What a difference a colon makes (to academic citations)

Following our recent report on the (report of the) finding that Short Paper Titles Tend to Have a Longer Reach (Improbable Research, June 16th 2016) we now inform about (research about) another possible method that academic authors might use to lever increased attention for their paper – with the disarmingly simple trick of adding a colon   :   somewhere in the title. See: ‘What a difference a colon makes: How superficial factors influence subsequent citation’ in: Scientometrics, March 2014, Volume 98, Issue 3, pp 1601-1615, by Maarten van Wesel, Sally Wyatt, and Jeroen ten Haaf.

Notes:

[1] The paper, which notably has a colon in its own title, has (at the time of writing) been cited 12 times.

[2] This format is currently not in vogue :—

[3] Colonic recommendations from the late Professor Larry Trask,

(as maintained by the Department of Informatics, University of Sussex).

Also see: ‘ Ellipsis in English Literature’