What exactly is a research paper?

A research paper is a written document that follows a particular format and is written in a formal style with technical language. It has several distinct sections, each with a specific purpose:

The introduction presents the background, general trends, and literature review, and clearly states the purpose of the study.

The method section (or “method and materials”) is a description of the primary-sourced experiment or secondary-sourced data collection.

The results section presents the data (the new information or a new understanding gained through data and data analysis).

The discussion section explores what the data mean and why the findings are important. Sometimes the results and discussion sections are combined; sometimes a paper includes a conclusion. (Mathematics and medical papers are slightly different; more on this later.)

A research paper is also called a journal paper or a journal article, and is often referred to as “a paper.” A proceedings paper is similar to a journal paper. It is a research paper that was presented at a conference and was published in the conference proceedings.

A journal is a collection of research papers (journal articles) published together either in a bound paper format or an electronic format. There are thousands of journals, each with its own particular focus. Some famous journals are The New England Journal of Medicine, Science, and the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). There are journals for engineering, biology, genetics, chemistry, mathematics, statistics, topography…the list is endless. Journals can be very general or very specific, and sometimes focus on a particular region of the world. Some examples are given in Table 1. The covers of three paperbound journals are shown in Figure 1.

A journal article is very different from a magazine article (see Figure 2). A journal contains academic or professional research papers written by researchers who follow strict guidelines in collecting and presenting data. Their work has been carefully evaluated by other scientists and researchers ("peer reviewed") and has been found to be valid and reliable. A journal article will also include the author’s name and affiliation and will be cited and referenced. A magazine is generally aimed at the general public and is sometimes called “mainstream” or “popular media.” Magazine articles are written by journalists and writers, not scientists or researchers. Sometimes the author’s name does not appear. Usually there is no affiliation, and there are no citations or references.

Check back for tips on how to find substantiated sources.

Why write research papers?

It’s not enough just to discover or find something new—it’s important to share this with the scientific community. When we discover something new and submit a research paper about it to a journal, the journal editors (who are also scientists or researchers in the same field) will critically review the work before it is published. In this way, we know the research in journals is valid and reliable and that it adds proven knowledge to the body of existing knowledge. Therefore, the purpose of a research paper is to present a researcher’s findings and analysis to the wider scientific community to add to the growing body of knowledge.

Who reads them?

Different kinds of people read research papers. When you write a research paper, you need to be aware of your readers (the audience). These will be both native and non-native speakers of English, and readers will have varying levels of technical knowledge about your topic. Research is becoming more and more collaborative and interdisciplinary. This means specialists in different fields are working together, such as biologists and engineers, or physicists and chemists. Therefore, not only other mathematicians read mathematics research papers, and not only other chemists will read chemistry papers. The audience will usually understand basic concepts, but any technical terms or processes will need to be explained.

Research papers are usually written and published in English because English is one of the international languages for research. (The other is French.) Research papers are written in a formal writing style and will not include ordinary or conversational language or slang that would be difficult for non-native readers to understand. The language used is also precise and objective, rather than the descriptive and subjective language found in other kinds of writing such as novels and poetry.

Check back later for more information on micro elements of style and language.

The presentation of a research paper will vary slightly depending on the journal which publishes it. All papers will have a title, name and affiliation, abstract, keywords or index terms, main sections, and references; some papers will include an acknowledgment and figures and/or tables. The main sections will include an introduction, method and materials, results, discussion, and conclusion, although sometimes sections are combined (e.g., results and discussion or discussion and conclusion). The presentation of a research paper is explained in the instructions to authors or submission guidelines for a journal, and in this way each journal will specify exactly how the paper should be written. An example of an excerpt from the Journal of Mechanical Engineering is shown in Figure 3.

Formatting and Style Guides

The instructions to authors or submission guidelines will also specify the style conventions that should be followed for the paper. Three common style guides are the American Psychological Association (APA), Modern Language Association (MLA) and Chicago Manual of Style (CMoS). Most science and engineering research papers use IEEE. These style guides explain style elements in detail. For example, Table 2 shows a comparison of text citations and references for APA, MLA and IEEE.

[1] http://www.hindawi.com/images/covers/jr.cover.jpg

[2] http://www.bioch.ox.ac.uk/glycob/covers/j_mol_biol_2009_387%282%29.jpg

[3] http://www.worldacademicunion.com/journal/IJMRI%20cover1.JPG

[4] http://www.banglajol.info/index.php/JME/about/submissions#authorGuidelines

Need support writing a paper? Get editing or mentoring.