Today’s text is the first in a series of entries for writing research paper writings. We start today with the abstract and structure of the research paper writing, while the following texts will read, among others:
● about the reader’s orientation and his subconscious expectations,
● about what reviewers focus on,
● about creating good titles and choosing the right keywords,
● about creating your own article templates,
● and about the so-called affordable research papers English and clever ways to improve your own texts.
Enjoy reading!
Table of Contents
Abstract
Three principles of a good abstract:
● abstract does not repeat the information contained in the title (and certainly not the same words),
● just read the abstract to know what the article is talking about – it must be independent, to some extent “self-sufficient”,
● avoid references to your own abstract publications. There is enough space for them in further parts of the article.
There are two types of abstracts : informative abstract and descriptive abstract .
Information abstracts are most commonly found in magazines , they contain a summary of all parts of the article, including methodology and results. The abstract itself without reading the article already gives a great insight into the author’s work.
Descriptive abstracts are more often used in conference articles . They present the subject of the research, but without providing detailed results and most often also without precise methodology descriptions.
This often results from the fact that applications for conferences are sent well in advance, and the author may not necessarily be able to describe all his applications. Descriptive abstracts introduce the subject of research and suggest what can be found in the article, but they cannot replace reading the whole.
Summary (ang. Summary ), usually located at the end of the article, you should not move the subject methods used in the studies or the results achieved previously by others ( State of the Art ), is designed to briefly describe only the research done by the author, their results and the most important conclusions.
IMRAD structure
IMRAD is a structure often used in research paper writings. The name comes from the first letters of individual sections of the article, namely:
● Introduction
● Methods and Materials
● results
● and
● Discussion.
The IMRAD structure is often depicted in the form of an hourglass. The idea is to start the article with a general introduction to the topic and only then gradually move to the details , while finally starting from the detailed results and conclusions obtained, draw broader conclusions and describe possible generalizations and the impact of our work on a given area of science.
Introduction
The introduction first contains the current state of knowledge ; secondly, the reason for conducting the research; third, what is the purpose of the article . It is good to describe why it is worth to fill a given knowledge gap: the mere fact that something is still unknown or that something has not yet been examined is not a sufficient reason to justify such research.
The introduction is also meant to answer the reader’s question : what exactly was done and why should I care ? The construction of the entrance should be in the shape of a “funnel”, as in the drawing of the IMRAD structure. We start with the general public and move on to more and more detailed information.
Sample order:
● presentation of the general theme (context),
● summary of the current state of knowledge (as is known),
● identifying questions and gaps (which are not known),
● motivating research (why you should learn what you do not know),
● showing how the research results in getting answers to these questions (article hypothesis or question it answers).
Methods and Materials
The description of the methods used determines the quality of the article and builds its credibility . Most readers are primarily interested in the results obtained, so they will skip this section and return to it only after reading the rest of the article; or not at all. In some magazines this part is placed in a smaller font, in others even intentionally at the end of the articles. The methodology should be described in sufficient detail to allow others to repeat the study , but not too precisely. Some of the detailed information that is easy to find elsewhere can be omitted. The most common reasons for rejecting articles due to a poorly described part of the methodology:
● poor design of the test stand,
● non-objective, biased data,
● lack of or improper selection of witnesses (control elements),
● a small group of samples
● inaccurate description of the methods used.
Results
In a longer article at the beginning of this section, you can briefly repeat the methods used to summarize the previous section and briefly introduce those who have not read it. This part of the article should present what was examined and what results were obtained , without going into the details of the hypotheses why the results were such and not different at this stage. Principle: ” comment but not discuss “.
The results are the shortest part of the article, they are to present new knowledge , emphasize what is most important in it . In this section, it is worth using graphical presentation of information even more than in all others .
