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12.9 What other criteria should I use to decide whether
to include certain words or not?
You can use an Advanced Scholar Search to check how frequently a word in your
title is used. Under the form ‘Find articles’ insert your word or combination of
words into the ‘with the exact phrase’ field. Then in the ‘where my words occur’

field, choose ‘in the title of the article’.

If the word you choose gets less than a few thousand returns and it is not specifi cally
technical then you should check whether the authors:

• are native speakers

• use the word in the same way and in the same kind of context as you do

If the answer to either of the above is ‘no’, then you need to think of another word.

For example, the title below may make sense in the native language of the author,
but when translated into English it sounds rather strange:

A study on the use of oils and colorants in Roman cosmetics: a witness of make- up
preparation

The problem word is witness , which is here being used to mean evidence or exam-
ple . A search on Google Scholar for “a witness” only gives 1,300 returns, which is
very low given that the concept of evidence and examples is very common in
research. Also, a quick look at the titles in which the term witness appears quickly

indicates that witness is generally confined to a legal context meaning someone who
sees something, it thus refers to a human subject whereas make-up is inanimate. You
can also see words in context on wordnik.com.