Can I Find You?

The title, abstract, and keywords make your article visible. The words you choose determine how easy it will be for others find and read your work.

 If your article appears in a journal many of the investigators in your field actually read, they may stumble on it while skimming the tablesof contents. But most of the time, they don’t “browse”; they search. They turn to PubMed, Google, Google Scholar, Web of Science, Scopus, and similar databases—searching through thousands of papers in seconds. Search algorithms run on metadata, which are fields in the database, and include the article title, author names and affiliations, the abstract, and the full text if the copyright allows that. The article type, year and language of publication, and the keywords are also scanned. You are the one who chooses the metadata included in the database search.

 When someone enters a search query, hundreds of journals are searched at once. Whether your paper appears near the top depends largely on your title and abstract. Make your title highly focused. Clearly state your topic and highlight what is unique about your study. Write your abstract as a “hook” or “30 second pitch” for the readers who find it and repeat three or four descriptive phrases from your manuscript to maximize discoverability and impact.

 Keywords are meant to help people find your article after it is published, and journals often advise using words that do not appear in the title or abstract. Librarian and knowledge management specialists recommend using Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) from the National Library of Medicine database (https://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/meshhome.html). When you visit the MeSH site, check out "MeSH on Demand" and its tutorial. If you draw your keywords from MeSH, database searches are more likely to retrieve your article alongside closely related publications. Searching relies on words, but your article also contains figures and tables that together with the words, communicate your message. Don’t forget that the way other researchers discover your work and the way you discover theirs are “two sides of the same coin.” If you haven’t done so already, take a look at my post “References?”