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 - The scope of the - The narrative tone of - The methods used to
research research the paper [typically study the problem
defined 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 used in the Types of
sciences and present information on the background,
aim, methods, results, and conclusions.
abstracts
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-contained
abstract 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}