Writing Journal Articles

If you need any writing advice for scientists, you can use numerous books or online resources with excellent tips. This article describes the key steps of writing a paper.

Before You Start Writing

While you are doing a research about your topic, it is very helpful to save journal articles in one of reference management systems. This way, you will have links to all the papers related to your topic. Next, make sure that you have a clearly defined research goal and a list of objectives. In addition, ensure you maintain enough good notes of the material used and the methods applied for answering all the research questions.

Research Paper Structure Usually, a research paper consists of the following sections: Title and Abstract, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion, Acknowledgements, and References. Let’s take a closer look at each of them.

Title & Abstract

These parts of the article help the readers decide whether they need to continue reading the whole paper. This means, you should do your best to write a title, which will grab their attention right away and will make them want to delve into the article. A good idea is to work on the title and abstract after you have completed the paper.

Introduction

In the introductory part, you have to identify specifically what your paper is about, and what your research goal and objectives are.

Materials and Methods

In these sections, you need to present enough detail and outline your rationale for the approach applied. Describe coherently what you did from the very beginning of the experiment. Explain the way you collected the information and the purpose of using concrete analysis techniques.

Results

Here, you have to provide the facts revealed by your work. Make sure you devote enough time to this section as it is one of the most important and has to demonstrate you had a significant goal while working on this paper.

Discussion

In this section, you have to put all the results together into a consistent story and refer back to the results of your own research and the researches of other people. In the end of this part, it is necessary that you have addressed the goals and objectives outlined in the introductory part.

Conclusion

In this section, you have to reiterate the research question, restate the most important results and identify areas for further research.

Acknowledgements and References

Make sure to recognize the contributions of other people to the work you have done, whether these people are assistants, colleagues or any funding agencies that helped you in various aspects of the work. As for the references – this is where the reference management system, which was mentioned previously, comes in, and it has to make it very easy to create the list of references.