37.3 Article structure
Many scientific papers have these (or similar) sections, though it varies a lot by discipline:
- Title and authors.
- Abstract: A summary of the whole paper, without details.
- Introduction: Why was the study done, and what was hoping to be achieved?
- Materials and method: How was the study done?
- Results: What was found?
- Discussion (or Summary, or Conclusions): What does it mean?
- References (or Bibliography).
Often the acronym AIMRaD or IMRaD is used to help recall these sections. These components capture certain parts of the six-step research process in this book (Fig. 37.1).
FIGURE 37.1: The connection between the paper and the steps we have studied. The Abstract briefly covers all aspects of the study, and the Discussion combines elements from all areas also.