video
Streaming," in IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, vol. 18, no. 4, pp. 787-800, 1 April 2019.
doi: 10.1109/TMC.2018.2850026
5. S. E. Ghoreishi, D. Karamshuk, V. Friderikos, N. Sastry, M. Dohler and A. H. Aghvami, "A Cost-Driven
Approach to Caching-as-a-Service in Cloud-Based 5G Mobile Networks," in IEEE Transactions on
Mobile Computing, vol. 19, no. 5, pp. 997-1009, 1 May 2020. doi: 10.1109/TMC.2019.2904061
 Journal of Science & Technology
◦ 1. PR Current Controllers for Harmonics Generators to Test an Inductive
Current Transformer Anh-Tuan PHUNG, Vu Hoang Phuong, Thuy-Nguyen VU -
Hanoi University of Science and Technology
◦ 2. Design and simulate the communication of instrument and control
systems using WirelessHART, Nguyen Huy Phuong, Cao Ngoc Khanh, Bui Dang
Thanh* - Hanoi University of Science and Technology
◦ 3. Central Improvement of Voltage Sags in the IEEE 33-Bus Distribution
System by a Number of D-STATCOMs, Bach Quoc Khanh - Hanoi University of
Science and Technology
◦ 4. Myocardium Segmentation based on Combining Fully Convolutional
Network and Graph cut, Thi-Thao Tran, Van-Truong Pham * - Hanoi University of
Science and Technology
◦ 5. A Novel Cryptosystem Using Dynamics Perturbation of Logistic Map, Thang
Manh Hoang*, Hoang Xuan Thanh - Hanoi University of Science and Technology
Write an abstract
◦The abstract should help the reader decide
“whether there is something in the body of the paper
worth reading”
by providing a quick and accurate summary of the entire
paper, explaining
◦why the research was conducted,
◦what the aims were,
◦how these were met,
◦and what the main findings were
◦Generally between 100 and 300 words in
length
1. Descriptive abstracts, usually used in the
social sciences and humanities, do not give
specific information about methods and
results.
2. Informative abstracts are commonly Types of
used in the sciences and present
information on the background, aim,
abstracts
methods, results, and conclusions.
3. Structured abstracts are essentially
informative abstracts divided into a series
of headings (e.g., Objective, Method,
Results, Conclusion) and are typically found
in medical literature and clinical trial
reports.
 Write an abstract
◦1. Begin writing the abstract after you have finished writing your
paper.
◦2. First answer the questions “What problem are you trying to solve?”
and “What 2.First answer the questions “What problem are you trying
to solve?” and “What motivated you to do so?” by picking out the
major objectives/hypotheses and conclusions from your Introduction
and Conclusion sections.
◦3. Next, answer the question "How did you go about achieving your
objective?" by selecting key sentences and phrases from your
Methods section.
◦4. Now, reveal your findings by listing the major results from your
Results section.
 ◦5. Finally, answer the question "What are
the implications of your findings?“
◦6. Arrange the sentences and phrases
selected in steps 2, 3, 4,and 5 into a
single paragraph in the following
sequence: Introduction, Methods, Results,
and Conclusions.
Write an ◦7. Make sure that this paragraph is self-
abstract contained and does not include the
following:
◦Information not present in the paper
◦Figures and tables
◦Abbreviations
◦Literature review or reference citations
 Write an abstract
◦8. Now, link your sentences.
◦9. Ensure that the paragraph is written in the past tense and check
that the information flows well, preferably in the following order:
purpose, basic study design/techniques used, major findings,
conclusions, and implications.
◦10. Check that the final abstract
Contains information that is consistent with that presented in the
paper.
Meets the guidelines of the targeted journal (word limit, type of
abstract, etc.)
Does not contain typographical errors as these may lead referees and
editors to “conclude that the paper is bad and should be rejected.”
Choosing your keywords

◦Journals, search engines, and indexing and

abstracting services classify papers using keywords.
Thus, an accurate list of keywords will ensure
correct indexing and help showcase your research to
interested groups.
◦This in turn will increase the chances of your paper
being cited
 Choosing your keywords
◦ 1. Read through your paper and list down the terms/phrases that are used
repeatedly in the text.
◦ 2. Ensure that this list includes all your main key terms/phrases and a few
additional key phrases.
◦ 3. Include variants of a term/phrase (e.g., kidney and renal), drug names,
procedures, etc.
◦ 4. Include common abbreviations of terms (e.g., AI, IoT).
◦ 5. Now, refer to a common vocabulary/term list or indexing standard in your
discipline (e.g., multi-access edge computing (MEC), Ad-hoc network, ) and
ensure that the terms you have used match those used in these resources.
◦ 6. Finally, before you submit your article, type your keywords into a search
engine and check if the results that show up match the subject of your paper.
This will help you determine whether your keywords are appropriate for the
topic of your paper
 Example of keywords

1. S. E. Ghoreishi, D. Karamshuk, V. Friderikos, N. Sastry, M. Dohler and A. H. Aghvami, "A Cost-Driven

Approach to Caching-as-a-Service in Cloud-Based 5G Mobile Networks," in IEEE Transactions on
Mobile Computing, vol. 19, no. 5, pp. 997-1009, 1 May 2020. doi: 10.1109/TMC.2019.2904061
◦keywords: {5G mobile communication; cache storage; cloud computing; integer programming; mobile
computing; telecommunication traffic; video streaming; cloud-based 5G mobile networks; Cloud computing;
Streaming media; Caching-as-a-Service (CaaS); 5G virtual caching; mobile video delivery; canonical duality;
invasive weed optimization}
◦
2. S. Song, C. Lee, H. Cho, G. Lim and J. Chung, "Clustered Virtualized Network Functions Resource
Allocation based on Context-Aware Grouping in 5G Edge Networks," in IEEE Transactions on Mobile
Computing, vol. 19, no. 5, pp. 1072-1083, 1 May 2020. doi: 10.1109/TMC.2019.2907593
◦ keywords: {5G mobile communication; cloud computing; graph theory; Internet of Things; mobile
computing; VNF migration; clustered virtualized network; 5G edge networks; smart devices; Internet of
Things sensors; mobile networks; mobile edge computing; MEC; 5G mobile communication; Data centers;
Mobile computing; Hardware; Network function virtualization}