Title Features in Research Articles: A Disciplinary Study of Law

Abstract

This study brings to the fore trends in title research by investigating title features in law papers extracted by law readers from law-related journals. To this end, 447 articles published in 266 journals from 1946 to 2023 were coded and analyzed statistically. Title length, syntactic structure, and content features were considered. The quantitative results reveal that titles in law articles demonstrated 1) an increase in length 2) a favor of single declarative titles and compound titles with colon 3) an obvious trend of using descriptive titles concerning title content. The current study therefore reflects the full complexity and a comprehensive picture of law articles, demonstrates title features and trends in law paper writing, and thus in light of significant findings, introduces novice writers, especially law students, to disciplinary language use in convention.