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Structure of a Research Paper: Tips to Improve Your Manuscript Enago Academy is here to answer all your questions related to academic research and publishing.

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Structure of a Research Paper: Tips to Improve Your Manuscript - Enago Academy

Structure of a Research Paper: Tips to Improve Your Manuscript Last updated Aug 27, 2018 You’ve spent months or years conducting your academic research. Now it’s time to write your journal article. For some, this can become a daunting task because writing is not their forte. It might become difkcult to even start writing. However, once you organize your thoughts and begin writing them down, the overall task will become easier. We provide some helpful tips for you here.

Organize Your Thoughts Perhaps one of the most important tasks before you even begin to write is to get organized. By this point, your data is compiled and analyzed. You most likely also have many pages of “notes”. These must also be organized. Fortunately, this is much easier to do than in the past with hand-written notes. Presuming that these tasks are completed, what’s next?

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 Related: Ready with your title and looking forward to manuscript submission? Check these journal selection guidelines now!

When suggesting that you organize your thoughts, we mean to take a look at what you have compiled. Ask yourself what you are trying to convey to the reader. What is the most important message from your research? How will your results affect others? Is more research necessary? Write your answers down and keep them where you can see them while writing. This will help you focus on your goals.

Aim for Clarity Your paper should be presented as clearly as possible. You want your readers to understand your research. You also do not want them to stop reading because the text is too technical. Keep in mind that your published research will be available in academic journals all over the world. This means that people of different languages will read it. Moreover, even with scientists, this could present a language barrier. According to a recent article, always remember the following points as you write: Clarity: Cleary dekne terms; avoid nonrelevant information. Simplicity: Keep sentence structure simple and direct. Accuracy: Represent all data and illustrations accurately.

For example, consider the following sentence:

 “Chemical x had an effect on metabolism.”

This is an ambiguous statement. It does not tell the reader much. State the results instead:

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 “Chemical x increased fat metabolism by 20 percent.”

All scientikc research also provide signikcance of kndings, usually presented as dekned “P” values. Be sure to explain these kndings using descriptive terms. For example, rather than using the words “signikcant effect,” use a more descriptive term, such as “signikcant increase.” For more tips, please also see “Tips and Techniques for Scientikc Writing”. In addition, it is very important to have your paper edited by a native English speaking professional editor. There are many editing services available for academic manuscripts and publication support services.

Research Paper Structure With the above in mind, you can now focus on structure. Scientikc papers are organized into specikc sections and each has a goal. We have listed them here. Title Your title is the most important part of your paper. It draws the reader in and tells them what you are presenting. Moreover, if you think about the titles of papers that you might browse in a day and which papers you actually read, you’ll agree. The title should be clear and interesting otherwise the reader will not continue reading. Authors’ names and afkliations are on the title page. Abstract The abstract is a summary of your research. It is nearly as important as the title because the reader will be able to quickly read through it. Most journals, the abstract can become divided into very short sections to guide the reader through the summaries. Keep the sentences short and focused. Avoid acronyms and citations. Introduction Include background information on the subject and your objectives here. Materials and Methods

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Describe the materials used and include the names and locations of Clearly and succinctly explain your methods so that it can be the manufacturers. duplicated. Criteria for inclusion and exclusion in the and the statistical should beof For any animal studies, include where youstudy obtained animalsanalyses and a statement included. humane treatment.

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Results Discuss your kndings here. Be careful to not make deknitive statements. Your results suggest that something is or is not true. This is true even when your results prove your hypothesis. Discussion Discuss what your results mean in this section. Limitations Discuss any study limitations. Suggest additional studies. Acknowledgments Acknowledge all contributors. References All citations in the text must have a corresponding reference. Check your author guidelines for format protocols. Tables and Figures In most cases, your tables and kgures appear at the end of your paper or in a separate kle. The titles (legends) usually become listed after the reference section. Be sure that you dekne each acronym and abbreviation in each table and kgure.

Helpful In their article entitled, “Ten simple rules for structuring papers,” in PLOS Computational Biology, authors Rules Mensh and Kording provided 10 helpful tips as follows: 1. Focus on a central contribution. 2. Write for those who do not know your work. 3. Use the “context-content-conclusion” approach. 4. Avoid superfluous information and use parallel structures. 5. Summarize your research in the abstract. 6. Explain the importance of your research in the introduction. 7. Explain your results in a logical sequence and support them with kgures and tables. 8. Discuss any data gaps and limitations. 9. Allocate your time for the most important sections. 10. Get feedback from colleagues. Some of these rules have been briefly discussed above; however, the study done by the authors does provide detailed explanations on all of them.

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Structure of a Research Paper: Tips to Improve Your Manuscript - Enago

Visit the following links for more helpful information: “Some writing tips for scientikc papers ” “How to Structure Your Dissertation ” “Conciseness in Academic Writing: How to Prune Sentences” “How to Optimize Sentence Length in Academic Writing” So, do you follow any additional tips when structuring your research paper? Share them with us in the comments below!

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Perspective: How to Share Opinion on Research Articles Last updated May 21, 2018

When we think of research articles, most of the time we think of articles that present the results of studies that took a long time to complete. Generally, these articles contain theories, testable hypotheses and extensive methodological justikcations for conducting analyses. There are, however, many other types of research articles that are published in scientikc journals. One of them, a perspective article, presents an important topic, groundbreaking research, or a different view of an existing issue by an expert in that keld of research.

How It All Fits Together Most of the research articles published by academic journals are original research articles. Journal editors tend to Other prefertypes this type of article, especially if itbook presents important advancements in interviews, a research keld, or results. of research articles include reviews, case reports, editorials, commentaries, counterintuitive

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prokles, and interviews, and perspectives. Each journal ultimately decides, based on their keld specialty, what types of research articles they wish to publish. For example, some social science journals (Comparative Political Studies) do not accept perspective research articles, while others refer to them as letters. Perspective research articles have an important role in the academic research portfolio. They stimulate further interest about presented topics within the reader audience. They are different from other types of articles because they present a different take on an existing issue, tackle new and trending issues, or emphasize topics that are important, but have been neglected, in the scholarly literature. In some scientikc kelds they bridge different areas of research that the journal publishes, while in others they bring new issues and ideas to the forefront. In general, their role is to enlighten a general audience about important issues.

Why Write a Perspective? While the incentive system of academic tenure and promotion emphasizes publication of original research, writing other types of articles is also benekcial for the researchers in the long run. It gives researchers the opportunity to contribute to their discipline in different ways, while at the same time enhancing their own professional work. A perspective article is a way for young researchers to gain experience in the publications process that can be often arduous and time consuming. It can be a way in which they learn from the publication process while they are working on their original research articles that often take years to complete. In the case of experienced researchers, writing a perspective article provides them at least two distinct benekts: krst, it allows them to step back and reflect on a signikcant issue that they may know a lot about, but that they have never had the time to address. The second benekt is that the researcher gets the opportunity to give their own authorial voice to a published article that will reach a wide audience.

Pay Attention to Detail Before one decides to write and submit a perspective research article to an academic journal, it is important to become familiar with the article expectations of the target journal. Although academic journals hold a similar deknition and purpose of a perspective article, there are differences in the technical requirements each journal has. When it comes to the length of the perspective article, some journals have strict limitations while others allow articles to vary the length within a given range. For example, some academic journals in the keld of biological sciences and medicine have a limitation of 1,500 and 1,200 words respectively, with dekned reference and kgure limits. Another journal in the same keld has a less restrictive limit of 2,000-4,000 words and a more generous reference limit. With respect to the structure of the perspective article, journals dekne their expectations in different conceptual in the Some journals the time to explain their view terms. Someconnections journals place an assigned emphasiskeld. on the structure of take the article, requiring sections such and as the expectation in writing perspective articles, and provide lists of things to include andnature avoid in abstract, introduction, topicsmake and suggestions conclusion. Other journals make suggestions on the of the the title perspective and the specikc article.

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Writing a perspective article can have many benekts to authors. Although writing one is less demanding than an original research article, it is recommended that an aspiring author consult the targeted journal for requirements. This will ensure that the journal expectations are met, and that the author has a positive krst experience in the writing of this type of research article. Have you had the experience of writing a perspective article? If yes, then what are the keypoints you kept in mind while doing so? Please let us know your thoughts in the comments section below. 

Manuscript drafting tips

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REPORTIN G RESEARCH

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IMPORTAN T LINKS

Language

Selecting

English Editing PhDs & Postdocs Services

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Journals

Journal G

Submitting

uidel ines

Manuscripts

Understanding

& Grants

Reviews

Reference M

Understanding

anagement

Ethics

Figures & Tables

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Services

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