The classification of syntactic categories in the analysis was mainly based on a pilot study of 150 titles in two major applied linguistics journals (TESOL Quarterly and The Modern Language Journal). The pilot study yielded five categories, as illustrated below, and showed that this classification seemed able to cover appropriately the syntactic structures used in the titles of applied linguistics RAs. The categories used by previous studies (e.g., Soler, 2007; Haggon, 2004) were also consulted. Existing research revealed that nominal, compound, and full sentences are dominant syntactic structures in titles, while V-ing phrases and prepositional phrases are also present in RA titles, although they may constitute a smaller proportion. The definitions as well as examples of these five categories of syntactic structures of titles are given below.