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Conversations in the Rough

  • 1.  Conversations in the Rough

    Posted 04-10-2019 11:34

    Hi all,

     

    I am happy to introduce a new communication channel called "Conversations in the Rough". The purpose of this new channel is to create meaningful discussions about research and teaching. Also, by having one channel for conversations, we streamline the whole communication process, and hopefully, you can find relevant information more easily. To facilitate our "Conversations in the Rough", we have a new communication ambassador. Please welcome Bina Ajay!

     

    Bina Ajay is in the third year of her PhD program in management at the Carl H. Linder College of Business, University of Cincinnati. Her research interests include strategic leadership and governance, entrepreneurship, and emotions. Bina has presented her research at the Academy of Management's annual conference, the Southern Management Association's annual conference, and the Strategic Management Society's special conference on strategic leadership. Bina also has a forthcoming book chapter on social entrepreneurship in an edited volume being published by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences. Prior to joining the PhD program, Bina worked in industry for more than ten years and has experience in many functional areas including strategy, business planning, project finance, audit, and taxation. Bina holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Mumbai and is an associate member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.

     

    To get our conversation going, Bina created our first question. Feel free to join the conversation by posting answers to the question, and by posting new questions to all our amazing members.

     

    Titles are a simple way of attracting attention to an article, but I usually struggle to come up with a good one and worry about whether it would catch others attention. What is your favorite journal article title? Why does it appeal to you?

       

    Take care,

     

     



    ------------------------------
    Cristiano Guarana
    Assistant Professor
    Indiana University
    Bloomington IN
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  • 2.  RE: Conversations in the Rough

    Posted 04-16-2019 08:34
    Hi Bina,

    Thank you for your interesting question! I do not have one specific title that I really like, but, when writing one, I usually follow the advice on the JEPS Bulletin blog. I really like the three categories the author mention: declarative, descriptive, interrogative. 

    https://blog.efpsa.org/2012/09/01/how-to-write-a-good-title-for-journal-articles/

    Take care,

    ------------------------------
    Cristiano Guarana
    Assistant Professor
    Indiana University
    Bloomington IN
    ------------------------------



  • 3.  RE: Conversations in the Rough

    Posted 04-24-2019 21:24

    Thanks for starting this up, Bina! I have to admit, I am a sucker for a song name in a paper title. I once titled a paper about a radio station: "Video Didn't Kill the Radio Star." It's a shame it never got published for the title alone!

     

    That being said, I do think there is danger in going too cutesy. If I can't come up with something fun that really works, I'll just got for something simple that very clearly articulates the main part of the paper. Of course, you always have to have a colon J

     

    Heather C. Vough, Ph.D.

    Department of Management

    Carl H. Lindner College of Business

    University of Cincinnati

    (513) 556-5440

    Heather.vough@uc.edu

    Representative-at-Large for MOC Division

     






  • 4.  RE: Conversations in the Rough

    Posted 04-25-2019 11:18
    I went to a talk by Tim Judge this week who presented the sobering fact that titles with the word "theory" in them were something like 3 times more likely to be published.  So, Heather, perhaps your title should've been "Theory didn't kill the radio star."  Hmmm, maybe we should write that paper!


    Kevin W. Rockmann
    Professor of Management and Dean's Scholar
    School of Business
    218 Enterprise Hall
    Fairfax, VA 22030
    krockman@gmu.edu
    highqconnections.com 





  • 5.  RE: Conversations in the Rough

    Posted 04-25-2019 11:43
    Howard Aldrich has an excellent blog post of choosing titles.  Howard Aldrich blog: Can you live up to the titles you choose for your papers?

    One of his is my favorite title in our field: 

    Fools rush in? The institutional context of industry creation (Aldrich, H. E., & Fiol, C. M. (1994). Fools rush in? The institutional context of industry creation. Academy of Management Review, 19(4), 645-670.)

    One of my favorite from my work:  

    Celebrity and Infamy? The Consequences of Media Narratives About Organizational Identity (Zavyalova, A., Pfarrer, M. D., & Reger, R. K. (2017). Celebrity and infamy? The consequences of media narratives about organizational identity. Academy of Management Review, 42(3), 461-480.)

    I spend a lot of time on titles. I aim for something that I can scribble on the back of a colleague's business card that summarizes the research question in a memorable way.  Howard's blog suggests many ways to achieve that aim.

    ------------------------------
    Rhonda Reger
    Professor
    U. of Missouri
    Columbia MO
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  • 6.  RE: Conversations in the Rough

    Posted 04-25-2019 11:43
    Thanks for this interesting question Bina! It brings to mind for me an AMR FTE by Lange & Pfarrer (2016) on the core building blocks of an article. They suggest that if a title includes more than one of five the core building blocks (common ground, complication, concern, course of action, and contribution) it helps communicate what your paper is about to prospective readers.

    In case it's helpful, here's the link to the FTE: https://journals.aom.org/doi/full/10.5465/amr.2016.0225.

    ------------------------------
    Keimei Sugiyama
    Post-doctoral Research Associate
    Northeastern University
    D'Amore-McKim School of Business
    Management and Organizational Development Group
    ------------------------------



  • 7.  RE: Conversations in the Rough

    Posted 04-29-2019 13:52
    As an interesting side note, I started looking through my archive to find my "favorite" title (hint: I couldn't choose!) and realized that I had my list sorted in chronological order.  From that, it seemed--at least in my small sample--that titles have involved more wordplay (puns, double meanings, etc) as time goes on.  While I get this from the perspective of appeal, I'm not sure this is necessarily the best trend.

    ------------------------------
    Eli Awtrey
    Assistant Professor of Management
    Carl H. Lindner College of Business
    University of Cincinnati
    ------------------------------



  • 8.  RE: Conversations in the Rough

    Posted 04-30-2019 10:29

    I am not sure about favorite title but this paper has my most favorite ever abstract

     

    Can apparent superluminal neutrino speeds be explained as a quantum weak measurement?

    High Energy Physics - Phenomenology

    M. V. BerryN. BrunnerS. PopescuP. Shukla

    (Submitted on 13 Oct 2011 (v1), last revised 14 Nov 2011 (this version, v2))

     

    Abstract: Probably not

     

     

     

     

    Mark

     

     

     

    Mark Fenton-O'Creevy | Associate Dean External Engagement

    & Professor of Organisational Behaviour

    Faculty of Business and Law

    The Open University, Michael Young Building, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA
    Tel: +44 (0) 1908 655804.

     

    My latest book

     

     

    My blog on emotion and finance

     

    -- The Open University is incorporated by Royal Charter (RC 000391), an exempt charity in England & Wales and a charity registered in Scotland (SC 038302). The Open University is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority in relation to its secondary activity of credit broking.





  • 9.  RE: Conversations in the Rough

    Posted 05-03-2019 14:35
    Funny enough, there is actually a fair bit of research on the impact of article titles in bibliometric scholarship. It seems as though title catchiness is uncorrelated with article impact, titles that use colons are either uncorrelated or negatively correlated with subsequent citations, and that colons are used less often in the hard sciences. For any interested parties, here are some references to that end:
    --





  • 10.  RE: Conversations in the Rough

    Posted 05-05-2019 19:17
    ​I wonder what everyone's thoughts are for those of us just beginning our publication career?

    Does one play it safe and only use titles that indicate the specific topic and perhaps method? Or does one experiment right from the start of their career with more creative, playful, attention grabbing titles? It seems I should stick with the former so as to enhance clarification and comprehension, and therefore avoid the possible confusion of a more playful title. Playful titles also might be attractive to a certain type of audience member, but perhaps a turnoff to another type of audience member.

    Some good thoughts in this thread for those of us making this decision for the first time. Thanks for that.

    Be well,

    Steven



    ------------------------------
    Steven Cofrancesco, PhD
    Adjunct Professor
    Grand Canyon University
    Phoenix AZ

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  • 11.  RE: Conversations in the Rough

    Posted 05-16-2019 06:20
    Hello everybody,

    to maybe continue the idea of the "best title", I would like to ask what the best/worst research poster was, which you have seen, or what you still can remember from it?!

    I believe that a good poster also needs to rethink your research and you need to boil it down to the most important aspects. This is a difficult task and you might only have a couple of seconds to attract the attention of other researcher. That is why I am wondering what you like to spot in a poster session and what it is to attract your attention.

    Here is my favorite from a Computer Science Conference:


    I am already excited to hear your opinion.

    Best wishes
    Dominik

    ------------------------------
    Dominik Fischer (d.fischer@tum.de)
    Technical University Munich
    München
    ------------------------------