To be or not to be ... funny? That is the question

A few weeks ago, I got into a Twitter “argument” with my friend César Urbina-Blanco about the use of pop culture references in the titles of scientific papers. While many scientists on Twitter, including my friend César, loved the idea and shared witty, funny titles, I was one of the few people discouraging their use.

“Boo, why don’t you like fun?”, tweeted my friend. “Well, I tweeted back, because that 'fun' may not be accessible to everyone”.

Whether or not I like fun will be reserved for another blog post. However, I am not alone in thinking that witty titles may alienate some of your audience. In a recent blog post, Richard the Grijs said that “while adding humour to [scientific papers] allows for some levity, humour […] more often than not doesn’t translate across cultures and languages.” And in his blog Better Posters (a wonderful resource for poster presentations), Zen Faulkes writes that, sometimes, “people will try to make a presentation more appealing by putting a joke in the title”. But unless everyone shares the same cultural references, he warns, the jokes may end up excluding some members of the audience.

The point of the title is to attract readers, and it does so by being brief and informative

The point of the title is to attract readers, and it does so by being brief and informative. A good title should tell readers what to expect from your paper, which is why some people advocate for titles with “spoilers”—giving away the conclusion so that people are enticed to read your paper and, potentially, cite it. Considering that scientific papers have a global, diverse audience, using a title that could be confusing or uninformative to many potential readers is a bad idea.   

And while witty titles may get a lot of likes on social media (here are some famous examples), that doesn’t necessarily translate into more citations, according to a 2008 study.

So, try to write clear, informative titles that tell the audience what to expect when reading your paper (you can find some tips here), and leave your best jokes for a party.