The Parts and Uses of Research Articles

In order to make them instantly recognised and easily understood, research papers always follow a standard format, each part of which has a specific function.

Abstract

The abstract is a summary of the paper. It summarizes, usually in less than 300 words, the area of interest, methodology and principal results of the work. It should let the reader get a good impression of what the paper contains. Reading the abstract will help you decide if the article was what you were looking for, or not, without spending a long time reading the whole paper.

Introduction

The introduction describes the state of knowledge in the relevant area, with reference to work already published, and shows why the work in the paper was necessary. It should clearly state what hypotheses are being tested in the paper, and why the chosen research method is appropriate. Reading the introduction is a test of whether or not you are ready to read the rest of the paper; if the introduction does not make sense to you, then the rest of the paper will not either.

Materials and Methods

This section describes how the research was carried out. It covers everything relevant to the actual experimental procedure, and also how the data collected were analysed. Reading the methods section is helpful in understanding exactly what the authors did. An important criterion when assessing the methods section is to ask, 'does the author(s) give enough information to allow me to repeat' the experiment?' If the answer to this is no, then the methods section is not detailed enough.

Results

The results section represents a summary and analysis of the data. Usually graphs and tables will be included here. The accompanying text contains verbal descriptions of the pieces of data the authors feel were most critical. Note that the results section should simply present the results of the work described, without discussing them.

Three types of information can be extracted from the results section: data from the experiments, ideas about how to improve the methods, and an understanding of how to represent similar data. Clearly, this is the section of the paper you refer to if you need to know exactly what the researchers found out, particularly if you need data to compare with your own findings, or to use to build your own hypothesis. The results section is also useful for understanding whether the methods of an experiment worked well.

Discussion

This is the most 'open' section of the paper. It is where the authors draw conclusions about the results. They may choose to put their results in the context of previous findings and offer theories or new hypotheses that explain the sum body of knowledge in the field. Or the authors may comment on new questions and avenues of exploration that their results give rise to. The purpose of discussion sections in papers is to allow the exchange of ideas between scientists. However, this section is often a good place to get ideas about what kind of research questions are still unanswered in the field and thus what types of questions you might want your own research project to tackle.

References

Throughout the article, the authors will refer to information from other papers. These citations are all listed in the references section, sometimes referred to as the bibliography. Regardless of the type of source, there will always be enough information (authors, title, journal name, publication date, etc.) for you to find the source at a library or online. This makes the reference section incredibly useful for broadening your own literature search.

Give a Book a Good Critical Reading

By the time a paper is published, it has usually been through a process of quality control, called peer review. This involves a small number of people (the referees) not involved in the research project reading the paper and deciding if it is suitable for publication. The editors of the journal are usually also involved in the reviewing process. However, this does not mean it will be perfect. Many published papers contain factual and statistical errors, and statements which are really assertions disguised as objective fact. Given this, and the fact that scientific knowledge is often provisional and changing, the proper attitude when reading scientific papers is one of scepticism: it is the task of the reader to judge whether the authors' conclusions are justified.

(from Якушкина Т.В. Английский язык: практикум для магистрантов / Т.В. Якушкина; М-во культуры РФб С-Петерб. гос. ун-т. Культуры и искусств, Фак. мировой культуры, каф. иностр. яз. – Санкт-Петербург: СПбГУКИ, 2014. – с. 9-11)

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