Manuscript Title
When writing a scientific research paper, the main titles are not determined by the author. They are usually the preface, materials and methods, results and discussions, or similar terms given by journals. However, the author has to decide how to divide each major part into sections and give them subheadings. It should be noted that all subheadings in the main section should be in the same format, which helps to present the research in the text in a clear structure and make it easy for readers to understand.
Suppose we have a study; we divide the results into three sections:
- Expression of protein X in metastatic colorectal cancer
- Protein X promotes epithelial-mesenchymal transition of colorectal cancer cells
- Protein X affected metastasis in a xenograft model
“The first subtitle here is just a sentence fragment, while the next two are complete sentences. The second subhead uses the present tense, but the third sentence uses the past tense. Besides, the second subheading indicates a specific outcome (i.e., promoting epithelial-mesenchymal transition), while the other subheadings do not tell the reader what to expect (high or low expression? How is the transfer affected?)”.
We can rewrite these headings to make them consistent in style:
- Protein X is upregulated in metastatic colorectal cancer
- Protein X promotes epithelial-mesenchymal transition of colorectal cancer cells
- Protein X promotes metastasis in a xenograft model
Now all the subtitles are a complete sentence and express a specific result. In this way, even if you don’t read the whole results section, the reader can have a certain understanding of the main results. Since the subtitle is the conclusion of the result, we usually use the present tense.
