Document Type : Original Article
Authors
1 Molecular Dermatology Research Center, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran
2 Department of Dermatology, School of Medicine, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences
3 Department of Medical Journalism, Faculty of Paramedical Sciences, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran
4 English Department, Faculty of Paramedical Sciences, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran
Abstract
Background: Evidence shows that article titles might affect
citation metrics. This study aimed to evaluate the association
between selected citation metrics and the title characteristics in
dermatology journals.
Methods: We enrolled 305 reviews and original articles published
during 2016 from four dermatology journals consisting of the
“Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology,” “Journal
of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology,”
“Indian Journal of Dermatology, Venereology and Leprology,”
and “International Journal of Dermatology” using a stratified
and simple random sampling method. The list of articles was
extracted from Scopus; then, the title characteristics were
reviewed. Moreover, we extracted the citation metrics, including
the citation count, Field-Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI), and
citation benchmarking percentile of the articles until the end of
October 2021 using Scopus. For statistical analysis, we used Stata
software version 14.2.
Results: Overall, 239 (78.36%) original and 66 (21.64%) review
articles were included. The citation count and FWCI significantly
and positively correlated with the number of words, characters,
and punctuation marks in the titles. By adjusting the covariates,
linear logistic regression showed that the title length and the
presence of acronyms in the title were the most effective factors
in increasing the citation count and FWCI of the articles.
Conclusion: Using longer titles and including acronyms in the
titles may help augment the citation of articles in dermatology
journals.
Keywords
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