96 PRS Proofreading and Editing Service PhD Experts • All Academic Areas • Fast Turnaround • High Quality says basically the same thing as the subtitle I have above, but it uses almost twice as many words and simply isn’t as catchy. Do check the journal guidelines on this, however, as some journals aren’t averse to longer titles and a few even ask that the type of study or methodology be identified in the title as a subtitle (or even a secondary subtitle, though to be honest, using two colons in a title isn’t an English style I’d recommend) along the lines of ‘A Study Protocol’ or ‘A Randomised Trial.’ It may be tempting to use abbreviations in your title – an acronym is counted as one word, after all, no matter how many words it abbreviates – but it’s better to avoid them, and many style manuals and journal guidelines will ask that you do. With some terms, however, the abbreviations are better known than the full version (IQ, for instance, and AIDS), so in such cases they are probably appropriate for the title: few publishers would expect you to use ‘intelligence quotient’ instead of IQ in your title. If you find that you absolutely have to use abbreviations in your title, be sure that they are relatively common and will be familiar to the journal’s audience: indeed, all terminology you use in your title should be appropriate to the audience you anticipate, because I can assure you that feeling lost before you’ve even made it through the title is a frustrating reading experience. Be sure to observe any patterns of capitalisation required by the journal to which you’re submitting your paper, and the same is the case with font style and size, the use of punctuation (a colon or a dash between title and subtitle, for example), the placement of the title in relation to other parts of the paper (on a separate page, at the top of the paper or both), and the format of any running heading that may be required. Your title contains only a few of the many words in your paper, but it’s right up at the top for the world (including editors) to see, so you want to make it perfect in terms of language and format, and keep it short and interesting as well. PARt III: commUnIcAtIng wItH JoURnAl edItoRs: sUBmIssIon, AccePtAnce, RevIsIon And ReJectIon