 In this video, we will discuss the importance of research proposals and proposal titles, identify strategies to improve proposal title clarity. By definition, a proposal is a formal written document that suggests, outlines, or explains a research study, plan, or idea. As a refresher, a proposal is composed of two key elements, the title and the abstract. If you can remember this simple formula, you'll always know the key elements to include in a proposal. A research proposal is one of the most important documents for undergraduate researchers, and really all researchers, as the proposal is often what committees, judges, or peer reviewers examine when considering who will receive grant funds, present at conferences, or publish articles and journals. To emphasize the importance of proposals in the review process, Bioman Central says that, quote, during peer review, the title and abstract are used when we invite reviewers. Inviter reviewers are asked to decide whether they wish to review the manuscript on the basis of the title and abstract alone, end quote. This means that for Bioman Central, if the invited reviewers are not impressed with your title and abstract, then they will not review or consider your work for publication. Titles are also important because they help other researchers find and use your work. The way that other researchers will find your published works is often through library databases or Google Scholar. There are some databases that may only include the title of your article in their results list. So researchers making decisions about using your published work may decide not to even read it if the title doesn't catch their eye and seem appropriate to what they're looking for. In order to avoid this from happening, we should be sure that titles are accurate, informative, and complete. Because titles are short, it can be very easy to jot a title down quickly and not think about it again. But we've already seen how important titles are when we start thinking about presenting or publishing our research. Now, we'll look at five tips for writing accurate, informative, and complete titles. The first tip is to avoid abbreviations, acronyms, and initials, because these may have different meanings for different fields or disciplines. For example, the abbreviation CA for calcium could be mistaken for CA, meaning cancer. Instead of using CA in my title, I should spell out the word calcium. You'll also want to use simple word order and common word combinations or phrases. For example, the phrase juvenile delinquency is more common than delinquency among juveniles, and will make your title more easily findable by other researchers who are interested in that topic. An example title might be female juvenile delinquency, motherhood, and the intergenerational transmission of aggression and antisocial behavior. Our third tip is to use specific rather than general terms. If I'm writing about a drug like Tylenol, I should use the specific drug name, acetaminophen, rather than its broad drug class, analgesic, which means that it is a pain reliever. An example title could be improved label and liver warning for non-prescription acetaminophen products. Our fourth tip is to use full scientific names when applicable. Write out Escherichia coli rather than abbreviating E. coli. Here's another example title. Similarly, you'll want to refer to chemicals by their common generic names rather than their formulas. Write out Sodium hydroxide instead of using the formula abbreviating NaOH. The colon is a feature of many, many academic titles. In fact, over 20 research articles have been written about academics using colons in their titles. In a 2007 study, Hartley examined colon use in titles from many different disciplines. As we can see in this table, colons were included in titles in arts and humanities fields, like music and literature, more than in STEM fields, such as engineering. Hartley went on to explain that colon usage varied, so it's even more fun to see here the different reasons researchers decide to utilize the colon within their titles. Perhaps you will decide to use a colon when crafting your next title.