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After presenting a paper at a conference, I have been invited to publish an extended version in a journal. The only requirement I have been told is that it must have at least 30% new material and an explicit justification of how it differs from the original version presented at the conference.

My question is: what title should I use? If I use the same title as the original version, I run the risk of confusing the audience with two papers with the same title. If I use the original title plus the expression 'Extended Version' I run the risk of devaluing the original publication. Could I use a substantially different title?

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    I think the paper is trying to trick you into filling a special number they are preparing. You can say thanks for their generous offer, but I suggest you to do much less additional work (let's say 10%?) and submit it to another relevant journal. The review will still need some work (let's say bringing 20% of new material), but at least it will be review of your work, not additional 30% of work suggested by a journal (on which ground, by the way? are they paying for it?)
    – EarlGrey
    Commented Feb 8, 2022 at 17:21
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    Next time, make your conference version an extended abstract.
    – Yuval Filmus
    Commented Feb 8, 2022 at 20:45
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    @EarlGrey, I suspect that this is in Computer Science, where conference papers are reviewed and are proper publications; so you simply can't publish the same material in a journal "as is". The 30% new material condition is something I've heard before, it seems to be an arbitrary but common threshold for a paper to be considered "not (self-)plagiarism".
    – user3780968
    Commented Feb 9, 2022 at 1:36
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    The 30% new material condition is definitely normal in Computer Science. It's still worth mentioning that there might be tricksters in this context - disreputable journals that try to get contributions from inexperienced researchers by inviting them for such an extended version. Ideally, such an invitation should come from the organizers of the original conference - then it's always legit.
    – lighthouse keeper
    Commented Feb 9, 2022 at 11:53
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    In CS we often reuse the same title. People are used to it and know that the "same" paper may have a conference version (with size constraints), a journal version, an arxiv version, etc. Some reputable journals don't even have the 30% requirement: conferences don't leave enough time for in-depth reviews, and even if something was presented/published in a conference, it still makes sense to send it to a journal for a proper review.
    – Marc Glisse
    Commented Feb 9, 2022 at 14:50

3 Answers 3

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There must be previous examples for this in your field. Look at these examples for inspiration.

One pattern would be to use a "colon title" in which the part after the colon clarifies the content of the extended version. For example, let's assume your original paper was called "X" and presented the theory for "X", and that the 30% extension added an empirical evaluation. The title for the extended version could then be "X: theory and empirical evaluation".

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The title should be different but may not be substantially different. Just adding 'Extended version' is not enough.

You will add 30% new material. Give a new title based on new material.

If you really want to keep the old title, then mix the old title with some mention of new material like 'using', 'adding'.

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Using a substantially different title would confuse people almost as much as using exactly the same title, because it would suggest that the two papers are greatly different. It would also probably result in a bad title, because you thought of the best one the first time round.

Could you add a few words to the original title to account for the new material? If not, I think adding "extended version" is OK.

Or, if the conference paper is not going to be published anywhere, you could use exactly the same title.

Whatever you do, state in the abstract or first sentence that it is an extended version of the other paper.

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