文章的标题是“钓饵”，应该用来吸引读者 --- “推销”你的文章，给读者浏览目录或研究结果的机会。标题写得差可能使原本感兴趣的读者忽略了你的工作，也可能引起文不对题的情况。相比之下，好的标题可吸引相关的研究人员，提高文章的引用率，这也是期刊编辑所青睐的，因为引用率与期刊影响因子直接挂钩。因此，写好正确的标题是很重要的。 好的标题应尽量简短，同时又能传递文章的主要发现。避免叙述过于繁琐并使用不必要的专业行话和缩略语。标题必须能被科学界的广大读者读懂，因为他们中的一些人可能并不具备你研究的专业领域的具体知识。标题宽泛到什么程度取决于目标期刊 --- 考虑目标期刊的读者情况，这通常会在期刊的网站上有所介绍；撰写的标题应便于被所有读者看懂，而不仅仅局限于你的研究领域。另外，应该查阅目标杂志的《稿约》，确保遵守字数限制的要求以及是否需要提供短标题。 实例：较差的标题 “Degeneration of neurons in the CA3 and DG following OA administration: involvement of a MAPK-dependent pathway in regional-specific neuronal degeneration” 这个标题太长，含有非标准的缩略语，内容重复，部分内容太具体。修改如下：“Region-specific neuronal degeneration after okadaic acid administration”。此外，也可使用“MAP kinase-dependent neuronal degeneration after okadaic acid administration”，但要考虑目标杂志的要求，因为缩略语MAP使用广泛，读者可懂。 练习： 丁香园网友应邀对以下标题进行修改： “Carvedilol produces dose-related improvements in LV function and dose-related reductions in mortality and hospitalization rate in subjects with chronic heart failure from systolic dysfunction” 以下是网友“Qikaka”的修改建议： “Dose-related effect of carvedilol in improvements in left ventricular function and survival in subjects with chronic heart failure” 改后的标题大大缩短：少了6个单词，合计61个字符。“survival”一词的使用涵盖了改善效果的两个方面(死亡率和住院率)，重复的“dose-related”也被删除了。最后，在新的标题中对缩略语LV做了精确的解释。 一些网友也贴出了自己文章的标题和摘要，询问是否合适。其中有不少标题写得十分不错，也有一些与其他相比需要更多修改。网友“Yelry”的这个标题就很好，清晰地体现了研究领域：“Ascending venography in the diagnosis and management of nonthrombotic iliac vein compression” 尽管表述清楚，但“Yelry”并未传达出重要的一点---文章的主要发现：该方法应该对于诊断十分重要，而且很有可能会区分开两组病例。因为这一重要性并未在标题中体现，作者“Yelry”可能会失去一些感兴趣的读者。虽然标题可以涵盖的信息量取决于字数的限制，然而只需在“ascending venography”后面添加“is valuable”，就可以比原标题传达更多的文章内容。 First impressions: the importance of writing a good title The title of your paper is a “hook” that should be used to attract readers—it is your opportunity to “sell” your paper to readers browsing a table of contents or search results. A poor title will cause potentially interested researchers to overlook your work and may attract the wrong audience. By contrast, a good title will attract the relevant researchers and increase the number of citations you receive. Journal editors like this because number of citations relates to the impact factor a journal gets. Therefore, it is important to get it right. A good title should be as brief as possible while still communicating the main finding(s) of the paper. Avoid excessive detail and unnecessary use of field-specific jargon and abbreviations. Your title must be understandable by a broad scientific audience, some of whom may not have a detailed knowledge of your particular field. How broad depends on the particular target journal—consider the readership of your target journal, which is usually explained on the journal’s website, and write a title that can be easily understood by all, not only those in your immediate field. The target journal’s instructions for authors should also be consulted to ensure that character limits are complied with and to identify whether a running (short) title is also required. Example of a poor title: “Degeneration of neurons in the CA3 and DG following OA administration: involvement of a MAPK-dependent pathway in regional-specific neuronal degeneration” This title is too long, contains non-standard abbreviations and a redundancy, and is too specific in parts. A better alternative would be: “Region-specific neuronal degeneration after okadaic acid administration”. “MAP kinase-dependent neuronal degeneration after okadaic acid administration” would probably also be acceptable, depending on the target journal, because the abbreviation MAP is widely used and understood. Exercise: Scientists visiting an online life sciences network were asked to suggest a good alternative title for the following: “Carvedilol produces dose-related improvements in LV function and dose-related reductions in mortality and hospitalization rate in subjects with chronic heart failure from systolic dysfunction” Among the responses was the following suggestion: “Dose-related effect of carvedilol in improvements in left ventricular function and survival in subjects with chronic heart failure” This title is six words and 61 characters shorter, which represents a significant reduction. The word “survival” is used to combine the two aspects of the improvement (mortality and hospitalization) and the repetition of “dose-related” has been removed. Finally, the abbreviation LV has been defined in the new title. Other researchers posted the titles and abstracts for their own papers, asking whether the titles were suitable. There were many excellent titles, some of which needed more changes than others. The following title, from Yelry, is well written and clearly defines the area of research: “Ascending venography in the diagnosis and management of nonthrombotic iliac vein compression” Although this is very clear, the author Yelry doesn’t convey the main findings of the paper, which were actually quite significant: the method was shown to be valuable for diagnosis and possibly able to separate two groups of patients. Because this significance is not conveyed in the title, Yelry could potentially lose some of the target audience. Character limits for titles dictate how much information can be included; however, the simple addition of “is valuable” after “ascending venography” says much more about the paper than the original title does. In this way, the key finding can be communicated. Dr Daniel McGowan 分子神经学博士 理文编辑学术总监
文章的标题是“钓饵”，应该用来吸引读者 --- “推销”你的文章，给读者浏览目录或研究结果的机会。标题写得差可能使原本感兴趣的读者忽略了你的工作，也可能引起文不对题的情况。相比之下，好的标题可吸引相关的研究人员，提高文章的引用率，这也是期刊编辑所青睐的，因为引用率与期刊影响因子直接挂钩。因此，写好正确的标题是很重要的。 好的标题应尽量简短，同时又能传递文章的主要发现。避免叙述过于繁琐并使用不必要的专业行话和缩略语。标题必须能被科学界的广大读者读懂，因为他们中的一些人可能并不具备你研究的专业领域的具体知识。标题宽泛到什么程度取决于目标期刊 --- 考虑目标期刊的读者情况，这通常会在期刊的网站上有所介绍；撰写的标题应便于被所有读者看懂，而不仅仅局限于你的研究领域。另外，应该查阅目标杂志的《稿约》，确保遵守字数限制的要求以及是否需要提供短标题。 实例：较差的标题 “Degeneration of neurons in the CA3 and DG following OA administration: involvement of a MAPK-dependent pathway in regional-specific neuronal degeneration” 这个标题太长，含有非标准的缩略语，内容重复，部分内容太具体。修改如下：“Region-specific neuronal degeneration after okadaic acid administration”。此外，也可使用“MAP kinase-dependent neuronal degeneration after okadaic acid administration”，但要考虑目标杂志的要求，因为缩略语MAP使用广泛，读者可懂。 练习： 丁香园网友应邀对以下标题进行修改： “Carvedilol produces dose-related improvements in LV function and dose-related reductions in mortality and hospitalization rate in subjects with chronic heart failure from systolic dysfunction” 以下是网友“Qikaka”的修改建议： “Dose-related effect of carvedilol in improvements in left ventricular function and survival in subjects with chronic heart failure” 改后的标题大大缩短：少了6个单词，合计61个字符。“survival”一词的使用涵盖了改善效果的两个方面(死亡率和住院率)，重复的“dose-related”也被删除了。最后，在新的标题中对缩略语LV做了精确的解释。 一些网友也贴出了自己文章的标题和摘要，询问是否合适。其中有不少标题写得十分不错，也有一些与其他相比需要更多修改。网友“Yelry”的这个标题就很好，清晰地体现了研究领域：“Ascending venography in the diagnosis and management of nonthrombotic iliac vein compression” 尽管表述清楚，但“Yelry”并未传达出重要的一点---文章的主要发现：该方法应该对于诊断十分重要，而且很有可能会区分开两组病例。因为这一重要性并未在标题中体现，作者“Yelry”可能会失去一些感兴趣的读者。虽然标题可以涵盖的信息量取决于字数的限制，然而只需在“ascending venography”后面添加“is valuable”，就可以比原标题传达更多的文章内容。 First impressions: the importance of writing a good title The title of your paper is a “hook” that should be used to attract readers—it is your opportunity to “sell” your paper to readers browsing a table of contents or search results. A poor title will cause potentially interested researchers to overlook your work and may attract the wrong audience. By contrast, a good title will attract the relevant researchers and increase the number of citations you receive. Journal editors like this because number of citations relates to the impact factor a journal gets. Therefore, it is important to get it right. A good title should be as brief as possible while still communicating the main finding(s) of the paper. Avoid excessive detail and unnecessary use of field-specific jargon and abbreviations. Your title must be understandable by a broad scientific audience, some of whom may not have a detailed knowledge of your particular field. How broad depends on the particular target journal—consider the readership of your target journal, which is usually explained on the journal’s website, and write a title that can be easily understood by all, not only those in your immediate field. The target journal’s instructions for authors should also be consulted to ensure that character limits are complied with and to identify whether a running (short) title is also required. Example of a poor title: “Degeneration of neurons in the CA3 and DG following OA administration: involvement of a MAPK-dependent pathway in regional-specific neuronal degeneration” This title is too long, contains non-standard abbreviations and a redundancy, and is too specific in parts. A better alternative would be: “Region-specific neuronal degeneration after okadaic acid administration”. “MAP kinase-dependent neuronal degeneration after okadaic acid administration” would probably also be acceptable, depending on the target journal, because the abbreviation MAP is widely used and understood. Exercise: Scientists visiting an online life sciences network were asked to suggest a good alternative title for the following: “Carvedilol produces dose-related improvements in LV function and dose-related reductions in mortality and hospitalization rate in subjects with chronic heart failure from systolic dysfunction” Among the responses was the following suggestion: “Dose-related effect of carvedilol in improvements in left ventricular function and survival in subjects with chronic heart failure” This title is six words and 61 characters shorter, which represents a significant reduction. The word “survival” is used to combine the two aspects of the improvement (mortality and hospitalization) and the repetition of “dose-related” has been removed. Finally, the abbreviation LV has been defined in the new title. Other researchers posted the titles and abstracts for their own papers, asking whether the titles were suitable. There were many excellent titles, some of which needed more changes than others. The following title, from Yelry, is well written and clearly defines the area of research: “Ascending venography in the diagnosis and management of nonthrombotic iliac vein compression” Although this is very clear, the author Yelry doesn’t convey the main findings of the paper, which were actually quite significant: the method was shown to be valuable for diagnosis and possibly able to separate two groups of patients. Because this significance is not conveyed in the title, Yelry could potentially lose some of the target audience. Character limits for titles dictate how much information can be included; however, the simple addition of “is valuable” after “ascending venography” says much more about the paper than the original title does. In this way, the key finding can be communicated. Dr Daniel McGowan 分子神经学博士 理文编辑学术总监
科学研究之所有有趣，就是因为有无穷无尽的问题可以研究。在这林林总总的问题中，有些问题重要，有些次要。一篇论文，一般都是回答了一个问题，同时又提出了许多新的问题。一篇划时代的论文，总是解决了一个划时代的问题，同时又提出了新的重要问题。 沃森和克里克于1953年发表于nature上的那篇短短的论文(Watson and Crick, 1953)，就解决了这样一个伟大的问题：DNA的结构是怎样的？DNA几乎控制着一切生命活动，可以说是生命的中枢，是细胞里面的“国王”。所以，DNA的结构怎样，就成为一个极端重要的问题。在沃森和克里克之前，已经有人提出过许多模型，例如大化学家鲍林就提出过三螺旋模型。沃森和克里克基用别人的实验资料，经过自己的仔细分析，提出了双螺旋模型。这篇文章虽然不到两页，只有一副图，但却开启了分子生物学的新纪元。毫无疑问，这是一篇划时代的论文。此文发表后9年（1962年），二人因此而获得诺贝尔奖。此时，沃森34岁，克里克46岁。 可是，沃森和克里克却忽略了这样一个问题：DNA在体内是怎样合成的？他们想当然地以为是单个碱基通过与模板链互补自然而然地形成了新的DNA链。但事实上，生物体内几乎一切生命活动都离不开酶。酶学专家阿瑟.科恩伯格（Arthur Kornberg）早在沃森和克里克的论文发表之前就意识到了“DNA是怎样复制的”这个重要问题。经过不懈的研究，1956年他发现了DNA聚合酶这个为细胞里的国王“传宗接代”所必须的蛋白质。3年后，科恩伯格因此发现获得诺贝尔生理医学奖(崔学军等译, 2006)。 胚胎干细胞因为具有极大的临床应用价值而在本世纪初成为科学家们竞相研究的对象。可是，要想获得人体胚胎干细胞，一般都需要从发育到一定阶段（桑椹胚）的受精卵中提取。很多人认为受精卵也是生命，从受精卵中提取干细胞，需要破坏受精卵，也就等于扼杀了一条新的生命。他们认为这样做不合伦理，因而坚决反对人体干细胞的研究。于是，干细胞研究者们面临的最大问题之一就是伦理学的制约。怎样才能避开伦理问题获得人体胚胎干细胞？这个问题成为一个极端重要的问题。 问题即是机遇。年轻的日本科学家Shinya Yamanaka发现了这个问题，并提出了一种全新的解决方法：通过逆转录病毒向成体细胞中转入四个维持胚胎干细胞多能性的转录因子，从而把已经分化的细胞“重编程”为类似胚胎干细胞的细胞，即“诱导多能干细胞（induced pluriopotent stem cells, iPS）”，也就是大众俗称 的“万能干细胞”。这种方法避开了毁坏受精卵这一步骤，可以从普通的人体细胞，例如皮肤细胞通过重编程获得跟胚胎干细胞非常类似的细胞，免除了伦理学问题，从而为干细胞的研究指出了一条康庄大道。Yamanaka首先在小鼠中实验成功，文章发表于2006年7月的《Cell》(Takahashi and Yamanaka, 2006)。一年之后，又用同样的方法在重编程人体细胞成功，文章发表于2007年11月的《Cell》(Takahashi et al., 2007)（同时发表类似结果的还有华人科学家俞君英(Yu et al., 2007)）。毫无疑问，这两篇论文，尤其是Yamanaka的第一篇论文，绝对是划时代的论文。这篇文章解决了人类干细胞研究中的伦理问题。iPS的研究迅速成为国际生命科学最热门的研究领域，Yamanaka本人则被预言将来一定会获得诺贝尔生理医学奖。2009年，Yamanaka获得有“美国诺贝尔奖”之称的拉斯克奖 http://www.laskerfoundation.org/awards/2009basic.htm 但是，新的问题随之提出：通过逆转录病毒转入基因可能导入插入突变。如果突变了一个对防止肿瘤发生起关键作用的基因，例如P53，那么就可能导致癌变。如果插入突变了其它重要基因，也会产生相应的严重后果。此外，转入的四个转录因子中有些可以增加肿瘤的发病率。所以，安全问题就成为这篇论文提出的第一个重要问题。第二个问题是重编程的效率问题。一万个成纤维细胞经过逆转录病毒转染，才有可能产生两个诱导多能干细胞。这样的效率，显然不能满足研究和临床应用的需要。所以，效率问题就是这篇论文提出的第二个重要问题。 如果说沃森和克里克那篇文章暗含的问题还不是那么容易被人发现，那么，Yamanaka这篇论文提出的这两个问题却是尽人皆知。但是，发现问题是一回事，解决问题又是另外一回事。针对安全问题，不同的研究者尝试了许多种方法。例如：减少转录因子的个数，尤其是去掉容易引发癌变的基因；利用非逆转录病毒的载体例如质粒来重编程，从而避免插入突变；利用小分子物质代替转录因子诱导重编程等等。我想到的解决方法是导入基因编码产物例如mRNA或者蛋白质代替导入基因，从而避免插入突变，诱导成功之后就不再导入mRNA或者蛋白质，所以降低了癌变风险。应该承认，这样的想法不难想到，估计有很多人都能提出来。2008年的时候，我对干细胞，尤其是iPS非常感兴趣。当时正在申请出国留学，陶瓷了一些干细胞研究领域的大牛例如MIT白头研究所的Rudolf Jaenisch（2008.9.11）。在我发给他们的email中，就写到了这个想法。但是，不知道是什么原因（也许是觉得可行性不够，也许他们根本就没看我邮件的具体内容），他们选择了其他方法。Jaenisch用的一个方法，是把四个转录因子放到一个病毒上，从而将病毒载体的数量从四个减少到一个，降低了风险(Carey et al., 2009)。无数个研究小组就这个问题的研究展开了激烈的竞争，在CNS上灌了许多文章。其中的佼佼者，是华裔科学家，美国圣地亚哥Scripps研究所的丁胜博士。他成功地实现了通过蛋白诱导多能干细胞的目标，基本上解决了安全问题(Zhou et al., 2009)。同时，丁胜在小分子诱导多能干细胞研究方向上领先全球。丁胜的蛋白诱导技术被The Scientist评为“年度最佳创新技术”，同时，丁胜也被The Scientist评选为“2009年度全球生命科学领域5强人物”之一。见《领军iPS技术 “闯入”干细胞领域的丁胜博士》 http://www.ebiotrade.com/newsf/2010-1/2010114164055400.htm 诱导效率问题相对于安全问题来说要次要一些，我关注的不多，所以就无法详述。后来，我意识到要做冷门的研究，见博文《冷门研究是中国科研的希望》 http://www.sciencenet.cn/m/user_content.aspx?id=227184 从此不再关注iPS领域，后来的进展也就无从谈起了。 诺贝尔奖医学奖得主梅达沃曾经说过： 任何科研人员，无论年龄大小，如果想做出重大成就，就必须研究重要问题。 怎样才能发现重要问题？从划时代论文的衍生问题中去寻找，便是方法之一。 参考文献： Carey, B.W., Markoulaki, S., Hanna, J., Saha, K., Gao, Q., Mitalipova, M., and Jaenisch, R. (2009). Reprogramming of murine and human somatic cells using a single polycistronic vector. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 106, 157-162. Takahashi, K., Tanabe, K., Ohnuki, M., Narita, M., Ichisaka, T., Tomoda, K., and Yamanaka, S. (2007). Induction of pluripotent stem cells from adult human fibroblasts by defined factors. Cell 131, 861-872. Takahashi, K., and Yamanaka, S. (2006). Induction of pluripotent stem cells from mouse embryonic and adult fibroblast cultures by defined factors. Cell 126, 663-676. Watson, J.D., and Crick, F.H.C. (1953). MOLECULAR STRUCTURE OF NUCLEIC ACIDS - A STRUCTURE FOR DEOXYRIBOSE NUCLEIC ACID. Nature 171, 737-738. Yu, J.Y., Vodyanik, M.A., Smuga-Otto, K., Antosiewicz-Bourget, J., Frane, J.L., Tian, S., Nie, J., Jonsdottir, G.A., Ruotti, V., Stewart, R., et al. (2007). Induced pluripotent stem cell lines derived from human somatic cells. Science 318, 1917-1920. Zhou, H.Y., Wu, S.L., Joo, J.Y., Zhu, S.Y., Han, D.W., Lin, T.X., Trauger, S., Bien, G., Yao, S., Zhu, Y., et al. (2009). Generation of Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells Using Recombinant Proteins. Cell Stem Cell 4, 381-384. 崔学军等译, 美.阿.科. (2006). 酶的情人：一位生物化学家的奥德赛 (上海科学技术出版社).
标签: 重要性
