Untitled

Abstract

The length of article titles in leading law journals decreased by roughly twenty-five percent over the last quarter century. This decline in title length affects high- and low-quality articles published in a year, higher- and lower-ranked journals, and authors from most academic institutions. This suggests that reduced title-length is driven by a broad-based force. Here, I propose that we conceive of titles as choices sensitive to social and technological constraints. At times, authors select titles to directly inform readers of the content of the article; other times, they select titles to competitively market articles to editors and other parties. I speculate that the rise of powerful full-text academic search engines substantially freed authors from an incentive to use titles to inform would-be readers, allowing a marketing function to flourish. Adjusting for article quality, and within journals and within technological regimes, I find that authors who face more competition to market their articles write substantially shorter titles.