How to choose title and keywords for manuscript according to medical subject headings

Abstract

Background: Title and keywords are the two most important parts of a manuscript. The words or phrases used in the title or keywords should be selected wisely for a wider dissemination of the article. Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) terms are used to index article in MEDLINE/PubMed. Hence, choosing the title and keywords according to MeSH would be a better choice for authors. Aim: The aim of this article was to provide a technical guide for selecting words and phrases for title and keywords of an article according to MeSH terms. Methods: The most frequently used words in a manuscript can be identified by the help of word cloud technique. We showed an example of making a word cloud from the text of a manuscript. The method of searching MeSH terms in a manuscript text was shown with an example. Writing title and keywords with amalgamation of these two methods was described. Conclusion: This tutorial showed the use of two freely available tools on the World Wide Web (word cloud and MeSH on demand) for choosing title and keywords for a manuscript. This brief description would help authors in wider dissemination of research knowledge to the targeted audience.

Keywords

• Biomedical research
• internet
• MEDLINE
• publications
• PubMed