science research article vs report

Research Article vs. Research Paper

What's the difference.

A research article and a research paper are both scholarly documents that present the findings of a research study. However, there are some differences between the two. A research article is typically a shorter document that is published in a peer-reviewed journal. It focuses on a specific research question and provides a concise summary of the study's methodology, results, and conclusions. On the other hand, a research paper is usually a longer document that provides a more comprehensive analysis of a research topic. It often includes a literature review, detailed methodology, extensive data analysis, and a discussion of the implications of the findings. While both types of documents contribute to the scientific knowledge base, research papers tend to be more in-depth and provide a more thorough exploration of the research topic.

Further Detail

Introduction.

Research articles and research papers are both essential components of academic and scientific discourse. They serve as vehicles for sharing knowledge, presenting findings, and contributing to the advancement of various fields of study. While the terms "research article" and "research paper" are often used interchangeably, there are subtle differences in their attributes and purposes. In this article, we will explore and compare the key characteristics of research articles and research papers.

Definition and Purpose

A research article is a concise and focused piece of scholarly writing that typically appears in academic journals. It presents original research, experiments, or studies conducted by the author(s) and aims to communicate the findings to the scientific community. Research articles often follow a specific structure, including an abstract, introduction, methodology, results, discussion, and conclusion.

On the other hand, a research paper is a broader term that encompasses various types of academic writing, including research articles. While research papers can also be published in journals, they can take other forms such as conference papers, dissertations, or theses. Research papers provide a more comprehensive exploration of a particular topic, often including a literature review, theoretical framework, and in-depth analysis of the research question.

Length and Depth

Research articles are typically shorter in length compared to research papers. They are usually limited to a specific word count, often ranging from 3000 to 8000 words, depending on the journal's guidelines. Due to their concise nature, research articles focus on presenting the core findings and their implications without delving extensively into background information or theoretical frameworks.

On the other hand, research papers tend to be longer and more comprehensive. They can range from 5000 to 20,000 words or more, depending on the scope of the research and the requirements of the academic institution or conference. Research papers provide a deeper analysis of the topic, including an extensive literature review, theoretical framework, and detailed methodology section.

Structure and Organization

Research articles follow a standardized structure to ensure clarity and consistency across different publications. They typically begin with an abstract, which provides a concise summary of the research question, methodology, results, and conclusions. The introduction section provides background information, states the research problem, and outlines the objectives of the study. The methodology section describes the research design, data collection methods, and statistical analysis techniques used. The results section presents the findings, often accompanied by tables, figures, or graphs. The discussion section interprets the results, compares them with previous studies, and discusses their implications. Finally, the conclusion summarizes the main findings and suggests future research directions.

Research papers, on the other hand, have a more flexible structure depending on the specific requirements of the academic institution or conference. While they may include similar sections as research articles, such as an abstract, introduction, methodology, results, discussion, and conclusion, research papers can also incorporate additional sections such as a literature review, theoretical framework, or appendices. The structure of a research paper is often determined by the depth and complexity of the research conducted.

Publication and Audience

Research articles are primarily published in academic journals, which serve as platforms for disseminating new knowledge within specific disciplines. These journals often have a rigorous peer-review process, where experts in the field evaluate the quality and validity of the research before publication. Research articles are targeted towards a specialized audience of researchers, scholars, and professionals in the respective field.

Research papers, on the other hand, can be published in various formats and venues. They can be presented at conferences, published as chapters in books, or submitted as dissertations or theses. While research papers can also undergo peer-review, they may have a broader audience, including researchers, students, and professionals interested in the topic. The publication of research papers allows for a wider dissemination of knowledge beyond the confines of academic journals.

In conclusion, research articles and research papers are both vital components of academic and scientific discourse. While research articles are concise and focused pieces of scholarly writing that present original research findings, research papers provide a more comprehensive exploration of a particular topic. Research articles follow a standardized structure and are primarily published in academic journals, targeting a specialized audience. On the other hand, research papers have a more flexible structure and can be published in various formats, allowing for a wider dissemination of knowledge. Understanding the attributes and purposes of research articles and research papers is crucial for researchers, scholars, and students alike, as it enables effective communication and contributes to the advancement of knowledge in various fields.

Comparisons may contain inaccurate information about people, places, or facts. Please report any issues.

• TR Global Consultation

Report is different from scientific article?

Most recent answer.

• Purpose and Audience:Scientific Article: The primary goal is to contribute to academic knowledge by presenting original research, theories, or analyses that are peer-reviewed. It is written for an academic audience and is expected to advance the understanding of a particular field. Report: Often intended to document a process, outcome, or a specific project, a report may be more descriptive than analytical and is usually written for a broader audience, including stakeholders outside of academia. Reports often serve to inform or summarize rather than to contribute to academic discourse.
• Depth of Analysis:Scientific Article: It goes beyond merely presenting data or describing processes. It involves critical analysis, situating the research within the broader context of the existing literature, and drawing out implications for the field. The discussion section is especially crucial, where the significance of the findings is thoroughly analyzed and connected to the research questions and existing knowledge. Report: While it may present and analyze data, the analysis tends to be more straightforward and focused on describing what was found or accomplished rather than critically engaging with theoretical implications.
• Structure and Tone:Scientific Article: The tone is often more formal and structured in a way that emphasizes critical engagement with the literature and the research findings. It usually includes a more extensive literature review that connects the study to existing research and highlights its contributions to the field. Report: The structure might be more flexible or practical, with a tone that can be more descriptive or operational, focusing on the methodology and findings without the same depth of theoretical engagement or discussion.
• Presentation of Findings:Scientific Article: Findings are typically framed in the context of hypotheses or research questions. The discussion interprets the results, linking them back to the literature and theoretical framework, and considering limitations and future research directions. Report: Findings may be presented more as a summary or conclusion of the project without the same level of interpretation or connection to broader academic debates.
• Focus on Description Over Analysis: If your manuscript emphasizes the description of your methodology and results without critically engaging with the literature or providing a deep discussion of the implications, it might be perceived as more report-like.
• Limited Theoretical Engagement: A scientific article is expected to contribute to the academic conversation. If your manuscript doesn’t clearly situate your research within the broader theoretical framework or lacks a strong discussion of how your findings advance knowledge in the field, editors might see it as lacking the depth expected of a scientific article.
• Tone and Structure: If the writing is more straightforward and less focused on building an argument or engaging critically with the literature, it might resemble the tone and structure of a report.
• Enhance the Discussion: Focus on the implications of your findings in the discussion section. Tie your results back to the research questions, literature, and theoretical framework. Highlight how your work advances the field.
• Deepen the Literature Review: Ensure your literature review doesn’t just summarize existing work but critically engages with it, showing gaps or debates that your work addresses.
• Clarify Contributions: Make sure your manuscript clearly articulates its contribution to the field. Explain how your research adds new insights or advances understanding.
• Critical Analysis Over Description: Move beyond simply describing your methodology and results. Critically analyze them in the context of the broader academic conversation.

Top contributors to discussions in this field

• Italian National Research Council

• Forest Research Institute Dehradun

• The World Islamic Science and Education University (WISE)

• University of Basrah

• Spanish National Research Council

Get help with your research

Join ResearchGate to ask questions, get input, and advance your work.

All Answers (12)

• Quality_criteria_for_pape rs.pdf 38.2 kB

Similar questions and discussions

• Asked 31 March 2022

• Asked 22 February 2021

• Asked 7 November 2019

• Asked 2 November 2012

• Asked 8 August 2024

• Asked 28 July 2024

• Asked 11 July 2024

• Asked 3 July 2024

Related Publications

• Recruit researchers
• Join for free
• Login Email Tip: Most researchers use their institutional email address as their ResearchGate login Password Forgot password? Keep me logged in Log in or Continue with Google Welcome back! Please log in. Email · Hint Tip: Most researchers use their institutional email address as their ResearchGate login Password Forgot password? Keep me logged in Log in or Continue with Google No account? Sign up

• SpringerLink shop

Types of journal articles

It is helpful to familiarise yourself with the different types of articles published by journals. Although it may appear there are a large number of types of articles published due to the wide variety of names they are published under, most articles published are one of the following types; Original Research, Review Articles, Short reports or Letters, Case Studies, Methodologies.

Original Research:

This is the most common type of journal manuscript used to publish full reports of data from research. It may be called an  Original Article, Research Article, Research, or just  Article, depending on the journal. The Original Research format is suitable for many different fields and different types of studies. It includes full Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion sections.

Short reports or Letters:

These papers communicate brief reports of data from original research that editors believe will be interesting to many researchers, and that will likely stimulate further research in the field. As they are relatively short the format is useful for scientists with results that are time sensitive (for example, those in highly competitive or quickly-changing disciplines). This format often has strict length limits, so some experimental details may not be published until the authors write a full Original Research manuscript. These papers are also sometimes called Brief communications .

Review Articles:

Review Articles provide a comprehensive summary of research on a certain topic, and a perspective on the state of the field and where it is heading. They are often written by leaders in a particular discipline after invitation from the editors of a journal. Reviews are often widely read (for example, by researchers looking for a full introduction to a field) and highly cited. Reviews commonly cite approximately 100 primary research articles.

TIP: If you would like to write a Review but have not been invited by a journal, be sure to check the journal website as some journals to not consider unsolicited Reviews. If the website does not mention whether Reviews are commissioned it is wise to send a pre-submission enquiry letter to the journal editor to propose your Review manuscript before you spend time writing it.  

Case Studies:

These articles report specific instances of interesting phenomena. A goal of Case Studies is to make other researchers aware of the possibility that a specific phenomenon might occur. This type of study is often used in medicine to report the occurrence of previously unknown or emerging pathologies.

Methodologies or Methods

These articles present a new experimental method, test or procedure. The method described may either be completely new, or may offer a better version of an existing method. The article should describe a demonstrable advance on what is currently available.

Back │ Next

Understanding Scientific Journals and Articles: How to approach reading journal articles

by Anthony Carpi, Ph.D., Anne E. Egger, Ph.D., Natalie H. Kuldell

Listen to this reading

Did you know that scientific literature goes all the way back to 600 BCE? Although scientific articles have changed some – for example, Isaac Newton wrote about the fun he had with prisms in a 1672 scientific article – the basics remain the same. This ensures that published research becomes part of the archive of scientific knowledge upon which other scientists can build.

Scientists make their research available to the community by publishing it in scientific journals.

In scientific papers, scientists explain the research that they are building on, their research methods, data and data analysis techniques, and their interpretation of the data.

Understanding how to read scientific papers is a critical skill for scientists and students of science.

We've all read the headlines at the supermarket checkout line: "Aliens Abduct New Jersey School Teacher" or "Quadruplets Born to 99-Year-Old Woman: Exclusive Photos Inside." Journals like the National Enquirer sell copies by publishing sensational headlines, and most readers believe only a fraction of what is printed. A person more interested in news than gossip could buy a publication like Time, Newsweek or Discover . These magazines publish information on current news and events, including recent scientific advances. These are not original reports of scientific research , however. In fact, most of these stories include phrases like, "A group of scientists recently published their findings on..." So where do scientists publish their findings?

Scientists publish their original research in scientific journals, which are fundamentally different from news magazines. The articles in scientific journals are not written by journalists – they are written by scientists. Scientific articles are not sensational stories intended to entertain the reader with an amazing discovery, nor are they news stories intended to summarize recent scientific events, nor even records of every successful and unsuccessful research venture. Instead, scientists write articles to describe their findings to the community in a transparent manner.

• Scientific journals vs. popular media

Within a scientific article, scientists present their research questions, the methods by which the question was approached, and the results they achieved using those methods. In addition, they present their analysis of the data and describe some of the interpretations and implications of their work. Because these articles report new work for the first time, they are called primary literature . In contrast, articles or news stories that review or report on scientific research already published elsewhere are referred to as secondary .

The articles in scientific journals are different from news articles in another way – they must undergo a process called peer review , in which other scientists (the professional peers of the authors) evaluate the quality and merit of research before recommending whether or not it should be published (see our Peer Review module). This is a much lengthier and more rigorous process than the editing and fact-checking that goes on at news organizations. The reason for this thorough evaluation by peers is that a scientific article is more than a snapshot of what is going on at a certain time in a scientist's research. Instead, it is a part of what is collectively called the scientific literature, a global archive of scientific knowledge. When published, each article expands the library of scientific literature available to all scientists and contributes to the overall knowledge base of the discipline of science.

Comprehension Checkpoint

• Scientific journals: Degrees of specialization

Figure 1: Nature : An example of a scientific journal.

There are thousands of scientific journals that publish research articles. These journals are diverse and can be distinguished according to their field of specialization. Among the most broadly targeted and competitive are journals like Cell , the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), Nature , and Science that all publish a wide variety of research articles (see Figure 1 for an example). Cell focuses on all areas of biology, NEJM on medicine, and both Science and Nature publish articles in all areas of science. Scientists submit manuscripts for publication in these journals when they feel their work deserves the broadest possible audience.

Just below these journals in terms of their reach are the top-tier disciplinary journals like Analytical Chemistry, Applied Geochemistry, Neuron, Journal of Geophysical Research , and many others. These journals tend to publish broad-based research focused on specific disciplines, such as chemistry, geology, neurology, nuclear physics, etc.

Next in line are highly specialized journals, such as the American Journal of Potato Research, Grass and Forage Science, the Journal of Shellfish Research, Neuropeptides, Paleolimnology , and many more. While the research published in various journals does not differ in terms of the quality or the rigor of the science described, it does differ in its degree of specialization: These journals tend to be more specialized, and thus appeal to a more limited audience.

All of these journals play a critical role in the advancement of science and dissemination of information (see our Utilizing the Scientific Literature module for more information). However, to understand how science is disseminated through these journals, you must first understand how the articles themselves are formatted and what information they contain. While some details about format vary between journals and even between articles in the same journal, there are broad characteristics that all scientific journal articles share.

• The standard format of journal articles

In June of 2005, the journal Science published a research report on a sighting of the ivory-billed woodpecker, a bird long considered extinct in North America (Fitzpatrick et al., 2005). The work was of such significance and broad interest that it was displayed prominently on the cover (Figure 2) and highlighted by an editorial at the front of the journal (Kennedy, 2005). The authors were aware that their findings were likely to be controversial, and they worked especially hard to make their writing clear. Although the article has no headings within the text, it can easily be divided into sections:

Figure 2: A picture of the cover of Science from June 3, 2005.

Title and authors: The title of a scientific article should concisely and accurately summarize the research . Here, the title used is "Ivory-billed Woodpecker ( Campephilus principalis ) Persists in North America." While it is meant to capture attention, journals avoid using misleading or overly sensational titles (you can imagine that a tabloid might use the headline "Long-dead Giant Bird Attacks Canoeists!"). The names of all scientific contributors are listed as authors immediately after the title. You may be used to seeing one or maybe two authors for a book or newspaper article, but this article has seventeen authors! It's unlikely that all seventeen of those authors sat down in a room and wrote the manuscript together. Instead, the authorship reflects the distribution of the workload and responsibility for the research, in addition to the writing. By convention, the scientist who performed most of the work described in the article is listed first, and it is likely that the first author did most of the writing. Other authors had different contributions; for example, Gene Sparling is the person who originally spotted the bird in Arkansas and was subsequently contacted by the scientists at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology. In some cases, but not in the woodpecker article, the last author listed is the senior researcher on the project, or the scientist from whose lab the project originated. Increasingly, journals are requesting that authors detail their exact contributions to the research and writing associated with a particular study.

Abstract: The abstract is the first part of the article that appears right after the listing of authors in an article. In it, the authors briefly describe the research question, the general methods , and the major findings and implications of the work. Providing a summary like this at the beginning of an article serves two purposes: First, it gives readers a way to decide whether the article in question discusses research that interests them, and second, it is entered into literature databases as a means of providing more information to people doing scientific literature searches. For both purposes, it is important to have a short version of the full story. In this case, all of the critical information about the timing of the study, the type of data collected, and the potential interpretations of the findings is captured in four straightforward sentences as seen below:

The ivory-billed woodpecker ( Campephilus principalis ), long suspected to be extinct, has been rediscovered in the Big Woods region of eastern Arkansas. Visual encounters during 2004 and 2005, and analysis of a video clip from April 2004, confirm the existence of at least one male. Acoustic signatures consistent with Campephilus display drums also have been heard from the region. Extensive efforts to find birds away from the primary encounter site remain unsuccessful, but potential habitat for a thinly distributed source population is vast (over 220,000 hectares).

Introduction: The central research question and important background information are presented in the introduction. Because science is a process that builds on previous findings, relevant and established scientific knowledge is cited in this section and then listed in the References section at the end of the article. In many articles, a heading is used to set this and subsequent sections apart, but in the woodpecker article the introduction consists of the first three paragraphs, in which the history of the decline of the woodpecker and previous studies are cited. The introduction is intended to lead the reader to understand the authors' hypothesis and means of testing it. In addition, the introduction provides an opportunity for the authors to show that they are aware of the work that scientists have done before them and how their results fit in, explicitly building on existing knowledge.

Materials and methods: In this section, the authors describe the research methods they used (see The Practice of Science module for more information on these methods). All procedures, equipment, measurement parameters , etc. are described in detail sufficient for another researcher to evaluate and/or reproduce the research. In addition, authors explain the sources of error and procedures employed to reduce and measure the uncertainty in their data (see our Uncertainty, Error, and Confidence module). The detail given here allows other scientists to evaluate the quality of the data collected. This section varies dramatically depending on the type of research done. In an experimental study, the experimental set-up and procedure would be described in detail, including the variables , controls , and treatment . The woodpecker study used a descriptive research approach, and the materials and methods section is quite short, including the means by which the bird was initially spotted (on a kayaking trip) and later photographed and videotaped.

Results: The data collected during the research are presented in this section, both in written form and using tables, graphs, and figures (see our Using Graphs and Visual Data module). In addition, all statistical and data analysis techniques used are presented (see our Statistics in Science module). Importantly, the data should be presented separately from any interpretation by the authors. This separation of data from interpretation serves two purposes: First, it gives other scientists the opportunity to evaluate the quality of the actual data, and second, it allows others to develop their own interpretations of the findings based on their background knowledge and experience. In the woodpecker article, the data consist largely of photographs and videos (see Figure 3 for an example). The authors include both the raw data (the photograph) and their analysis (the measurement of the tree trunk and inferred length of the bird perched on the trunk). The sketch of the bird on the right-hand side of the photograph is also a form of analysis, in which the authors have simplified the photograph to highlight the features of interest. Keeping the raw data (in the form of a photograph) facilitated reanalysis by other scientists: In early 2006, a team of researchers led by the American ornithologist David Sibley reanalyzed the photograph in Figure 3 and came to the conclusion that the bird was not an ivory-billed woodpecker after all (Sibley et al, 2006).

Figure 3: An example of the data presented in the Ivory-billed woodpecker article (Fitzpatrick et al ., 2005, Figure 1).

Discussion and conclusions: In this section, authors present their interpretation of the data , often including a model or idea they feel best explains their results. They also present the strengths and significance of their work. Naturally, this is the most subjective section of a scientific research article as it presents interpretation as opposed to strictly methods and data, but it is not speculation by the authors. Instead, this is where the authors combine their experience, background knowledge, and creativity to explain the data and use the data as evidence in their interpretation (see our Data Analysis and Interpretation module). Often, the discussion section includes several possible explanations or interpretations of the data; the authors may then describe why they support one particular interpretation over the others. This is not just a process of hedging their bets – this how scientists say to their peers that they have done their homework and that there is more than one possible explanation. In the woodpecker article, for example, the authors go to great lengths to describe why they believe the bird they saw is an ivory-billed woodpecker rather than a variant of the more common pileated woodpecker, knowing that this is a likely potential rebuttal to their initial findings. A final component of the conclusions involves placing the current work back into a larger context by discussing the implications of the work. The authors of the woodpecker article do so by discussing the nature of the woodpecker habitat and how it might be better preserved.

In many articles, the results and discussion sections are combined, but regardless, the data are initially presented without interpretation .

References: Scientific progress requires building on existing knowledge, and previous findings are recognized by directly citing them in any new work. The citations are collected in one list, commonly called "References," although the precise format for each journal varies considerably. The reference list may seem like something you don't actually read, but in fact it can provide a wealth of information about whether the authors are citing the most recent work in their field or whether they are biased in their citations towards certain institutions or authors. In addition, the reference section provides readers of the article with more information about the particular research topic discussed. The reference list for the woodpecker article includes a wide variety of sources that includes books, other journal articles, and personal accounts of bird sightings.

Supporting material: Increasingly, journals make supporting material that does not fit into the article itself – like extensive data tables, detailed descriptions of methods , figures, and animations – available online. In this case, the video footage shot by the authors is available online, along with several other resources.

• Reading the primary literature

The format of a scientific article may seem overly structured compared to many other things you read, but it serves a purpose by providing an archive of scientific research in the primary literature that we can build on. Though isolated examples of that archive go as far back as 600 BCE (see the Babylonian tablets in our Description in Scientific Research module), the first consistently published scientific journal was the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London , edited by Henry Oldenburg for the Royal Society beginning in 1666 (see our Scientific Institutions and Societies module). These early scientific writings include all of the components listed above, but the writing style is surprisingly different than a modern journal article. For example, Isaac Newton opened his 1672 article "New Theory About Light and Colours" with the following:

I shall without further ceremony acquaint you, that in the beginning of the Year 1666...I procured me a Triangular glass-Prisme, to try therewith the celebrated Phenomena of Colours . And in order thereto having darkened my chamber, and made a small hole in my window-shuts, to let in a convenient quantity of the Suns light, I placed my Prisme at his entrance, that it might be thereby refracted to the opposite wall. It was at first a very pleasing divertissement, to view the vivid and intense colours produced thereby; but after a while applying my self to consider them more circumspectly, I became surprised to see them in an oblong form; which, according to the received laws of Refraction, I expected should have been circular . (Newton, 1672)

Figure 4: Isaac Newton described the rainbow produced by a prism as a "pleasing divertissement."

Newton describes his materials and methods in the first few sentences ("... a small hole in my window-shuts"), describes his results ("an oblong form"), refers to the work that has come before him ("the received laws of Refraction"), and highlights how his results differ from his expectations. Today, however, Newton 's statement that the "colours" produced were a "very pleasing divertissement" would be out of place in a scientific article (Figure 4). Much more typically, modern scientific articles are written in an objective tone, typically without statements of personal opinion to avoid any appearance of bias in the interpretation of their results. Unfortunately, this tone often results in overuse of the passive voice, with statements like "a Triangular glass-Prisme was procured" instead of the wording Newton chose: "I procured me a Triangular glass-Prisme." The removal of the first person entirely from the articles reinforces the misconception that science is impersonal, boring, and void of creativity, lacking the enjoyment and surprise described by Newton. The tone can sometimes be misleading if the study involves many authors, making it unclear who did what work. The best scientific writers are able to both present their work in an objective tone and make their own contributions clear.

The scholarly vocabulary in scientific articles can be another obstacle to reading the primary literature. Materials and Methods sections often are highly technical in nature and can be confusing if you are not intimately familiar with the type of research being conducted. There is a reason for all of this vocabulary, however: An explicit, technical description of materials and methods provides a means for other scientists to evaluate the quality of the data presented and can often provide insight to scientists on how to replicate or extend the research described.

The tone and specialized vocabulary of the modern scientific article can make it hard to read, but understanding the purpose and requirements for each section can help you decipher the primary literature. Learning to read scientific articles is a skill, and like any other skill, it requires practice and experience to master. It is not, however, an impossible task.

Strange as it seems, the most efficient way to tackle a new article may be through a piecemeal approach, reading some but not all the sections and not necessarily in their order of appearance. For example, the abstract of an article will summarize its key points, but this section can often be dense and difficult to understand. Sometimes the end of the article may be a better place to start reading. In many cases, authors present a model that fits their data in this last section of the article. The discussion section may emphasize some themes or ideas that tie the story together, giving the reader some foundation for reading the article from the beginning. Even experienced scientists read articles this way – skimming the figures first, perhaps, or reading the discussion and then going back to the results. Often, it takes a scientist multiple readings to truly understand the authors' work and incorporate it into their personal knowledge base in order to build on that knowledge.

• Building knowledge and facilitating discussion

The process of science does not stop with the publication of the results of research in a scientific article. In fact, in some ways, publication is just the beginning. Scientific journals also provide a means for other scientists to respond to the work they publish; like many newspapers and magazines, most scientific journals publish letters from their readers.

Unlike the common "Letters to the Editor" of a newspaper, however, the letters in scientific journals are usually critical responses to the authors of a research study in which alternative interpretations are outlined. When such a letter is received by a journal editor, it is typically given to the original authors so that they can respond, and both the letter and response are published together. Nine months after the original publication of the woodpecker article, Science published a letter (called a "Comment") from David Sibley and three of his colleagues, who reinterpreted the Fitzpatrick team's data and concluded that the bird in question was a more common pileated woodpecker, not an ivory-billed woodpecker (Sibley et al., 2006). The team from the Cornell lab wrote a response supporting their initial conclusions, and Sibley's team followed that up with a response of their own in 2007 (Fitzpatrick et al., 2006; Sibley at al., 2007). As expected, the research has generated significant scientific controversy and, in addition, has captured the attention of the public, spreading the story of the controversy into the popular media.

For more information about this story see The Case of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker module.

Table of Contents

Activate glossary term highlighting to easily identify key terms within the module. Once highlighted, you can click on these terms to view their definitions.

Activate NGSS annotations to easily identify NGSS standards within the module. Once highlighted, you can click on them to view these standards.

Select a year to see courses

Learn online or on-campus during the term or school holidays

• Maths Acceleration
• English Advanced
• Maths Standard
• Maths Advanced
• Maths Extension 1
• English Standard
• Maths Extension 2

Get HSC exam ready in just a week

• UCAT Exam Preparation

Select a year to see available courses

• English Units 1/2
• Biology Units 1/2
• Chemistry Units 1/2
• Physics Units 1/2
• Maths Methods Units 1/2
• English Units 3/4
• Maths Methods Units 3/4
• Biology Unit 3/4
• Chemistry Unit 3/4
• Physics Unit 3/4
• Matrix Learning Methods
• Matrix+ Online Courses
• Matrix Term Courses
• Matrix Holiday Courses
• Campus overview
• Castle Hill
• Strathfield
• Sydney City
• Liverpool (Opening soon)
• Year 3 NAPLAN Guide
• OC Test Guide
• Selective Schools Guide
• NSW Primary School Rankings
• NSW High School Rankings
• NSW High Schools Guide
• VIC School Rankings
• ATAR & Scaling Guide
• HSC Study Planning Kit
• Student Success Secrets
• Reading List
• Year 6 English
• Year 7 & 8 English
• Year 9 English
• Year 10 English
• Year 11 English Standard
• Year 11 English Advanced
• Year 12 English Standard
• Year 12 English Advanced
• HSC English Skills
• How To Write An Essay
• How to Analyse Poetry
• English Techniques Toolkit
• Year 7 Maths
• Year 8 Maths
• Year 9 Maths
• Year 10 Maths
• Year 11 Maths Advanced
• Year 11 Maths Extension 1
• Year 12 Maths Standard 2
• Year 12 Maths Advanced
• Year 12 Maths Extension 1
• Year 12 Maths Extension 2

Science guides to help you get ahead

• Year 11 Biology
• Year 11 Chemistry
• Year 11 Physics
• Year 12 Biology
• Year 12 Chemistry
• Year 12 Physics
• Physics Practical Skills
• Periodic Table
• Set Location
• 1300 008 008
• 1300 634 117

Welcome to Matrix Education

To ensure we are showing you the most relevant content, please select your location below.

How to Write a Scientific Report | Step-by-Step Guide

Got to document an experiment but don't know how? In this post, we'll guide you step-by-step through how to write a scientific report and provide you with an example.

Get free study tips and resources delivered to your inbox.

Join 75,893 students who already have a head start.

" * " indicates required fields

You might also like

• Literary Techniques: Simile
• 20 Words Your Year 7 Child Must Know | Vocabulary Test
• How To Find The Right Work Experience And Prepare For It
• Tips For Matrix Year 11 Subject Selection
• How To Respond To NESA Key Words To Ace Your HSC

Related courses

Year 9 science, year 10 science.

Is your teacher expecting you to write an experimental report for every class experiment? Are you still unsure about how to write a scientific report properly? Don’t fear! We will guide you through all the parts of a scientific report, step-by-step.

How to write a scientific report:

• What is a scientific report
• General rules to write Scientific reports
• Syllabus dot point 
• Introduction/Background information
• Risk assessment

What is a scientific report?

A scientific report documents all aspects of an experimental investigation. This includes:

• The aim of the experiment
• The hypothesis
• An introduction to the relevant background theory
• The methods used
• The results
• A discussion of the results
• The conclusion

Scientific reports allow their readers to understand the experiment without doing it themselves. In addition, scientific reports give others the opportunity to check the methodology of the experiment to ensure the validity of the results.

Download your free experimental report template

A template to teach you to write perfect science reports

Done! Your download has been emailed.

Please allow a few minutes for it to land in your inbox.

We take your privacy seriously. T&Cs  and  Privacy Policy .

A scientific report is written in several stages. We write the introduction, aim, and hypothesis before performing the experiment, record the results during the experiment, and complete the discussion and conclusions after the experiment.

But, before we delve deeper into how to write a scientific report, we need to have a science experiment to write about! Read our 7 Simple Experiments You Can Do At Home article and see which one you want to do.

General rules about writing scientific reports

Learning how to write a scientific report is different from writing English essays or speeches!

You have to use:

• Passive voice (which you should avoid when writing for other subjects like English!)
• Past-tense language
• Headings and subheadings
• A pencil to draw scientific diagrams and graphs
• Simple and clear lines for scientific diagrams
• Tables and graphs where necessary

Structure of scientific reports:

Now that you know the general rules on how to write scientific reports, let’s look at the conventions for their structure!

The title should simply introduce what your experiment is about.

The Role of Light in Photosynthesis

2. Introduction/Background information

Write a paragraph that gives your readers background information to understand your experiment.

This includes explaining scientific theories, processes and other related knowledge.

Photosynthesis is a vital process for life. It occurs when plants intake carbon dioxide, water, and light, and results in the production of glucose and water. The light required for photosynthesis is absorbed by chlorophyll, the green pigment of plants, which is contained in the chloroplasts.

The glucose produced through photosynthesis is stored as starch, which is used as an energy source for the plant and its consumers.

The presence of starch in the leaves of a plant indicates that photosynthesis has occurred.

The aim identifies what is going to be tested in the experiment. This should be short, concise and clear.

The aim of the experiment is to test whether light is required for photosynthesis to occur.

4. Hypothesis

The hypothesis is a prediction of the outcome of the experiment. You have to use background information to make an educated prediction.

It is predicted that photosynthesis will occur only in leaves that are exposed to light and not in leaves that are not exposed to light. This will be indicated by the presence or absence of starch in the leaves.

5. Risk assessment

Identify the hazards associated with the experiment and provide a method to prevent or minimise the risks. A hazard is something that can cause harm, and the risk is the likelihood that harm will occur from the hazard.

A table is an excellent way to present your risk assessment.

Remember, you have to specify the  type of harm that can occur because of the hazard. It is not enough to simply identify the hazard.

• Do not write:  “Scissors are sharp”
• Instead, you have to write:  “Scissors are sharp and can cause injury”

The method has 3 parts:

• A list of every material used
• Steps of what you did in the experiment
• A scientific diagram of the experimental apparatus

Let’s break down what you need to do for each section.

6a. Materials

This must list every piece of equipment and material you used in the experiment.

Remember, you need to also specify the amount of each material you used.

• 1 geranium plant
• Aluminium foil
• 2 test tubes
• 1 test tube rack
• 1 pair of scissors
• 1 250 mL beaker
• 1 pair of forceps
• 1 10 mL measuring cylinder
• Iodine solution (5 mL)
• Methylated spirit (50ml)
• Boiling water
• 2 Petri dishes

The rule of thumb is that you should write the method in a clear way so that readers are able to repeat the experiment and get similar results.

Using a numbered list for the steps of your experimental procedure is much clearer than writing a whole paragraph of text.  The steps should:

• Be written in a sequential order, based on when they were performed.
• Specify any equipment that was used.
• Specify the quantity of any materials that were used.

You also need to use past tense and passive voice when you are writing your method. Scientific reports are supposed to show the readers what you did in the experiment, not what you will do.

• Aluminium foil was used to fully cover a leaf of the geranium plant. The plant was left in the sun for three days.
• On the third day, the covered leaf and 1 non-covered leaf were collected from the plant. The foil was removed from the covered leaf, and a 1 cm square was cut from each leaf using a pair of scissors.
• 150 mL of water was boiled in a kettle and poured into a 250 mL beaker.
• Using forceps, the 1 cm square of covered leaf was placed into the beaker of boiling water for 2 minutes. It was then placed in a test tube labelled “dark”.
• The water in the beaker was discarded and replaced with 150 mL of freshly boiled water.
• Using forceps, the 1 cm square non-covered leaf was placed into the beaker of boiling water for 2 minutes. It was then placed in a test tube labelled “light”
• 5 mL of methylated spirit was measured with a measuring cylinder and poured into each test tube so that the leaves were fully covered.
• The water in the beaker was replaced with 150 mL of freshly boiled water and both the “light” and “dark” test tubes were immersed in the beaker of boiling water for 5 minutes.
• The leaves were collected from each test tube with forceps, rinsed under cold running water, and placed onto separate labelled Petri dishes.
• 3 drops of iodine solution were added to each leaf.
• Both Petri dishes were placed side by side and observations were recorded.
• The experiment was repeated 5 times, and results were compared between different groups.

6c. Diagram

After you finish your steps, it is time to draw your scientific diagrams! Here are some rules for drawing scientific diagrams:

• Always use a pencil to draw your scientific diagrams.
• Use simple, sharp, 2D lines and shapes to draw your diagram. Don’t draw 3D shapes or use shading.
• Label everything in your diagram.
• Use thin, straight lines to label your diagram. Do not use arrows.
• Ensure that the label lines touch the outline of the equipment you are labelling and not cross over it or stop short of it
• The label lines should never cross over each other.
• Use a ruler for any straight lines in your diagram.
• Draw a sufficiently large diagram so all components can be seen clearly.

This is where you document the results of your experiment. The data that you record for your experiment will generally be qualitative and/or quantitative.

Qualitative data is data that relates to qualities and is based on observations (qualitative – quality). This type of data is descriptive and is recorded in words. For example, the colour changed from green to orange, or the liquid became hot.

Quantitative data refers to numerical data (quantitative – quantity). This type of data is recorded using numbers and is either measured or counted. For example, the plant grew 5.2 cm, or there were 5 frogs.

You also need to record your results in an appropriate way. Most of the time, a table is the best way to do this.

Here are some rules to using tables

• Use a pencil and a ruler to draw your table
• Draw neat and straight lines
• Ensure that the table is closed (connect all your lines)
• Don’t cross your lines (erase any lines that stick out of the table)
• Use appropriate columns and rows
• Properly name each column and row (including the units of measurement in brackets)
• Do not write your units in the body of your table (units belong in the header)
• Always include a title

Note : If your results require calculations, clearly write each step.

Observations of the effects of light on the amount of starch in plant leaves.

If quantitative data was recorded, the data is often also plotted on a graph.

8. Discussion

The discussion is where you analyse and interpret your results, and identify any experimental errors or possible areas of improvements.

You should divide your discussion as follows.

1. Trend in the results

Describe the ‘trend’ in your results. That is, the relationship you observed between your independent and dependent variables.

The independent variable is the variable that you are changing in the experiment. In this experiment, it is the amount of light that the leaves are exposed to.

The dependent variable is the variable that you are measuring in the experiment, In this experiment, it is the presence of starch in the leaves.

Explain how a particular result is achieved by referring to scientific knowledge, theories and any other scientific resources you find. 2. Scientific explanation: 

The presence of starch is indicated when the addition of iodine causes the leaf to turn dark purple. The results show that starch was present in the leaves that were exposed to light, while the leaves that were not exposed to light did not contain starch.

2. Scientific explanation:

Provide an explanation of the results using scientific knowledge, theories and any other scientific resources you find.

As starch is produced during photosynthesis, these results show that light plays a key role in photosynthesis.

3. Validity 

Validity refers to whether or not your results are valid. This can be done by examining your variables.

VA lidity =  VA riables

Identify the independent, dependent, controlled variables and the control experiment (if you have one).

The controlled variables are the variables that you keep the same across all tests e.g. the size of the leaf sample.

The control experiment is where you don’t apply an independent variable. It is untouched for the whole experiment.

Ensure that you never change more than one variable at a time!

The independent variable of the experiment was amount of light that the leaves were exposed to (the covered and uncovered geranium leaf), while the dependent variable was the presence of starch. The controlled variables were the size of the leaf sample, the duration of the experiment, the amount of time the solutions were heated, and the amount of iodine solution used.

4. Reliability 

Identify how you ensured the reliability of the results.

RE liability = RE petition

Show that you repeated your experiments, cross-checked your results with other groups or collated your results with the class.

The reliability of the results was ensured by repeating the experiment 5 times and comparing results with other groups. Since other groups obtained comparable results, the results are reliable.

5. Accuracy

Accuracy should be discussed if your results are in the form of quantitative data, and there is an accepted value for the result.

Accuracy would not be discussed for our example photosynthesis experiment as qualitative data was collected, however it would if we were measuring gravity using a pendulum:

The measured value of gravity was 9.8 m/s 2 , which is in agreement with the accepted value of 9.8 m/s 2 .

6. Possible improvements 

Identify any errors or risks found in the experiment and provide a method to improve it.

If there are none, then suggest new ways to improve the experimental design, and/or minimise error and risks.

Possible improvements could be made by including control experiments. For example, testing whether the iodine solution turns dark purple when added to water or methylated spirits. This would help to ensure that the purple colour observed in the experiments is due to the presence of starch in the leaves rather than impurities.

9. Conclusion

State whether the aim was achieved, and if your hypothesis was supported.

The aim of the investigation was achieved, and it was found that light is required for photosynthesis to occur. This was evidenced by the presence of starch in leaves that had been exposed to light, and the absence of starch in leaves that had been unexposed. These results support the proposed hypothesis.

Learn everything you need to know about Science

Gain the confidence and skills to ace Science!

Learn one term ahead of school with the Subject Matter Experts!

Learn more ?

Written by Matrix Science Team

© Matrix Education and www.matrix.edu.au, 2023. Unauthorised use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Matrix Education and www.matrix.edu.au with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Year 9 Science tutoring at Matrix is known for helping students build a strong foundation before studying Biology, Chemistry or Physics in senior school.

Learning methods available

Level 9 Science tutoring program

Year 10 Science tutoring at Matrix is known for helping students build a strong foundation before studying Biology, Chemistry or Physics in Year 11 and 12.

Level 10 Science tutoring program for Victorian students

Related articles

5 Must-Dos to Add Sophistication to Your Writing | Year 9 & 10 English

Don't know what to do when your teachers tell you to add sophistication to your writing? Don't worry. This article will explain it all! Spoiler alert: we're not telling you to use more difficult vocabulary.

Vaneeza’s Hacks: My Secrets For Developing A Successful Work Ethic

Vaneeza reflects on the past year and shares her strategies to maintain a successful study routine, even through uncertain times.

How Primary School Students Can Improve Their Writing Skills

In this post, we explain how you can help your child prepare for the first year of High School.

Maxwell Library | Bridgewater State University

Today's Hours: 

• Maxwell Library
• Scholarly Journals and Popular Magazines
• Differences in Research, Review, and Opinion Articles

Scholarly Journals and Popular Magazines: Differences in Research, Review, and Opinion Articles

• Where Do I Start?
• How Do I Find Peer-Reviewed Articles?
• How Do I Compare Periodical Types?
• Where Can I find More Information?

Research Articles, Reviews, and Opinion Pieces

Scholarly or research articles are written for experts in their fields. They are often peer-reviewed or reviewed by other experts in the field prior to publication. They often have terminology or jargon that is field specific. They are generally lengthy articles. Social science and science scholarly articles have similar structures as do arts and humanities scholarly articles. Not all items in a scholarly journal are peer reviewed. For example, an editorial opinion items can be published in a scholarly journal but the article itself is not scholarly. Scholarly journals may include book reviews or other content that have not been peer reviewed.

Empirical Study: (Original or Primary) based on observation, experimentation, or study. Clinical trials, clinical case studies, and most meta-analyses are empirical studies.

Review Article: (Secondary Sources) Article that summarizes the research in a particular subject, area, or topic. They often include a summary, an literature reviews, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses.

Clinical case study (Primary or Original sources): These articles provide real cases from medical or clinical practice. They often include symptoms and diagnosis.

Clinical trials ( Health Research): Th ese articles are often based on large groups of people. They often include methods and control studies. They tend to be lengthy articles.

Opinion Piece:  An opinion piece often includes personal thoughts, beliefs, or feelings or a judgement or conclusion based on facts. The goal may be to persuade or influence the reader that their position on this topic is the best.

Book review: Recent review of books in the field. They may be several pages but tend to be fairly short. 

Social Science and Science Research Articles

The majority of social science and physical science articles include

• Journal Title and Author
• Abstract 
• Introduction with a hypothesis or thesis
• Literature Review
• Methods/Methodology
• Results/Findings

Arts and Humanities Research Articles

In the Arts and Humanities, scholarly articles tend to be less formatted than in the social sciences and sciences. In the humanities, scholars are not conducting the same kinds of research experiments, but they are still using evidence to draw logical conclusions.  Common sections of these articles include:

• an Introduction
• Discussion/Conclusion
• works cited/References/Bibliography

Research versus Review Articles

• 6 Article types that journals publish: A guide for early career researchers
• INFOGRAPHIC: 5 Differences between a research paper and a review paper
• Michigan State University. Empirical vs Review Articles
• UC Merced Library. Empirical & Review Articles
• << Previous: Where Do I Start?
• Next: How Do I Find Peer-Reviewed Articles? >>
• Last Updated: Jan 24, 2024 10:48 AM
• URL: https://library.bridgew.edu/scholarly

Phone: 508.531.1392 Text: 508.425.4096 Email: [email protected]

Feedback/Comments

Privacy Policy

Website Accessibility

Follow us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter

Scientific Reports

What this handout is about.

This handout provides a general guide to writing reports about scientific research you’ve performed. In addition to describing the conventional rules about the format and content of a lab report, we’ll also attempt to convey why these rules exist, so you’ll get a clearer, more dependable idea of how to approach this writing situation. Readers of this handout may also find our handout on writing in the sciences useful.

Background and pre-writing

Why do we write research reports.

You did an experiment or study for your science class, and now you have to write it up for your teacher to review. You feel that you understood the background sufficiently, designed and completed the study effectively, obtained useful data, and can use those data to draw conclusions about a scientific process or principle. But how exactly do you write all that? What is your teacher expecting to see?

To take some of the guesswork out of answering these questions, try to think beyond the classroom setting. In fact, you and your teacher are both part of a scientific community, and the people who participate in this community tend to share the same values. As long as you understand and respect these values, your writing will likely meet the expectations of your audience—including your teacher.

So why are you writing this research report? The practical answer is “Because the teacher assigned it,” but that’s classroom thinking. Generally speaking, people investigating some scientific hypothesis have a responsibility to the rest of the scientific world to report their findings, particularly if these findings add to or contradict previous ideas. The people reading such reports have two primary goals:

• They want to gather the information presented.
• They want to know that the findings are legitimate.

Your job as a writer, then, is to fulfill these two goals.

How do I do that?

Good question. Here is the basic format scientists have designed for research reports:

• Introduction

Methods and Materials

This format, sometimes called “IMRAD,” may take slightly different shapes depending on the discipline or audience; some ask you to include an abstract or separate section for the hypothesis, or call the Discussion section “Conclusions,” or change the order of the sections (some professional and academic journals require the Methods section to appear last). Overall, however, the IMRAD format was devised to represent a textual version of the scientific method.

The scientific method, you’ll probably recall, involves developing a hypothesis, testing it, and deciding whether your findings support the hypothesis. In essence, the format for a research report in the sciences mirrors the scientific method but fleshes out the process a little. Below, you’ll find a table that shows how each written section fits into the scientific method and what additional information it offers the reader.

Thinking of your research report as based on the scientific method, but elaborated in the ways described above, may help you to meet your audience’s expectations successfully. We’re going to proceed by explicitly connecting each section of the lab report to the scientific method, then explaining why and how you need to elaborate that section.

Although this handout takes each section in the order in which it should be presented in the final report, you may for practical reasons decide to compose sections in another order. For example, many writers find that composing their Methods and Results before the other sections helps to clarify their idea of the experiment or study as a whole. You might consider using each assignment to practice different approaches to drafting the report, to find the order that works best for you.

What should I do before drafting the lab report?

The best way to prepare to write the lab report is to make sure that you fully understand everything you need to about the experiment. Obviously, if you don’t quite know what went on during the lab, you’re going to find it difficult to explain the lab satisfactorily to someone else. To make sure you know enough to write the report, complete the following steps:

• What are we going to do in this lab? (That is, what’s the procedure?)
• Why are we going to do it that way?
• What are we hoping to learn from this experiment?
• Why would we benefit from this knowledge?
• Consult your lab supervisor as you perform the lab. If you don’t know how to answer one of the questions above, for example, your lab supervisor will probably be able to explain it to you (or, at least, help you figure it out).
• Plan the steps of the experiment carefully with your lab partners. The less you rush, the more likely it is that you’ll perform the experiment correctly and record your findings accurately. Also, take some time to think about the best way to organize the data before you have to start putting numbers down. If you can design a table to account for the data, that will tend to work much better than jotting results down hurriedly on a scrap piece of paper.
• Record the data carefully so you get them right. You won’t be able to trust your conclusions if you have the wrong data, and your readers will know you messed up if the other three people in your group have “97 degrees” and you have “87.”
• Consult with your lab partners about everything you do. Lab groups often make one of two mistakes: two people do all the work while two have a nice chat, or everybody works together until the group finishes gathering the raw data, then scrams outta there. Collaborate with your partners, even when the experiment is “over.” What trends did you observe? Was the hypothesis supported? Did you all get the same results? What kind of figure should you use to represent your findings? The whole group can work together to answer these questions.
• Consider your audience. You may believe that audience is a non-issue: it’s your lab TA, right? Well, yes—but again, think beyond the classroom. If you write with only your lab instructor in mind, you may omit material that is crucial to a complete understanding of your experiment, because you assume the instructor knows all that stuff already. As a result, you may receive a lower grade, since your TA won’t be sure that you understand all the principles at work. Try to write towards a student in the same course but a different lab section. That student will have a fair degree of scientific expertise but won’t know much about your experiment particularly. Alternatively, you could envision yourself five years from now, after the reading and lectures for this course have faded a bit. What would you remember, and what would you need explained more clearly (as a refresher)?

Once you’ve completed these steps as you perform the experiment, you’ll be in a good position to draft an effective lab report.

Introductions

How do i write a strong introduction.

For the purposes of this handout, we’ll consider the Introduction to contain four basic elements: the purpose, the scientific literature relevant to the subject, the hypothesis, and the reasons you believed your hypothesis viable. Let’s start by going through each element of the Introduction to clarify what it covers and why it’s important. Then we can formulate a logical organizational strategy for the section.

The inclusion of the purpose (sometimes called the objective) of the experiment often confuses writers. The biggest misconception is that the purpose is the same as the hypothesis. Not quite. We’ll get to hypotheses in a minute, but basically they provide some indication of what you expect the experiment to show. The purpose is broader, and deals more with what you expect to gain through the experiment. In a professional setting, the hypothesis might have something to do with how cells react to a certain kind of genetic manipulation, but the purpose of the experiment is to learn more about potential cancer treatments. Undergraduate reports don’t often have this wide-ranging a goal, but you should still try to maintain the distinction between your hypothesis and your purpose. In a solubility experiment, for example, your hypothesis might talk about the relationship between temperature and the rate of solubility, but the purpose is probably to learn more about some specific scientific principle underlying the process of solubility.

For starters, most people say that you should write out your working hypothesis before you perform the experiment or study. Many beginning science students neglect to do so and find themselves struggling to remember precisely which variables were involved in the process or in what way the researchers felt that they were related. Write your hypothesis down as you develop it—you’ll be glad you did.

As for the form a hypothesis should take, it’s best not to be too fancy or complicated; an inventive style isn’t nearly so important as clarity here. There’s nothing wrong with beginning your hypothesis with the phrase, “It was hypothesized that . . .” Be as specific as you can about the relationship between the different objects of your study. In other words, explain that when term A changes, term B changes in this particular way. Readers of scientific writing are rarely content with the idea that a relationship between two terms exists—they want to know what that relationship entails.

Not a hypothesis:

“It was hypothesized that there is a significant relationship between the temperature of a solvent and the rate at which a solute dissolves.”

Hypothesis:

“It was hypothesized that as the temperature of a solvent increases, the rate at which a solute will dissolve in that solvent increases.”

Put more technically, most hypotheses contain both an independent and a dependent variable. The independent variable is what you manipulate to test the reaction; the dependent variable is what changes as a result of your manipulation. In the example above, the independent variable is the temperature of the solvent, and the dependent variable is the rate of solubility. Be sure that your hypothesis includes both variables.

Justify your hypothesis

You need to do more than tell your readers what your hypothesis is; you also need to assure them that this hypothesis was reasonable, given the circumstances. In other words, use the Introduction to explain that you didn’t just pluck your hypothesis out of thin air. (If you did pluck it out of thin air, your problems with your report will probably extend beyond using the appropriate format.) If you posit that a particular relationship exists between the independent and the dependent variable, what led you to believe your “guess” might be supported by evidence?

Scientists often refer to this type of justification as “motivating” the hypothesis, in the sense that something propelled them to make that prediction. Often, motivation includes what we already know—or rather, what scientists generally accept as true (see “Background/previous research” below). But you can also motivate your hypothesis by relying on logic or on your own observations. If you’re trying to decide which solutes will dissolve more rapidly in a solvent at increased temperatures, you might remember that some solids are meant to dissolve in hot water (e.g., bouillon cubes) and some are used for a function precisely because they withstand higher temperatures (they make saucepans out of something). Or you can think about whether you’ve noticed sugar dissolving more rapidly in your glass of iced tea or in your cup of coffee. Even such basic, outside-the-lab observations can help you justify your hypothesis as reasonable.

Background/previous research

This part of the Introduction demonstrates to the reader your awareness of how you’re building on other scientists’ work. If you think of the scientific community as engaging in a series of conversations about various topics, then you’ll recognize that the relevant background material will alert the reader to which conversation you want to enter.

Generally speaking, authors writing journal articles use the background for slightly different purposes than do students completing assignments. Because readers of academic journals tend to be professionals in the field, authors explain the background in order to permit readers to evaluate the study’s pertinence for their own work. You, on the other hand, write toward a much narrower audience—your peers in the course or your lab instructor—and so you must demonstrate that you understand the context for the (presumably assigned) experiment or study you’ve completed. For example, if your professor has been talking about polarity during lectures, and you’re doing a solubility experiment, you might try to connect the polarity of a solid to its relative solubility in certain solvents. In any event, both professional researchers and undergraduates need to connect the background material overtly to their own work.

Organization of this section

Most of the time, writers begin by stating the purpose or objectives of their own work, which establishes for the reader’s benefit the “nature and scope of the problem investigated” (Day 1994). Once you have expressed your purpose, you should then find it easier to move from the general purpose, to relevant material on the subject, to your hypothesis. In abbreviated form, an Introduction section might look like this:

“The purpose of the experiment was to test conventional ideas about solubility in the laboratory [purpose] . . . According to Whitecoat and Labrat (1999), at higher temperatures the molecules of solvents move more quickly . . . We know from the class lecture that molecules moving at higher rates of speed collide with one another more often and thus break down more easily [background material/motivation] . . . Thus, it was hypothesized that as the temperature of a solvent increases, the rate at which a solute will dissolve in that solvent increases [hypothesis].”

Again—these are guidelines, not commandments. Some writers and readers prefer different structures for the Introduction. The one above merely illustrates a common approach to organizing material.

How do I write a strong Materials and Methods section?

As with any piece of writing, your Methods section will succeed only if it fulfills its readers’ expectations, so you need to be clear in your own mind about the purpose of this section. Let’s review the purpose as we described it above: in this section, you want to describe in detail how you tested the hypothesis you developed and also to clarify the rationale for your procedure. In science, it’s not sufficient merely to design and carry out an experiment. Ultimately, others must be able to verify your findings, so your experiment must be reproducible, to the extent that other researchers can follow the same procedure and obtain the same (or similar) results.

Here’s a real-world example of the importance of reproducibility. In 1989, physicists Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischman announced that they had discovered “cold fusion,” a way of producing excess heat and power without the nuclear radiation that accompanies “hot fusion.” Such a discovery could have great ramifications for the industrial production of energy, so these findings created a great deal of interest. When other scientists tried to duplicate the experiment, however, they didn’t achieve the same results, and as a result many wrote off the conclusions as unjustified (or worse, a hoax). To this day, the viability of cold fusion is debated within the scientific community, even though an increasing number of researchers believe it possible. So when you write your Methods section, keep in mind that you need to describe your experiment well enough to allow others to replicate it exactly.

With these goals in mind, let’s consider how to write an effective Methods section in terms of content, structure, and style.

Sometimes the hardest thing about writing this section isn’t what you should talk about, but what you shouldn’t talk about. Writers often want to include the results of their experiment, because they measured and recorded the results during the course of the experiment. But such data should be reserved for the Results section. In the Methods section, you can write that you recorded the results, or how you recorded the results (e.g., in a table), but you shouldn’t write what the results were—not yet. Here, you’re merely stating exactly how you went about testing your hypothesis. As you draft your Methods section, ask yourself the following questions:

• How much detail? Be precise in providing details, but stay relevant. Ask yourself, “Would it make any difference if this piece were a different size or made from a different material?” If not, you probably don’t need to get too specific. If so, you should give as many details as necessary to prevent this experiment from going awry if someone else tries to carry it out. Probably the most crucial detail is measurement; you should always quantify anything you can, such as time elapsed, temperature, mass, volume, etc.
• Rationale: Be sure that as you’re relating your actions during the experiment, you explain your rationale for the protocol you developed. If you capped a test tube immediately after adding a solute to a solvent, why did you do that? (That’s really two questions: why did you cap it, and why did you cap it immediately?) In a professional setting, writers provide their rationale as a way to explain their thinking to potential critics. On one hand, of course, that’s your motivation for talking about protocol, too. On the other hand, since in practical terms you’re also writing to your teacher (who’s seeking to evaluate how well you comprehend the principles of the experiment), explaining the rationale indicates that you understand the reasons for conducting the experiment in that way, and that you’re not just following orders. Critical thinking is crucial—robots don’t make good scientists.
• Control: Most experiments will include a control, which is a means of comparing experimental results. (Sometimes you’ll need to have more than one control, depending on the number of hypotheses you want to test.) The control is exactly the same as the other items you’re testing, except that you don’t manipulate the independent variable-the condition you’re altering to check the effect on the dependent variable. For example, if you’re testing solubility rates at increased temperatures, your control would be a solution that you didn’t heat at all; that way, you’ll see how quickly the solute dissolves “naturally” (i.e., without manipulation), and you’ll have a point of reference against which to compare the solutions you did heat.

Describe the control in the Methods section. Two things are especially important in writing about the control: identify the control as a control, and explain what you’re controlling for. Here is an example:

“As a control for the temperature change, we placed the same amount of solute in the same amount of solvent, and let the solution stand for five minutes without heating it.”

Structure and style

Organization is especially important in the Methods section of a lab report because readers must understand your experimental procedure completely. Many writers are surprised by the difficulty of conveying what they did during the experiment, since after all they’re only reporting an event, but it’s often tricky to present this information in a coherent way. There’s a fairly standard structure you can use to guide you, and following the conventions for style can help clarify your points.

• Subsections: Occasionally, researchers use subsections to report their procedure when the following circumstances apply: 1) if they’ve used a great many materials; 2) if the procedure is unusually complicated; 3) if they’ve developed a procedure that won’t be familiar to many of their readers. Because these conditions rarely apply to the experiments you’ll perform in class, most undergraduate lab reports won’t require you to use subsections. In fact, many guides to writing lab reports suggest that you try to limit your Methods section to a single paragraph.
• Narrative structure: Think of this section as telling a story about a group of people and the experiment they performed. Describe what you did in the order in which you did it. You may have heard the old joke centered on the line, “Disconnect the red wire, but only after disconnecting the green wire,” where the person reading the directions blows everything to kingdom come because the directions weren’t in order. We’re used to reading about events chronologically, and so your readers will generally understand what you did if you present that information in the same way. Also, since the Methods section does generally appear as a narrative (story), you want to avoid the “recipe” approach: “First, take a clean, dry 100 ml test tube from the rack. Next, add 50 ml of distilled water.” You should be reporting what did happen, not telling the reader how to perform the experiment: “50 ml of distilled water was poured into a clean, dry 100 ml test tube.” Hint: most of the time, the recipe approach comes from copying down the steps of the procedure from your lab manual, so you may want to draft the Methods section initially without consulting your manual. Later, of course, you can go back and fill in any part of the procedure you inadvertently overlooked.
• Past tense: Remember that you’re describing what happened, so you should use past tense to refer to everything you did during the experiment. Writers are often tempted to use the imperative (“Add 5 g of the solid to the solution”) because that’s how their lab manuals are worded; less frequently, they use present tense (“5 g of the solid are added to the solution”). Instead, remember that you’re talking about an event which happened at a particular time in the past, and which has already ended by the time you start writing, so simple past tense will be appropriate in this section (“5 g of the solid were added to the solution” or “We added 5 g of the solid to the solution”).
• Active: We heated the solution to 80°C. (The subject, “we,” performs the action, heating.)
• Passive: The solution was heated to 80°C. (The subject, “solution,” doesn’t do the heating–it is acted upon, not acting.)

Increasingly, especially in the social sciences, using first person and active voice is acceptable in scientific reports. Most readers find that this style of writing conveys information more clearly and concisely. This rhetorical choice thus brings two scientific values into conflict: objectivity versus clarity. Since the scientific community hasn’t reached a consensus about which style it prefers, you may want to ask your lab instructor.

How do I write a strong Results section?

Here’s a paradox for you. The Results section is often both the shortest (yay!) and most important (uh-oh!) part of your report. Your Materials and Methods section shows how you obtained the results, and your Discussion section explores the significance of the results, so clearly the Results section forms the backbone of the lab report. This section provides the most critical information about your experiment: the data that allow you to discuss how your hypothesis was or wasn’t supported. But it doesn’t provide anything else, which explains why this section is generally shorter than the others.

Before you write this section, look at all the data you collected to figure out what relates significantly to your hypothesis. You’ll want to highlight this material in your Results section. Resist the urge to include every bit of data you collected, since perhaps not all are relevant. Also, don’t try to draw conclusions about the results—save them for the Discussion section. In this section, you’re reporting facts. Nothing your readers can dispute should appear in the Results section.

Most Results sections feature three distinct parts: text, tables, and figures. Let’s consider each part one at a time.

This should be a short paragraph, generally just a few lines, that describes the results you obtained from your experiment. In a relatively simple experiment, one that doesn’t produce a lot of data for you to repeat, the text can represent the entire Results section. Don’t feel that you need to include lots of extraneous detail to compensate for a short (but effective) text; your readers appreciate discrimination more than your ability to recite facts. In a more complex experiment, you may want to use tables and/or figures to help guide your readers toward the most important information you gathered. In that event, you’ll need to refer to each table or figure directly, where appropriate:

“Table 1 lists the rates of solubility for each substance”

“Solubility increased as the temperature of the solution increased (see Figure 1).”

If you do use tables or figures, make sure that you don’t present the same material in both the text and the tables/figures, since in essence you’ll just repeat yourself, probably annoying your readers with the redundancy of your statements.

Feel free to describe trends that emerge as you examine the data. Although identifying trends requires some judgment on your part and so may not feel like factual reporting, no one can deny that these trends do exist, and so they properly belong in the Results section. Example:

“Heating the solution increased the rate of solubility of polar solids by 45% but had no effect on the rate of solubility in solutions containing non-polar solids.”

This point isn’t debatable—you’re just pointing out what the data show.

As in the Materials and Methods section, you want to refer to your data in the past tense, because the events you recorded have already occurred and have finished occurring. In the example above, note the use of “increased” and “had,” rather than “increases” and “has.” (You don’t know from your experiment that heating always increases the solubility of polar solids, but it did that time.)

You shouldn’t put information in the table that also appears in the text. You also shouldn’t use a table to present irrelevant data, just to show you did collect these data during the experiment. Tables are good for some purposes and situations, but not others, so whether and how you’ll use tables depends upon what you need them to accomplish.

Tables are useful ways to show variation in data, but not to present a great deal of unchanging measurements. If you’re dealing with a scientific phenomenon that occurs only within a certain range of temperatures, for example, you don’t need to use a table to show that the phenomenon didn’t occur at any of the other temperatures. How useful is this table?

As you can probably see, no solubility was observed until the trial temperature reached 50°C, a fact that the text part of the Results section could easily convey. The table could then be limited to what happened at 50°C and higher, thus better illustrating the differences in solubility rates when solubility did occur.

As a rule, try not to use a table to describe any experimental event you can cover in one sentence of text. Here’s an example of an unnecessary table from How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper , by Robert A. Day:

As Day notes, all the information in this table can be summarized in one sentence: “S. griseus, S. coelicolor, S. everycolor, and S. rainbowenski grew under aerobic conditions, whereas S. nocolor and S. greenicus required anaerobic conditions.” Most readers won’t find the table clearer than that one sentence.

When you do have reason to tabulate material, pay attention to the clarity and readability of the format you use. Here are a few tips:

• Number your table. Then, when you refer to the table in the text, use that number to tell your readers which table they can review to clarify the material.
• Give your table a title. This title should be descriptive enough to communicate the contents of the table, but not so long that it becomes difficult to follow. The titles in the sample tables above are acceptable.
• Arrange your table so that readers read vertically, not horizontally. For the most part, this rule means that you should construct your table so that like elements read down, not across. Think about what you want your readers to compare, and put that information in the column (up and down) rather than in the row (across). Usually, the point of comparison will be the numerical data you collect, so especially make sure you have columns of numbers, not rows.Here’s an example of how drastically this decision affects the readability of your table (from A Short Guide to Writing about Chemistry , by Herbert Beall and John Trimbur). Look at this table, which presents the relevant data in horizontal rows:

It’s a little tough to see the trends that the author presumably wants to present in this table. Compare this table, in which the data appear vertically:

The second table shows how putting like elements in a vertical column makes for easier reading. In this case, the like elements are the measurements of length and height, over five trials–not, as in the first table, the length and height measurements for each trial.

• Make sure to include units of measurement in the tables. Readers might be able to guess that you measured something in millimeters, but don’t make them try.

• Don’t use vertical lines as part of the format for your table. This convention exists because journals prefer not to have to reproduce these lines because the tables then become more expensive to print. Even though it’s fairly unlikely that you’ll be sending your Biology 11 lab report to Science for publication, your readers still have this expectation. Consequently, if you use the table-drawing option in your word-processing software, choose the option that doesn’t rely on a “grid” format (which includes vertical lines).

How do I include figures in my report?

Although tables can be useful ways of showing trends in the results you obtained, figures (i.e., illustrations) can do an even better job of emphasizing such trends. Lab report writers often use graphic representations of the data they collected to provide their readers with a literal picture of how the experiment went.

When should you use a figure?

Remember the circumstances under which you don’t need a table: when you don’t have a great deal of data or when the data you have don’t vary a lot. Under the same conditions, you would probably forgo the figure as well, since the figure would be unlikely to provide your readers with an additional perspective. Scientists really don’t like their time wasted, so they tend not to respond favorably to redundancy.

If you’re trying to decide between using a table and creating a figure to present your material, consider the following a rule of thumb. The strength of a table lies in its ability to supply large amounts of exact data, whereas the strength of a figure is its dramatic illustration of important trends within the experiment. If you feel that your readers won’t get the full impact of the results you obtained just by looking at the numbers, then a figure might be appropriate.

Of course, an undergraduate class may expect you to create a figure for your lab experiment, if only to make sure that you can do so effectively. If this is the case, then don’t worry about whether to use figures or not—concentrate instead on how best to accomplish your task.

Figures can include maps, photographs, pen-and-ink drawings, flow charts, bar graphs, and section graphs (“pie charts”). But the most common figure by far, especially for undergraduates, is the line graph, so we’ll focus on that type in this handout.

At the undergraduate level, you can often draw and label your graphs by hand, provided that the result is clear, legible, and drawn to scale. Computer technology has, however, made creating line graphs a lot easier. Most word-processing software has a number of functions for transferring data into graph form; many scientists have found Microsoft Excel, for example, a helpful tool in graphing results. If you plan on pursuing a career in the sciences, it may be well worth your while to learn to use a similar program.

Computers can’t, however, decide for you how your graph really works; you have to know how to design your graph to meet your readers’ expectations. Here are some of these expectations:

• Keep it as simple as possible. You may be tempted to signal the complexity of the information you gathered by trying to design a graph that accounts for that complexity. But remember the purpose of your graph: to dramatize your results in a manner that’s easy to see and grasp. Try not to make the reader stare at the graph for a half hour to find the important line among the mass of other lines. For maximum effectiveness, limit yourself to three to five lines per graph; if you have more data to demonstrate, use a set of graphs to account for it, rather than trying to cram it all into a single figure.
• Plot the independent variable on the horizontal (x) axis and the dependent variable on the vertical (y) axis. Remember that the independent variable is the condition that you manipulated during the experiment and the dependent variable is the condition that you measured to see if it changed along with the independent variable. Placing the variables along their respective axes is mostly just a convention, but since your readers are accustomed to viewing graphs in this way, you’re better off not challenging the convention in your report.
• Label each axis carefully, and be especially careful to include units of measure. You need to make sure that your readers understand perfectly well what your graph indicates.
• Number and title your graphs. As with tables, the title of the graph should be informative but concise, and you should refer to your graph by number in the text (e.g., “Figure 1 shows the increase in the solubility rate as a function of temperature”).
• Many editors of professional scientific journals prefer that writers distinguish the lines in their graphs by attaching a symbol to them, usually a geometric shape (triangle, square, etc.), and using that symbol throughout the curve of the line. Generally, readers have a hard time distinguishing dotted lines from dot-dash lines from straight lines, so you should consider staying away from this system. Editors don’t usually like different-colored lines within a graph because colors are difficult and expensive to reproduce; colors may, however, be great for your purposes, as long as you’re not planning to submit your paper to Nature. Use your discretion—try to employ whichever technique dramatizes the results most effectively.
• Try to gather data at regular intervals, so the plot points on your graph aren’t too far apart. You can’t be sure of the arc you should draw between the plot points if the points are located at the far corners of the graph; over a fifteen-minute interval, perhaps the change occurred in the first or last thirty seconds of that period (in which case your straight-line connection between the points is misleading).
• If you’re worried that you didn’t collect data at sufficiently regular intervals during your experiment, go ahead and connect the points with a straight line, but you may want to examine this problem as part of your Discussion section.
• Make your graph large enough so that everything is legible and clearly demarcated, but not so large that it either overwhelms the rest of the Results section or provides a far greater range than you need to illustrate your point. If, for example, the seedlings of your plant grew only 15 mm during the trial, you don’t need to construct a graph that accounts for 100 mm of growth. The lines in your graph should more or less fill the space created by the axes; if you see that your data is confined to the lower left portion of the graph, you should probably re-adjust your scale.
• If you create a set of graphs, make them the same size and format, including all the verbal and visual codes (captions, symbols, scale, etc.). You want to be as consistent as possible in your illustrations, so that your readers can easily make the comparisons you’re trying to get them to see.

How do I write a strong Discussion section?

The discussion section is probably the least formalized part of the report, in that you can’t really apply the same structure to every type of experiment. In simple terms, here you tell your readers what to make of the Results you obtained. If you have done the Results part well, your readers should already recognize the trends in the data and have a fairly clear idea of whether your hypothesis was supported. Because the Results can seem so self-explanatory, many students find it difficult to know what material to add in this last section.

Basically, the Discussion contains several parts, in no particular order, but roughly moving from specific (i.e., related to your experiment only) to general (how your findings fit in the larger scientific community). In this section, you will, as a rule, need to:

Explain whether the data support your hypothesis

• Acknowledge any anomalous data or deviations from what you expected

Derive conclusions, based on your findings, about the process you’re studying

• Relate your findings to earlier work in the same area (if you can)

Explore the theoretical and/or practical implications of your findings

Let’s look at some dos and don’ts for each of these objectives.

This statement is usually a good way to begin the Discussion, since you can’t effectively speak about the larger scientific value of your study until you’ve figured out the particulars of this experiment. You might begin this part of the Discussion by explicitly stating the relationships or correlations your data indicate between the independent and dependent variables. Then you can show more clearly why you believe your hypothesis was or was not supported. For example, if you tested solubility at various temperatures, you could start this section by noting that the rates of solubility increased as the temperature increased. If your initial hypothesis surmised that temperature change would not affect solubility, you would then say something like,

“The hypothesis that temperature change would not affect solubility was not supported by the data.”

Note: Students tend to view labs as practical tests of undeniable scientific truths. As a result, you may want to say that the hypothesis was “proved” or “disproved” or that it was “correct” or “incorrect.” These terms, however, reflect a degree of certainty that you as a scientist aren’t supposed to have. Remember, you’re testing a theory with a procedure that lasts only a few hours and relies on only a few trials, which severely compromises your ability to be sure about the “truth” you see. Words like “supported,” “indicated,” and “suggested” are more acceptable ways to evaluate your hypothesis.

Also, recognize that saying whether the data supported your hypothesis or not involves making a claim to be defended. As such, you need to show the readers that this claim is warranted by the evidence. Make sure that you’re very explicit about the relationship between the evidence and the conclusions you draw from it. This process is difficult for many writers because we don’t often justify conclusions in our regular lives. For example, you might nudge your friend at a party and whisper, “That guy’s drunk,” and once your friend lays eyes on the person in question, she might readily agree. In a scientific paper, by contrast, you would need to defend your claim more thoroughly by pointing to data such as slurred words, unsteady gait, and the lampshade-as-hat. In addition to pointing out these details, you would also need to show how (according to previous studies) these signs are consistent with inebriation, especially if they occur in conjunction with one another. To put it another way, tell your readers exactly how you got from point A (was the hypothesis supported?) to point B (yes/no).

Acknowledge any anomalous data, or deviations from what you expected

You need to take these exceptions and divergences into account, so that you qualify your conclusions sufficiently. For obvious reasons, your readers will doubt your authority if you (deliberately or inadvertently) overlook a key piece of data that doesn’t square with your perspective on what occurred. In a more philosophical sense, once you’ve ignored evidence that contradicts your claims, you’ve departed from the scientific method. The urge to “tidy up” the experiment is often strong, but if you give in to it you’re no longer performing good science.

Sometimes after you’ve performed a study or experiment, you realize that some part of the methods you used to test your hypothesis was flawed. In that case, it’s OK to suggest that if you had the chance to conduct your test again, you might change the design in this or that specific way in order to avoid such and such a problem. The key to making this approach work, though, is to be very precise about the weakness in your experiment, why and how you think that weakness might have affected your data, and how you would alter your protocol to eliminate—or limit the effects of—that weakness. Often, inexperienced researchers and writers feel the need to account for “wrong” data (remember, there’s no such animal), and so they speculate wildly about what might have screwed things up. These speculations include such factors as the unusually hot temperature in the room, or the possibility that their lab partners read the meters wrong, or the potentially defective equipment. These explanations are what scientists call “cop-outs,” or “lame”; don’t indicate that the experiment had a weakness unless you’re fairly certain that a) it really occurred and b) you can explain reasonably well how that weakness affected your results.

If, for example, your hypothesis dealt with the changes in solubility at different temperatures, then try to figure out what you can rationally say about the process of solubility more generally. If you’re doing an undergraduate lab, chances are that the lab will connect in some way to the material you’ve been covering either in lecture or in your reading, so you might choose to return to these resources as a way to help you think clearly about the process as a whole.

This part of the Discussion section is another place where you need to make sure that you’re not overreaching. Again, nothing you’ve found in one study would remotely allow you to claim that you now “know” something, or that something isn’t “true,” or that your experiment “confirmed” some principle or other. Hesitate before you go out on a limb—it’s dangerous! Use less absolutely conclusive language, including such words as “suggest,” “indicate,” “correspond,” “possibly,” “challenge,” etc.

Relate your findings to previous work in the field (if possible)

We’ve been talking about how to show that you belong in a particular community (such as biologists or anthropologists) by writing within conventions that they recognize and accept. Another is to try to identify a conversation going on among members of that community, and use your work to contribute to that conversation. In a larger philosophical sense, scientists can’t fully understand the value of their research unless they have some sense of the context that provoked and nourished it. That is, you have to recognize what’s new about your project (potentially, anyway) and how it benefits the wider body of scientific knowledge. On a more pragmatic level, especially for undergraduates, connecting your lab work to previous research will demonstrate to the TA that you see the big picture. You have an opportunity, in the Discussion section, to distinguish yourself from the students in your class who aren’t thinking beyond the barest facts of the study. Capitalize on this opportunity by putting your own work in context.

If you’re just beginning to work in the natural sciences (as a first-year biology or chemistry student, say), most likely the work you’ll be doing has already been performed and re-performed to a satisfactory degree. Hence, you could probably point to a similar experiment or study and compare/contrast your results and conclusions. More advanced work may deal with an issue that is somewhat less “resolved,” and so previous research may take the form of an ongoing debate, and you can use your own work to weigh in on that debate. If, for example, researchers are hotly disputing the value of herbal remedies for the common cold, and the results of your study suggest that Echinacea diminishes the symptoms but not the actual presence of the cold, then you might want to take some time in the Discussion section to recapitulate the specifics of the dispute as it relates to Echinacea as an herbal remedy. (Consider that you have probably already written in the Introduction about this debate as background research.)

This information is often the best way to end your Discussion (and, for all intents and purposes, the report). In argumentative writing generally, you want to use your closing words to convey the main point of your writing. This main point can be primarily theoretical (“Now that you understand this information, you’re in a better position to understand this larger issue”) or primarily practical (“You can use this information to take such and such an action”). In either case, the concluding statements help the reader to comprehend the significance of your project and your decision to write about it.

Since a lab report is argumentative—after all, you’re investigating a claim, and judging the legitimacy of that claim by generating and collecting evidence—it’s often a good idea to end your report with the same technique for establishing your main point. If you want to go the theoretical route, you might talk about the consequences your study has for the field or phenomenon you’re investigating. To return to the examples regarding solubility, you could end by reflecting on what your work on solubility as a function of temperature tells us (potentially) about solubility in general. (Some folks consider this type of exploration “pure” as opposed to “applied” science, although these labels can be problematic.) If you want to go the practical route, you could end by speculating about the medical, institutional, or commercial implications of your findings—in other words, answer the question, “What can this study help people to do?” In either case, you’re going to make your readers’ experience more satisfying, by helping them see why they spent their time learning what you had to teach them.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

American Psychological Association. 2010. Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association . 6th ed. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Beall, Herbert, and John Trimbur. 2001. A Short Guide to Writing About Chemistry , 2nd ed. New York: Longman.

Blum, Deborah, and Mary Knudson. 1997. A Field Guide for Science Writers: The Official Guide of the National Association of Science Writers . New York: Oxford University Press.

Booth, Wayne C., Gregory G. Colomb, Joseph M. Williams, Joseph Bizup, and William T. FitzGerald. 2016. The Craft of Research , 4th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Briscoe, Mary Helen. 1996. Preparing Scientific Illustrations: A Guide to Better Posters, Presentations, and Publications , 2nd ed. New York: Springer-Verlag.

Council of Science Editors. 2014. Scientific Style and Format: The CSE Manual for Authors, Editors, and Publishers , 8th ed. Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press.

Davis, Martha. 2012. Scientific Papers and Presentations , 3rd ed. London: Academic Press.

Day, Robert A. 1994. How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper , 4th ed. Phoenix: Oryx Press.

Porush, David. 1995. A Short Guide to Writing About Science . New York: Longman.

Williams, Joseph, and Joseph Bizup. 2017. Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace , 12th ed. Boston: Pearson.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Make a Gift

Biological Sciences

• Research vs. Review Articles
• Find Books & eBooks
• Reference/Web Resources
• RefWorks This link opens in a new window

Defining Article Types

Research articles.

"A research article reports the results of original research, assesses its contribution to the body of knowledge in a given area, and is published in a peer-reviewed scholarly journal." - Pen & the Pad

The study design of research articles may vary, but in all cases some form of raw data have been collected and analyzed by the author(s).

• Example of a research article Development of a nanoparticle-assisted PCR assay for detection of bovine respiratory syncytial virus

Review Articles

"A review article, also called a literature review, is a survey of previously published research on a topic. It should give an overview of current thinking on the theme and, unlike an original research article, won’t present new experimental results." - Taylor & Francis Author Services

Review articles provide a comprehensive foundation on a topic, and, as such, they are particularly useful for helping student researchers get an overview of the existing literature on a topic. 

• Example of a review article Mannheimia haemolytica growth and leukotoxin production for vaccine manufacturing — A bioprocess review

Differences between Research and Review Articles

Anatomy of a Research Article

Title & abstract.

The title of an article is a brief descriptive overview of what was the focus of the study. The abstract is a mini-summary of the study.

Introduction

This section often included an overview of the existing literature on the topic and an explanation of why the author(s) conducted the study. It frequently contains references to previous work on the topic.

In this section, the authors explain what they did. For example, they may include how they collected or analyzed data.  Descriptions of statistical analysis are also included in this section.

This is where the authors describe the outcomes of their analysis. They don't include interpretation in their area, but instead just use a straightforward explanation of the data. This is the section that usually makes use of charts and graphs.

Authors use the discussion section to explain how they interpret their results and situate them in relationship to existing and future research.

References/Works Cited

This is a list of sources the authors drew upon to plan their study, understand their topic, and/or support their discussion.

• << Previous: Find Articles
• Next: Find Books & eBooks >>
• Last Updated: Jan 31, 2024 11:56 AM
• URL: https://clemson.libguides.com/biology

• SUNY Oswego, Penfield Library
• Resource Guides

Biological Sciences Research Guide

Primary research vs review article.

• Research Starters
• Citing Sources
• Open Educational Resources
• Peer Review
• How to Read a Scientific Article
• Conducting a Literature Review
• Interlibrary Loan

Quick Links

• Penfield Library
• Research Guides
• A-Z List of Databases & Indexes

Characteristics of a Primary Research Article

• Goal is to present the result of original research that makes a new contribution to the body of knowledge
• Sometimes referred to as an empirical research article
• Typically organized into sections that include:  Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion/Conclusion, and References.

Example of a Primary Research Article:

Flockhart, D.T.T., Fitz-gerald, B., Brower, L.P., Derbyshire, R., Altizer, S., Hobson, K.A., … Norris, D.R., (2017). Migration distance as a selective episode for wing morphology in a migratory insect. Movement Ecology , 5(1), 1-9. doi: doi.org/10.1186/s40462-017-0098-9

Characteristics of a Review Article

• Goal is to summarize important research on a particular topic and to represent the current body of knowledge about that topic.
• Not intended to provide original research but to help draw connections between research studies that have previously been published.  
• Help the reader understand how current understanding of a topic has developed over time and identify gaps or inconsistencies that need further exploration.

Example of a Review Article:

https://www-sciencedirect-com.ezproxy.oswego.edu/science/article/pii/S0960982218302537

• << Previous: Plagiarism
• Next: Peer Review >>

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

• View all journals
• Explore content
• About the journal
• Publish with us
• Sign up for alerts

Registered Reports

Introduction to registered reports.

• Submission guidelines overview
• Stage 1 submission guidelines
• Stage 2 submissoin guidelines
• Protocol withdrawal
• Incremental registrations

Guidelines for reviewers

A Registered Report is an original research article which undergoes a two-stage peer review process. First, the methods and proposed analyses are peer-reviewed prior to the data collection and analysis (stage 1). Protocols meeting stringent standards of methodological rigour are then provisionally accepted for publication in Scientific Reports and pre-registered before data collection commences. Once the study is complete, the authors finalise the article to include results and discussion (stage 2). The complete manuscript is peer-reviewed again to ensure no unjustified deviation of pre-registered protocol.

The final acceptance of the manuscript does not depend on the results obtained, but only on the rigour of the methodology and how well developed was the research question. As such, this format is designed to minimize publication bias and research bias in hypothesis-driven research, while also allowing the flexibility to conduct exploratory (unregistered) analyses and report serendipitous findings.

Scientific Reports also considers Registered Reports of scientifically justified replication studies.

Submission guidelines

Initial submissions will include a description of the key research question and background literature, hypotheses (where applicable), experimental procedures, analysis pipeline, a sampling plan (statistical power analysis or Bayesian equivalent), and pilot data (where applicable). Please use this template to prepare your Stage 1 submission.

Initial submissions will be assigned to an Editorial Board Member who will assess the initial submission and, if submission is complete, send it for in-depth peer review (Stage 1). Following review, the article will be either rejected, returned to the authors for a revision, or accepted in principle for publication. After acceptance in principle (AIP), the authors will proceed to conduct the study, adhering exactly to the peer-reviewed procedures. When the study is complete the authors will submit their finalised manuscript for re-review (Stage 2) and will upload their raw data, study materials, computer code (if relevant) and laboratory log to a publicly accessible file-sharing service. Pending quality checks and a sensible interpretation of the findings, the manuscript will be published regardless of the significance or direction of the results.

Stage 1: Initial manuscript submission and review

Stage 1 submissions should include the manuscript (details below) and a brief cover letter.

The Stage 1 cover letter should include:

• A brief scientific case for consideration. The journal aims to publish original research of outstanding methodological rigour. Scientifically justified replication studies are welcome in addition to original studies.
• A statement confirming that all necessary support (e.g. funding, facilities) and approvals (e.g. ethics) are in place for the proposed research. Note that manuscripts will be generally considered only for studies that are able to commence immediately; however authors with alternative plans are encouraged to contact the journal office for advice.
• An anticipated timeline for completing the study if the initial submission is accepted.
• A statement confirming that the authors agree to share their raw data, any digital study materials, computer code (if relevant), and laboratory log for all published results.
• A statement confirming that, following Stage 1 acceptance in principle, the authors agree to register their approved protocol on a recognized repository, either publicly or under private embargo until submission of the Stage 2 manuscript.
• A statement confirming that if the authors later withdraw their paper, they agree to the Journal publishing a short summary of the pre-registered study as a Withdrawn Registration.

Please use this template to prepare your Stage 1 manuscript submission. Initial Stage 1 submissions should include the following sections:

Introduction

• A review of the relevant literature that motivates the research question and a full description of the experimental aims and hypotheses. Please note that following AIP, the Introduction section cannot be altered apart from correction of factual errors, typographic errors and altering of tense from future to past (see below).
• Full description of proposed sample characteristics, including criteria for data inclusion and exclusion (e.g. outlier extraction). Procedures for objectively defining exclusion criteria due to technical errors or for any other reasons must be specified, including details of how and under what conditions data would be replaced.
• A description of experimental procedures in sufficient detail to allow another researcher to repeat the methodology exactly, without requiring further information. These procedures must be adhered to exactly in the subsequent experiments or any Stage 2 manuscript can be rejected.
• Proposed analysis pipeline, including all preprocessing steps, and a precise description of all planned analyses, including appropriate correction for multiple comparisons. Any covariates or regressors must be stated. Where analysis decisions are contingent on the outcome of prior analyses, these contingencies must be specified and adhered to. Only pre-planned analyses can be reported in the main Results section of Stage 2 submissions. However, unplanned exploratory analyses will be admissible in a separate section of the Results (see below).
• Studies involving Neyman-Pearson inference must include a statistical power analysis. Estimated effect sizes should be justified with reference to the existing literature. Since publication bias overinflates published estimates of effect size, power analysis must be based on the lowest available or meaningful estimate of the effect size. In the case of highly uncertain effect sizes, a variable sample size and interim data analysis is permissible but with inspection points stated in advance, appropriate Type I error correction for ‘peeking’ employed , and a final stopping rule for data collection outlined. Proposed a priori power levels should be justified for all hypothesis tests. 
• Methods involving Bayesian hypothesis testing are encouraged. For studies involving analyses with Bayes factors, the predictions of the theory must be specified so that a Bayes factor can be calculated. Authors should indicate what distribution will be used to represent the predictions of the theory and how its parameters will be specified.  For example, will you use a uniform up to some specified maximum, or a normal/half-normal to represent a likely effect size , or a JZS/Cauchy with a specified scaling constant ? For inference by Bayes factors, authors should aim to obtain a strength of evidence that is likely to be useful to readers (e.g., that a Bayes factor of a particular magnitude will be suitably convincing for the hypothesis in question). If the stopping rule is dependent on the Bayes factor, authors should indicate a maximum feasible sample size after which sampling will stop, regardless of the Bayes factor. For further advice on Bayes factors or Bayesian sampling methods, prospective authors are encouraged to read this key article by Schönbrodt and Wagenmakers .
• Full descriptions must be provided of any outcome-neutral criteria that must be met for successful testing of the stated hypotheses. Such quality checks might include the absence of floor or ceiling effects in data distributions, positive controls, or other quality checks that are orthogonal to the experimental hypotheses.
• Timeline for completion of the study and proposed resubmission date if Stage 1 review is successful. Extensions to this deadline can be negotiated with the editorial office.
• Any description of prospective methods or analysis plans should be written in future tense.
• (Optional) Can be included to establish proof of concept, effect size estimations, or feasibility of proposed methods. Any pilot experiments will be published with the final version of the manuscript and will be clearly distinguished from data obtained for the pre-registered experiment(s).

Secondary Registrations

• The journal welcomes submissions proposing secondary analyses of existing data sets, provided authors can supply sufficient evidence (e.g. self-certification; letter from independent gatekeeper) to confirm that they have had no prior access to the data in question. Note that we do not consider systematic reviews and meta-analyses for the Registered Report format. 

In considering papers at the registration stage, reviewers will be asked to assess:

• The originality and validity of the research question(s).
• The extent to which the proposed study can satisfactorily answer the research question(s).
• The logic, rationale, and plausibility of the proposed hypotheses (where applicable).
• The soundness and feasibility of the methodology and analysis pipeline (including statistical power analysis where appropriate).
• Whether the clarity and degree of methodological detail is sufficient to exactly replicate the proposed experimental procedures and analysis pipeline.
• Whether the authors have pre-specified sufficient outcome-neutral tests for ensuring that the results obtained are able to test the stated hypotheses, including positive controls and quality checks.

Following Stage 1 peer review, manuscripts will be rejected outright, offered the opportunity to revise, or accepted in principle. Proposals that meet the highest standards of scientific rigour will be issued an acceptance in principle (AIP), indicating that the article will be published pending completion of the approved methods and analytic procedures, passing of all pre-specified quality checks, and a defensible interpretation of the results. Stage 1 protocols are not published in the journal following AIP. Instead they are registered by the authors in a recognised repository (either publicly or under embargo until Stage 2) and integrated into a single completed article following approval of the final Stage 2 manuscript. We have created a dedicated space on figshare to host Stage 1 protocols accepted in principle at Scientific Reports and offer to upload the protocol on the authors' behalf and keep under embargo until Stage 2 acceptance. If the authors wish to deposit the protocol independently, the registration must be public.

Authors are reminded that any deviation from the stated experimental procedures, regardless of how minor it may seem to the authors, could lead to rejection of the manuscript at Stage 2. In cases where the pre-registered protocol is altered after IPA due to unforeseen circumstances (e.g. change of equipment or unanticipated technical error), the authors must consult the editors immediately for advice, and prior to the completion of data collection. Minor changes to the protocol may be permitted according to editorial discretion. In such cases, AIP would be preserved and the deviation reported in the Stage 2 submission. If the authors wish to alter the experimental procedures more substantially following AIP but still wish to publish their article as a Registered Report then the manuscript must be withdrawn and resubmitted as a new Stage 1 submission. Note that registered analyses must be undertaken, but additional unregistered analyses can also be included in a final manuscript (see below).

Stage 2: Full manuscript review

Once the study is complete, authors prepare and resubmit their manuscript for full review, with the following additions:

Cover letter. The Stage 2 cover letter must confirm:

• That the manuscript includes a link to the public archive containing anonymized study data, digital materials/code and the laboratory log. Within the manuscript, this information should appear in two separate sections, entitled ‘Data availability’ and ‘Code availability’.
• That the manuscript contains a link to the approved Stage 1 protocol in a standalone section entitled ‘Protocol Registration’.
• That, for primary Registered Reports, no data for any pre-registered study (other than pilot data included at Stage 1) was collected prior to the date of AIP. For secondary Registered Reports, authors should confirm that no data (other than pilot data included at Stage 1) was subjected to the pre-registered analyses prior to AIP.

Submission of raw data and laboratory log

• Anonymized raw data, any digital experimental materials (e.g. stimuli etc.), and computer code (if relevant) must be made freely available in a public repository. Authors are free to use any repository that renders data and materials freely and publicly accessible and provides a digital object identifier (DOI) to ensure that the data remain persistent, unique and citable.
• Data files should be appropriately time stamped to show that data was collected after AIP and not before. Other than pre-registered and approved pilot data, no data acquired prior to the date of AIP is admissible in the Stage 2 submission. Raw data must be accompanied by guidance notes, where required, to assist other scientists in replicating the analysis pipeline. Authors are also expected to upload any relevant analysis scripts and other experimental materials that would assist in replication.
• Supplementary figures, tables, or other text (such as supplementary methods) should be included as standard supplementary information that accompanies the paper. The raw data itself should be archived (see above) rather than submitted to the journal as supplementary material.
• A basic laboratory log must also be provided outlining the range of dates during which data collection took place. This log should be uploaded to the same public archive as the data and materials.
• The Stage 2 manuscript must also contain a link to the registered protocol (deposited following AIP) in a standalone section entitled ‘Protocol Registration’.

Background, Rationale and Methods

• Apart from minor stylistic revisions, the Introduction cannot be altered from the approved Stage 1 submission, and the stated hypotheses cannot be amended or appended. At Stage 2, any description of the rationale or proposed methodology that was written in future tense within the Stage 1 manuscript should be changed to past tense. Any textual changes to the Introduction or Methods (e.g. correction of typographic errors) must be clearly marked in the Stage 2 submission. Any relevant literature that appeared following the date of AIP should be covered in the Discussion.

Results & Discussion

• The outcome of all registered analyses must be reported in the manuscript, except in rare instances where a registered and approved analysis is subsequently shown to be logically flawed or unfounded. In such cases, the authors, reviewers, and editor must agree that a collective error of judgment was made and that the analysis is inappropriate. In such cases the analysis would still be mentioned in the Methods but omitted with justification from the Results.
• It is reasonable that authors may wish to include additional analyses that were not included in the registered submission. For instance, a new analytic approach might become available between AIP and Stage 2 review, or a particularly interesting and unexpected finding may emerge. Such analyses are admissible but must be clearly justified in the text, appropriately caveated, and reported in a separate section of the Results titled “Exploratory analyses”. Authors should be careful not to base their conclusions entirely on the outcome of statistically significant post hoc analyses.
• Authors reporting null hypothesis significance tests are required to report exact p values, effect sizes and confidence intervals for all inferential analyses.

The resubmission will most likely be considered by the same reviewers as in Stage 1, but could also be assessed by new reviewers. In considering papers at Stage 2, reviewers will be asked to decide:

• Whether the data are able to test the authors’ proposed hypotheses by satisfying the approved outcome-neutral conditions (such as quality checks, positive controls)
• Whether the Introduction, rationale and stated hypotheses are the same as the approved Stage 1 submission (required)
• Whether the authors adhered precisely to the registered experimental procedures
• Whether any unregistered post hoc analyses added by the authors are justified, methodologically sound, and informative
• Whether the authors’ conclusions are justified given the data

Reviewers at Stage 2 may suggest that authors report additional post hoc tests on their data; however authors are not obliged to do so unless such tests are necessary to satisfy one or more of the Stage 2 review criteria.

Manuscript withdrawal and Withdrawn Registrations

It is possible that authors with AIP may wish to withdraw their manuscript following or during data collection. Possible reasons could include major technical error, an inability to complete the study due to other unforeseen circumstances, or the desire to submit the results to a different journal. In all such cases, manuscripts can of course be withdrawn at the authors’ discretion. However, the journal will publicly record each case by publishing a Withdrawn Registration article. This article will include the authors, proposed title, the abstract from the approved Stage 1 submission, and brief reason(s) for the failure to complete the study. Partial withdrawals are not possible; i.e. authors cannot publish part of a registered study by selectively withdrawing one of the planned experiments. Such cases must lead to withdrawal of the entire paper. Studies that are not completed by the agreed Stage 2 submission deadline (which can be extended in negotiation with the editorial office) will be considered withdrawn and will be subject to a Withdrawn Registration.

Incremental Registrations

Authors may add experiments to approved submissions. In such cases the approved Stage 2 manuscript will be accepted for publication, and authors can propose additional experiments for Stage 1 consideration. Where these experiments extend the approved submission (as opposed to being part of new submissions), the editorial team will seek to fast-track the review process. This option may be particularly appropriate where an initial experiment reveals a major serendipitous finding that warrants follow-up within the same paper. In cases where an incremented submission is rejected (at either Stage 1 or 2), authors will retain the option of publishing the most recently approved version of the manuscript. For further advice on specific scenarios for incremental registration, authors are invited to contact the editorial office.

The review process for Registered Reports is divided into two stages. At Stage 1, reviewers assess study proposals before data are collected. At Stage 2, reviewers consider the full study, including results and interpretation.

Stage 1 manuscripts will include only an Introduction, Methods (including proposed analyses), and Pilot Data (where applicable). In considering papers at Stage 1, reviewers are asked to assess:

• The soundness and feasibility of the methodology and analysis pipeline (including statistical power analysis).
• Whether the clarity and degree of methodological detail would be sufficient to replicate exactly the proposed experimental procedures and analysis pipeline.
• Whether the authors provide a sufficiently clear and detailed description of the methods to prevent undisclosed flexibility in the experimental procedures or analysis pipeline.
• Whether the authors have considered sufficient outcome-neutral conditions (e.g. absence of floor or ceiling effects; positive controls) for ensuring that the results obtained are able to test the stated hypotheses.

Following Stage 1 peer review, manuscripts will be accepted in principle, offered the opportunity to revise, or rejected outright. Acceptance in principle indicates that the article will be published pending successful completion of the study according to the pre-registered methods and analytic procedures, as well as a defensible and evidence-based interpretation of the results.

Following completion of the study, authors will complete the manuscript, including Results and Discussion sections. These Stage 2 manuscripts will more closely resemble a regular article format. The manuscript will then be returned to the reviewers, who will be asked to appraise:

Reviewers at Stage 2 may suggest that authors report additional post hoc tests on their data; however authors are not obliged to do so unless such tests are necessary to satisfy one or more of the Stage 2 review criteria. Please note that editorial decisions will not be based on the perceived importance, novelty, or conclusiveness of the results.

Quick links

• Explore articles by subject
• Guide to authors
• Editorial policies

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• ScientificWorldJournal
• v.2024; 2024
• PMC10807936

Writing a Scientific Review Article: Comprehensive Insights for Beginners

Ayodeji amobonye.

1 Department of Biotechnology and Food Science, Faculty of Applied Sciences, Durban University of Technology, P.O. Box 1334, KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 4000, South Africa

2 Writing Centre, Durban University of Technology, P.O. Box 1334 KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 4000, South Africa

Japareng Lalung

3 School of Industrial Technology, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Gelugor 11800, Pulau Pinang, Malaysia

Santhosh Pillai

Associated data.

The data and materials that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Review articles present comprehensive overview of relevant literature on specific themes and synthesise the studies related to these themes, with the aim of strengthening the foundation of knowledge and facilitating theory development. The significance of review articles in science is immeasurable as both students and researchers rely on these articles as the starting point for their research. Interestingly, many postgraduate students are expected to write review articles for journal publications as a way of demonstrating their ability to contribute to new knowledge in their respective fields. However, there is no comprehensive instructional framework to guide them on how to analyse and synthesise the literature in their niches into publishable review articles. The dearth of ample guidance or explicit training results in students having to learn all by themselves, usually by trial and error, which often leads to high rejection rates from publishing houses. Therefore, this article seeks to identify these challenges from a beginner's perspective and strives to plug the identified gaps and discrepancies. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to serve as a systematic guide for emerging scientists and to summarise the most important information on how to write and structure a publishable review article.

1. Introduction

Early scientists, spanning from the Ancient Egyptian civilization to the Scientific Revolution of the 16 th /17 th century, based their research on intuitions, personal observations, and personal insights. Thus, less time was spent on background reading as there was not much literature to refer to. This is well illustrated in the case of Sir Isaac Newton's apple tree and the theory of gravity, as well as Gregor Mendel's pea plants and the theory of inheritance. However, with the astronomical expansion in scientific knowledge and the emergence of the information age in the last century, new ideas are now being built on previously published works, thus the periodic need to appraise the huge amount of already published literature [ 1 ]. According to Birkle et al. [ 2 ], the Web of Science—an authoritative database of research publications and citations—covered more than 80 million scholarly materials. Hence, a critical review of prior and relevant literature is indispensable for any research endeavour as it provides the necessary framework needed for synthesising new knowledge and for highlighting new insights and perspectives [ 3 ].

Review papers are generally considered secondary research publications that sum up already existing works on a particular research topic or question and relate them to the current status of the topic. This makes review articles distinctly different from scientific research papers. While the primary aim of the latter is to develop new arguments by reporting original research, the former is focused on summarising and synthesising previous ideas, studies, and arguments, without adding new experimental contributions. Review articles basically describe the content and quality of knowledge that are currently available, with a special focus on the significance of the previous works. To this end, a review article cannot simply reiterate a subject matter, but it must contribute to the field of knowledge by synthesising available materials and offering a scholarly critique of theory [ 4 ]. Typically, these articles critically analyse both quantitative and qualitative studies by scrutinising experimental results, the discussion of the experimental data, and in some instances, previous review articles to propose new working theories. Thus, a review article is more than a mere exhaustive compilation of all that has been published on a topic; it must be a balanced, informative, perspective, and unbiased compendium of previous studies which may also include contrasting findings, inconsistencies, and conventional and current views on the subject [ 5 ].

Hence, the essence of a review article is measured by what is achieved, what is discovered, and how information is communicated to the reader [ 6 ]. According to Steward [ 7 ], a good literature review should be analytical, critical, comprehensive, selective, relevant, synthetic, and fully referenced. On the other hand, a review article is considered to be inadequate if it is lacking in focus or outcome, overgeneralised, opinionated, unbalanced, and uncritical [ 7 ]. Most review papers fail to meet these standards and thus can be viewed as mere summaries of previous works in a particular field of study. In one of the few studies that assessed the quality of review articles, none of the 50 papers that were analysed met the predefined criteria for a good review [ 8 ]. However, beginners must also realise that there is no bad writing in the true sense; there is only writing in evolution and under refinement. Literally, every piece of writing can be improved upon, right from the first draft until the final published manuscript. Hence, a paper can only be referred to as bad and unfixable when the author is not open to corrections or when the writer gives up on it.

According to Peat et al. [ 9 ], “everything is easy when you know how,” a maxim which applies to scientific writing in general and review writing in particular. In this regard, the authors emphasized that the writer should be open to learning and should also follow established rules instead of following a blind trial-and-error approach. In contrast to the popular belief that review articles should only be written by experienced scientists and researchers, recent trends have shown that many early-career scientists, especially postgraduate students, are currently expected to write review articles during the course of their studies. However, these scholars have little or no access to formal training on how to analyse and synthesise the research literature in their respective fields [ 10 ]. Consequently, students seeking guidance on how to write or improve their literature reviews are less likely to find published works on the subject, particularly in the science fields. Although various publications have dealt with the challenges of searching for literature, or writing literature reviews for dissertation/thesis purposes, there is little or no information on how to write a comprehensive review article for publication. In addition to the paucity of published information to guide the potential author, the lack of understanding of what constitutes a review paper compounds their challenges. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to serve as a guide for writing review papers for journal publishing. This work draws on the experience of the authors to assist early-career scientists/researchers in the “hard skill” of authoring review articles. Even though there is no single path to writing scientifically, or to writing reviews in particular, this paper attempts to simplify the process by looking at this subject from a beginner's perspective. Hence, this paper highlights the differences between the types of review articles in the sciences while also explaining the needs and purpose of writing review articles. Furthermore, it presents details on how to search for the literature as well as how to structure the manuscript to produce logical and coherent outputs. It is hoped that this work will ease prospective scientific writers into the challenging but rewarding art of writing review articles.

2. Benefits of Review Articles to the Author

Analysing literature gives an overview of the “WHs”: WHat has been reported in a particular field or topic, WHo the key writers are, WHat are the prevailing theories and hypotheses, WHat questions are being asked (and answered), and WHat methods and methodologies are appropriate and useful [ 11 ]. For new or aspiring researchers in a particular field, it can be quite challenging to get a comprehensive overview of their respective fields, especially the historical trends and what has been studied previously. As such, the importance of review articles to knowledge appraisal and contribution cannot be overemphasised, which is reflected in the constant demand for such articles in the research community. However, it is also important for the author, especially the first-time author, to recognise the importance of his/her investing time and effort into writing a quality review article.

Generally, literature reviews are undertaken for many reasons, mainly for publication and for dissertation purposes. The major purpose of literature reviews is to provide direction and information for the improvement of scientific knowledge. They also form a significant component in the research process and in academic assessment [ 12 ]. There may be, however, a thin line between a dissertation literature review and a published review article, given that with some modifications, a literature review can be transformed into a legitimate and publishable scholarly document. According to Gülpınar and Güçlü [ 6 ], the basic motivation for writing a review article is to make a comprehensive synthesis of the most appropriate literature on a specific research inquiry or topic. Thus, conducting a literature review assists in demonstrating the author's knowledge about a particular field of study, which may include but not be limited to its history, theories, key variables, vocabulary, phenomena, and methodologies [ 10 ]. Furthermore, publishing reviews is beneficial as it permits the researchers to examine different questions and, as a result, enhances the depth and diversity of their scientific reasoning [ 1 ]. In addition, writing review articles allows researchers to share insights with the scientific community while identifying knowledge gaps to be addressed in future research. The review writing process can also be a useful tool in training early-career scientists in leadership, coordination, project management, and other important soft skills necessary for success in the research world [ 13 ]. Another important reason for authoring reviews is that such publications have been observed to be remarkably influential, extending the reach of an author in multiple folds of what can be achieved by primary research papers [ 1 ]. The trend in science is for authors to receive more citations from their review articles than from their original research articles. According to Miranda and Garcia-Carpintero [ 14 ], review articles are, on average, three times more frequently cited than original research articles; they also asserted that a 20% increase in review authorship could result in a 40–80% increase in citations of the author. As a result, writing reviews can significantly impact a researcher's citation output and serve as a valuable channel to reach a wider scientific audience. In addition, the references cited in a review article also provide the reader with an opportunity to dig deeper into the topic of interest. Thus, review articles can serve as a valuable repository for consultation, increasing the visibility of the authors and resulting in more citations.

3. Types of Review Articles

The first step in writing a good literature review is to decide on the particular type of review to be written; hence, it is important to distinguish and understand the various types of review articles. Although scientific review articles have been classified according to various schemes, however, they are broadly categorised into narrative reviews, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses [ 15 ]. It was observed that more authors—as well as publishers—were leaning towards systematic reviews and meta-analysis while downplaying narrative reviews; however, the three serve different aims and should all be considered equally important in science [ 1 ]. Bibliometric reviews and patent reviews, which are closely related to meta-analysis, have also gained significant attention recently. However, from another angle, a review could also be of two types. In the first class, authors could deal with a widely studied topic where there is already an accumulated body of knowledge that requires analysis and synthesis [ 3 ]. At the other end of the spectrum, the authors may have to address an emerging issue that would benefit from exposure to potential theoretical foundations; hence, their contribution would arise from the fresh theoretical foundations proposed in developing a conceptual model [ 3 ].

3.1. Narrative Reviews

Narrative reviewers are mainly focused on providing clarification and critical analysis on a particular topic or body of literature through interpretative synthesis, creativity, and expert judgement. According to Green et al. [ 16 ], a narrative review can be in the form of editorials, commentaries, and narrative overviews. However, editorials and commentaries are usually expert opinions; hence, a beginner is more likely to write a narrative overview, which is more general and is also referred to as an unsystematic narrative review. Similarly, the literature review section of most dissertations and empirical papers is typically narrative in nature. Typically, narrative reviews combine results from studies that may have different methodologies to address different questions or to formulate a broad theoretical formulation [ 1 ]. They are largely integrative as strong focus is placed on the assimilation and synthesis of various aspects in the review, which may involve comparing and contrasting research findings or deriving structured implications [ 17 ]. In addition, they are also qualitative studies because they do not follow strict selection processes; hence, choosing publications is relatively more subjective and unsystematic [ 18 ]. However, despite their popularity, there are concerns about their inherent subjectivity. In many instances, when the supporting data for narrative reviews are examined more closely, the evaluations provided by the author(s) become quite questionable [ 19 ]. Nevertheless, if the goal of the author is to formulate a new theory that connects diverse strands of research, a narrative method is most appropriate.

3.2. Systematic Reviews

In contrast to narrative reviews, which are generally descriptive, systematic reviews employ a systematic approach to summarise evidence on research questions. Hence, systematic reviews make use of precise and rigorous criteria to identify, evaluate, and subsequently synthesise all relevant literature on a particular topic [ 12 , 20 ]. As a result, systematic reviews are more likely to inspire research ideas by identifying knowledge gaps or inconsistencies, thus helping the researcher to clearly define the research hypotheses or questions [ 21 ]. Furthermore, systematic reviews may serve as independent research projects in their own right, as they follow a defined methodology to search and combine reliable results to synthesise a new database that can be used for a variety of purposes [ 22 ]. Typically, the peculiarities of the individual reviewer, different search engines, and information databases used all ensure that no two searches will yield the same systematic results even if the searches are conducted simultaneously and under identical criteria [ 11 ]. Hence, attempts are made at standardising the exercise via specific methods that would limit bias and chance effects, prevent duplications, and provide more accurate results upon which conclusions and decisions can be made.

The most established of these methods is the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines which objectively defined statements, guidelines, reporting checklists, and flowcharts for undertaking systematic reviews as well as meta-analysis [ 23 ]. Though mainly designed for research in medical sciences, the PRISMA approach has gained wide acceptance in other fields of science and is based on eight fundamental propositions. These include the explicit definition of the review question, an unambiguous outline of the study protocol, an objective and exhaustive systematic review of reputable literature, and an unambiguous identification of included literature based on defined selection criteria [ 24 ]. Other considerations include an unbiased appraisal of the quality of the selected studies (literature), organic synthesis of the evidence of the study, preparation of the manuscript based on the reporting guidelines, and periodic update of the review as new data emerge [ 24 ]. Other methods such as PRISMA-P (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic review and Meta-Analysis Protocols), MOOSE (Meta-analysis Of Observational Studies in Epidemiology), and ROSES (Reporting Standards for Systematic Evidence Syntheses) have since been developed for systematic reviews (and meta-analysis), with most of them being derived from PRISMA.

Consequently, systematic reviews—unlike narrative reviews—must contain a methodology section which in addition to all that was highlighted above must fully describe the precise criteria used in formulating the research question and setting the inclusion or exclusion criteria used in selecting/accessing the literature. Similarly, the criteria for evaluating the quality of the literature included in the review as well as for analysing, synthesising, and disseminating the findings must be fully described in the methodology section.

3.3. Meta-Analysis

Meta-analyses are considered as more specialised forms of systematic reviews. Generally, they combine the results of many studies that use similar or closely related methods to address the same question or share a common quantitative evaluation method [ 25 ]. However, meta-analyses are also a step higher than other systematic reviews as they are focused on numerical data and involve the use of statistics in evaluating different studies and synthesising new knowledge. The major advantage of this type of review is the increased statistical power leading to more reliable results for inferring modest associations and a more comprehensive understanding of the true impact of a research study [ 26 ]. Unlike in traditional systematic reviews, research topics covered in meta-analyses must be mature enough to allow the inclusion of sufficient homogeneous empirical research in terms of subjects, interventions, and outcomes [ 27 , 28 ].

Being an advanced form of systematic review, meta-analyses must also have a distinct methodology section; hence, the standard procedures involved in the traditional systematic review (especially PRISMA) also apply in meta-analyses [ 23 ]. In addition to the common steps in formulating systematic reviews, meta-analyses are required to describe how nested and missing data are handled, the effect observed in each study, the confidence interval associated with each synthesised effect, and any potential for bias presented within the sample(s) [ 17 ]. According to Paul and Barari [ 28 ], a meta-analysis must also detail the final sample, the meta-analytic model, and the overall analysis, moderator analysis, and software employed. While the overall analysis involves the statistical characterization of the relationships between variables in the meta-analytic framework and their significance, the moderator analysis defines the different variables that may affect variations in the original studies [ 28 , 29 ]. It must also be noted that the accuracy and reliability of meta-analyses have both been significantly enhanced by the incorporation of statistical approaches such as Bayesian analysis [ 30 ], network analysis [ 31 ], and more recently, machine learning [ 32 ].

3.4. Bibliometric Review

A bibliometric review, commonly referred to as bibliometric analysis, is a systematic evaluation of published works within a specific field or discipline [ 33 ]. This bibliometric methodology involves the use of quantitative methods to analyse bibliometric data such as the characteristics and numbers of publications, units of citations, authorship, co-authorship, and journal impact factors [ 34 ]. Academics use bibliometric analysis with different objectives in mind, which includes uncovering emerging trends in article and journal performance, elaborating collaboration patterns and research constituents, evaluating the impact and influence of particular authors, publications, or research groups, and highlighting the intellectual framework of a certain field [ 35 ]. It is also used to inform policy and decision-making. Similarly to meta-analysis, bibliometric reviews rely upon quantitative techniques, thus avoiding the interpretation bias that could arise from the qualitative techniques of other types of reviews [ 36 ]. However, while bibliometric analysis synthesises the bibliometric and intellectual structure of a field by examining the social and structural linkages between various research parts, meta-analysis focuses on summarising empirical evidence by probing the direction and strength of effects and relationships among variables, especially in open research questions [ 37 , 38 ]. However, similarly to systematic review and meta-analysis, a bibliometric review also requires a well-detailed methodology section. The amount of data to be analysed in bibliometric analysis is quite massive, running to hundreds and tens of thousands in some cases. Although the data are objective in nature (e.g., number of citations and publications and occurrences of keywords and topics), the interpretation is usually carried out through both objective (e.g., performance analysis) and subjective (e.g., thematic analysis) evaluations [ 35 ]. However, the invention and availability of bibliometric software such as BibExcel, Gephi, Leximancer, and VOSviewer and scientific databases such as Dimensions, Web of Science, and Scopus have made this type of analysis more feasible.

3.5. Patent Review

Patent reviews provide a comprehensive analysis and critique of a specific patent or a group of related patents, thus presenting a concise understanding of the technology or innovation that is covered by the patent [ 39 ]. This type of article is useful for researchers as it also enhances their understanding of the legal, technical, and commercial aspects of an intellectual property/innovation; in addition, it is also important for stakeholders outside the research community including IP (intellectual property) specialists, legal professionals, and technology-transfer officers [ 40 ]. Typically, patent reviews encompass the scope, background, claims, legal implications, technical specifications, and potential commercial applications of the patent(s). The article may also include a discussion of the patent's strengths and weaknesses, as well as its potential impact on the industry or field in which it operates. Most times, reviews are time specified, they may be regionalised, and the data are usually retrieved via patent searches on databases such as that of the European Patent Office ( https://www.epo.org/searching.html ), United States Patent and Trademark Office ( https://patft.uspto.gov/ ), the World Intellectual Property Organization's PATENTSCOPE ( https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/structuredSearch.jsf ), Google Patent ( https://www.google.com/?tbm=pts ), and China National Intellectual Property Administration ( https://pss-system.cponline.cnipa.gov.cn/conventionalSearch ). According to Cerimi et al. [ 41 ], the retrieved data and analysed may include the patent number, patent status, filing date, application date, grant dates, inventor, assignee, and pending applications. While data analysis is usually carried out by general data software such as Microsoft Excel, an intelligence software solely dedicated to patent research and analysis, Orbit Intelligence has been found to be more efficient [ 39 ]. It is also mandatory to include a methodology section in a patent review, and this should be explicit, thorough, and precise to allow a clear understanding of how the analysis was carried out and how the conclusions were arrived at.

4. Searching Literature

One of the most challenging tasks in writing a review article on a subject is the search for relevant literature to populate the manuscript as the author is required to garner information from an endless number of sources. This is even more challenging as research outputs have been increasing astronomically, especially in the last decade, with thousands of new articles published annually in various fields. It is therefore imperative that the author must not only be aware of the overall trajectory in a field of investigation but must also be cognizant of recent studies so as not to publish outdated research or review articles. Basically, the search for the literature involves a coherent conceptual structuring of the topic itself and a thorough collation of evidence under the common themes which might reflect the histories, conflicts, standoffs, revolutions, and/or evolutions in the field [ 7 ]. To start the search process, the author must carefully identify and select broad keywords relevant to the subject; subsequently, the keywords should be developed to refine the search into specific subheadings that would facilitate the structure of the review.

Two main tactics have been identified for searching the literature, namely, systematic and snowballing [ 42 ]. The systematic approach involves searching literature with specific keywords (for example, cancer, antioxidant, and nanoparticles), which leads to an almost unmanageable and overwhelming list of possible sources [ 43 ]. The snowballing approach, however, involves the identification of a particular publication, followed by the compilation of a bibliography of articles based on the reference list of the identified publication [ 44 ]. Many times, it might be necessary to combine both approaches, but irrespective, the author must keep an accurate track and record of papers cited in the search. A simple and efficient strategy for populating the bibliography of review articles is to go through the abstract (and sometimes the conclusion) of a paper; if the abstract is related to the topic of discourse, the author might go ahead and read the entire article; otherwise, he/she is advised to move on [ 45 ]. Winchester and Salji [ 5 ] noted that to learn the background of the subject/topic to be reviewed, starting literature searches with academic textbooks or published review articles is imperative, especially for beginners. Furthermore, it would also assist in compiling the list of keywords, identifying areas of further exploration, and providing a glimpse of the current state of the research. However, past reviews ideally are not to serve as the foundation of a new review as they are written from someone else's viewpoint, which might have been tainted with some bias. Fortunately, the accessibility and search for the literature have been made relatively easier than they were a few decades ago as the current information age has placed an enormous volume of knowledge right at our fingertips [ 46 ]. Nevertheless, when gathering the literature from the Internet, authors should exercise utmost caution as much of the information may not be verified or peer-reviewed and thus may be unregulated and unreliable. For instance, Wikipedia, despite being a large repository of information with more than 6.7 million articles in the English language alone, is considered unreliable for scientific literature reviews, due to its openness to public editing [ 47 ]. However, in addition to peer-reviewed journal publications—which are most ideal—reviews can also be drawn from a wide range of other sources such as technical documents, in-house reports, conference abstracts, and conference proceedings. Similarly, “Google Scholar”—as against “Google” and other general search engines—is more appropriate as its searches are restricted to only academic articles produced by scholarly societies or/and publishers [ 48 ]. Furthermore, the various electronic databases, such as ScienceDirect, Web of Science, PubMed, and MEDLINE, many of which focus on specific fields of research, are also ideal options [ 49 ]. Advancement in computer indexing has remarkably expanded the ease and ability to search large databases for every potentially relevant article. In addition to searching by topic, literature search can be modified by time; however, there must be a balance between old papers and recent ones. The general consensus in science is that publications less than five years old are considered recent.

It is important, especially in systematic reviews and meta-analyses, that the specific method of running the computer searches be properly documented as there is the need to include this in the method (methodology) section of such papers. Typically, the method details the keywords, databases explored, search terms used, and the inclusion/exclusion criteria applied in the selection of data and any other specific decision/criteria. All of these will ensure the reproducibility and thoroughness of the search and the selection procedure. However, Randolph [ 10 ] noted that Internet searches might not give the exhaustive list of articles needed for a review article; hence, it is advised that authors search through the reference lists of articles that were obtained initially from the Internet search. After determining the relevant articles from the list, the author should read through the references of these articles and repeat the cycle until saturation is reached [ 10 ]. After populating the articles needed for the literature review, the next step is to analyse them individually and in their whole entirety. A systematic approach to this is to identify the key information within the papers, examine them in depth, and synthesise original perspectives by integrating the information and making inferences based on the findings. In this regard, it is imperative to link one source to the other in a logical manner, for instance, taking note of studies with similar methodologies, papers that agree, or results that are contradictory [ 42 ].

5. Structuring the Review Article

The title and abstract are the main selling points of a review article, as most readers will only peruse these two elements and usually go on to read the full paper if they are drawn in by either or both of the two. Tullu [ 50 ] recommends that the title of a scientific paper “should be descriptive, direct, accurate, appropriate, interesting, concise, precise, unique, and not be misleading.” In addition to providing “just enough details” to entice the reader, words in the titles are also used by electronic databases, journal websites, and search engines to index and retrieve a particular paper during a search [ 51 ]. Titles are of different types and must be chosen according to the topic under review. They are generally classified as descriptive, declarative, or interrogative and can also be grouped into compound, nominal, or full-sentence titles [ 50 ]. The subject of these categorisations has been extensively discussed in many articles; however, the reader must also be aware of the compound titles, which usually contain a main title and a subtitle. Typically, subtitles provide additional context—to the main title—and they may specify the geographic scope of the research, research methodology, or sample size [ 52 ].

Just like primary research articles, there are many debates about the optimum length of a review article's title. However, the general consensus is to keep the title as brief as possible while not being too general. A title length between 10 and 15 words is recommended, since longer titles can be more challenging to comprehend. Paiva et al. [ 53 ] observed that articles which contain 95 characters or less get more views and citations. However, emphasis must be placed on conciseness as the audience will be more satisfied if they can understand what exactly the review has contributed to the field, rather than just a hint about the general topic area. Authors should also endeavour to stick to the journal's specific requirements, especially regarding the length of the title and what they should or should not contain [ 9 ]. Thus, avoidance of filler words such as “a review on/of,” “an observation of,” or “a study of” is a very simple way to limit title length. In addition, abbreviations or acronyms should be avoided in the title, except the standard or commonly interpreted ones such as AIDS, DNA, HIV, and RNA. In summary, to write an effective title, the authors should consider the following points. What is the paper about? What was the methodology used? What were the highlights and major conclusions? Subsequently, the author should list all the keywords from these answers, construct a sentence from these keywords, and finally delete all redundant words from the sentence title. It is also possible to gain some ideas by scanning indices and article titles in major journals in the field. It is important to emphasise that a title is not chosen and set in stone, and the title is most likely to be continually revised and adjusted until the end of the writing process.

5.2. Abstract

The abstract, also referred to as the synopsis, is a summary of the full research paper; it is typically independent and can stand alone. For most readers, a publication does not exist beyond the abstract, partly because abstracts are often the only section of a paper that is made available to the readers at no cost, whereas the full paper may attract a payment or subscription [ 54 ]. Thus, the abstract is supposed to set the tone for the few readers who wish to read the rest of the paper. It has also been noted that the abstract gives the first impression of a research work to journal editors, conference scientific committees, or referees, who might outright reject the paper if the abstract is poorly written or inadequate [ 50 ]. Hence, it is imperative that the abstract succinctly represents the entire paper and projects it positively. Just like the title, abstracts have to be balanced, comprehensive, concise, functional, independent, precise, scholarly, and unbiased and not be misleading [ 55 ]. Basically, the abstract should be formulated using keywords from all the sections of the main manuscript. Thus, it is pertinent that the abstract conveys the focus, key message, rationale, and novelty of the paper without any compromise or exaggeration. Furthermore, the abstract must be consistent with the rest of the paper; as basic as this instruction might sound, it is not to be taken for granted. For example, a study by Vrijhoef and Steuten [ 56 ] revealed that 18–68% of 264 abstracts from some scientific journals contained information that was inconsistent with the main body of the publications.

Abstracts can either be structured or unstructured; in addition, they can further be classified as either descriptive or informative. Unstructured abstracts, which are used by many scientific journals, are free flowing with no predefined subheadings, while structured abstracts have specific subheadings/subsections under which the abstract needs to be composed. Structured abstracts have been noted to be more informative and are usually divided into subsections which include the study background/introduction, objectives, methodology design, results, and conclusions [ 57 ]. No matter the style chosen, the author must carefully conform to the instructions provided by the potential journal of submission, which may include but are not limited to the format, font size/style, word limit, and subheadings [ 58 ]. The word limit for abstracts in most scientific journals is typically between 150 and 300 words. It is also a general rule that abstracts do not contain any references whatsoever.

Typically, an abstract should be written in the active voice, and there is no such thing as a perfect abstract as it could always be improved on. It is advised that the author first makes an initial draft which would contain all the essential parts of the paper, which could then be polished subsequently. The draft should begin with a brief background which would lead to the research questions. It might also include a general overview of the methodology used (if applicable) and importantly, the major results/observations/highlights of the review paper. The abstract should end with one or few sentences about any implications, perspectives, or future research that may be developed from the review exercise. Finally, the authors should eliminate redundant words and edit the abstract to the correct word count permitted by the journal [ 59 ]. It is always beneficial to read previous abstracts published in the intended journal, related topics/subjects from other journals, and other reputable sources. Furthermore, the author should endeavour to get feedback on the abstract especially from peers and co-authors. As the abstract is the face of the whole paper, it is best that it is the last section to be finalised, as by this time, the author would have developed a clearer understanding of the findings and conclusions of the entire paper.

5.3. Graphical Abstracts

Since the mid-2000s, an increasing number of journals now require authors to provide a graphical abstract (GA) in addition to the traditional written abstract, to increase the accessibility of scientific publications to readers [ 60 ]. A study showed that publications with GA performed better than those without it, when the abstract views, total citations, and downloads were compared [ 61 ]. However, the GA should provide “a single, concise pictorial, and visual summary of the main findings of an article” [ 62 ]. Although they are meant to be a stand-alone summary of the whole paper, it has been noted that they are not so easily comprehensible without having read through the traditionally written abstract [ 63 ]. It is important to note that, like traditional abstracts, many reputable journals require GAs to adhere to certain specifications such as colour, dimension, quality, file size, and file format (usually JPEG/JPG, PDF, PNG, or TIFF). In addition, it is imperative to use engaging and accurate figures, all of which must be synthesised in order to accurately reflect the key message of the paper. Currently, there are various online or downloadable graphical tools that can be used for creating GAs, such as Microsoft Paint or PowerPoint, Mindthegraph, ChemDraw, CorelDraw, and BioRender.

5.4. Keywords

As a standard practice, journals require authors to select 4–8 keywords (or phrases), which are typically listed below the abstract. A good set of keywords will enable indexers and search engines to find relevant papers more easily and can be considered as a very concise abstract [ 64 ]. According to Dewan and Gupta [ 51 ], the selection of appropriate keywords will significantly enhance the retrieval, accession, and consequently, the citation of the review paper. Ideally, keywords can be variants of the terms/phrases used in the title, the abstract, and the main text, but they should ideally not be the exact words in the main title. Choosing the most appropriate keywords for a review article involves listing down the key terms and phrases in the article, including abbreviations. Subsequently, a quick review of the glossary/vocabulary/term list or indexing standard in the specific discipline will assist in selecting the best and most precise keywords that match those used in the databases from the list drawn. In addition, the keywords should not be broad or general terms (e.g., DNA, biology, and enzymes) but must be specific to the field or subfield of study as well as to the particular paper [ 65 ].

5.5. Introduction

The introduction of an article is the first major section of the manuscript, and it presents basic information to the reader without compelling them to study past publications. In addition, the introduction directs the reader to the main arguments and points developed in the main body of the article while clarifying the current state of knowledge in that particular area of research [ 12 ]. The introduction part of a review article is usually sectionalised into background information, a description of the main topic and finally a statement of the main purpose of the review [ 66 ]. Authors may begin the introduction with brief general statements—which provide background knowledge on the subject matter—that lead to more specific ones [ 67 ]. It is at this point that the reader's attention must be caught as the background knowledge must highlight the importance and justification for the subject being discussed, while also identifying the major problem to be addressed [ 68 ]. In addition, the background should be broad enough to attract even nonspecialists in the field to maximise the impact and widen the reach of the article. All of these should be done in the light of current literature; however, old references may also be used for historical purposes. A very important aspect of the introduction is clearly stating and establishing the research problem(s) and how a review of the particular topic contributes to those problem(s). Thus, the research gap which the paper intends to fill, the limitations of previous works and past reviews, if available, and the new knowledge to be contributed must all be highlighted. Inadequate information and the inability to clarify the problem will keep readers (who have the desire to obtain new information) from reading beyond the introduction [ 69 ]. It is also pertinent that the author establishes the purpose of reviewing the literature and defines the scope as well as the major synthesised point of view. Furthermore, a brief insight into the criteria used to select, evaluate, and analyse the literature, as well as the outline or sequence of the review, should be provided in the introduction. Subsequently, the specific objectives of the review article must be presented. The last part of the “introduction” section should focus on the solution, the way forward, the recommendations, and the further areas of research as deduced from the whole review process. According to DeMaria [ 70 ], clearly expressed or recommended solutions to an explicitly revealed problem are very important for the wholesomeness of the “introduction” section. It is believed that following these steps will give readers the opportunity to track the problems and the corresponding solution from their own perspective in the light of current literature. As against some suggestions that the introduction should be written only in present tenses, it is also believed that it could be done with other tenses in addition to the present tense. In this regard, general facts should be written in the present tense, specific research/work should be in the past tense, while the concluding statement should be in the past perfect or simple past. Furthermore, many of the abbreviations to be used in the rest of the manuscript and their explanations should be defined in this section.

5.6. Methodology

Writing a review article is equivalent to conducting a research study, with the information gathered by the author (reviewer) representing the data. Like all major studies, it involves conceptualisation, planning, implementation, and dissemination [ 71 ], all of which may be detailed in a methodology section, if necessary. Hence, the methodological section of a review paper (which can also be referred to as the review protocol) details how the relevant literature was selected and how it was analysed as well as summarised. The selection details may include, but are not limited to, the database consulted and the specific search terms used together with the inclusion/exclusion criteria. As earlier highlighted in Section 3 , a description of the methodology is required for all types of reviews except for narrative reviews. This is partly because unlike narrative reviews, all other review articles follow systematic approaches which must ensure significant reproducibility [ 72 ]. Therefore, where necessary, the methods of data extraction from the literature and data synthesis must also be highlighted as well. In some cases, it is important to show how data were combined by highlighting the statistical methods used, measures of effect, and tests performed, as well as demonstrating heterogeneity and publication bias [ 73 ].

The methodology should also detail the major databases consulted during the literature search, e.g., Dimensions, ScienceDirect, Web of Science, MEDLINE, and PubMed. For meta-analysis, it is imperative to highlight the software and/or package used, which could include Comprehensive Meta-Analysis, OpenMEE, Review Manager (RevMan), Stata, SAS, and R Studio. It is also necessary to state the mathematical methods used for the analysis; examples of these include the Bayesian analysis, the Mantel–Haenszel method, and the inverse variance method. The methodology should also state the number of authors that carried out the initial review stage of the study, as it has been recommended that at least two reviews should be done blindly and in parallel, especially when it comes to the acquisition and synthesis of data [ 74 ]. Finally, the quality and validity assessment of the publication used in the review must be stated and well clarified [ 73 ].

5.7. Main Body of the Review

Ideally, the main body of a publishable review should answer these questions: What is new (contribution)? Why so (logic)? So what (impact)? How well it is done (thoroughness)? The flow of the main body of a review article must be well organised to adequately maintain the attention of the readers as well as guide them through the section. It is recommended that the author should consider drawing a conceptual scheme of the main body first, using methods such as mind-mapping. This will help create a logical flow of thought and presentation, while also linking the various sections of the manuscript together. According to Moreira [ 75 ], “reports do not simply yield their findings, rather reviewers make them yield,” and thus, it is the author's responsibility to transform “resistant” texts into “docile” texts. Hence, after the search for the literature, the essential themes and key concepts of the review paper must be identified and synthesised together. This synthesis primarily involves creating hypotheses about the relationships between the concepts with the aim of increasing the understanding of the topic being reviewed. The important information from the various sources should not only be summarised, but the significance of studies must be related back to the initial question(s) posed by the review article. Furthermore, MacLure [ 76 ] stated that data are not just to be plainly “extracted intact” and “used exactly as extracted,” but must be modified, reconfigured, transformed, transposed, converted, tabulated, graphed, or manipulated to enable synthesis, combination, and comparison. Therefore, different pieces of information must be extracted from the reports in which they were previously deposited and then refined into the body of the new article [ 75 ]. To this end, adequate comparison and combination might require that “qualitative data be quantified” or/and “quantitative data may be qualitized” [ 77 ]. In order to accomplish all of these goals, the author may have to transform, paraphrase, generalize, specify, and reorder the text [ 78 ]. For comprehensiveness, the body paragraphs should be arranged in a similar order as it was initially stated in the abstract or/and introduction. Thus, the main body could be divided into thematic areas, each of which could be independently comprehensive and treated as a mini review. Similarly, the sections can also be arranged chronologically depending on the focus of the review. Furthermore, the abstractions should proceed from a wider general view of the literature being reviewed and then be narrowed down to the specifics. In the process, deep insights should also be provided between the topic of the review and the wider subject area, e.g., fungal enzymes and enzymes in general. The abstractions must also be discussed in more detail by presenting more specific information from the identified sources (with proper citations of course!). For example, it is important to identify and highlight contrary findings and rival interpretations as well as to point out areas of agreement or debate among different bodies of literature. Often, there are previous reviews on the same topic/concept; however, this does not prevent a new author from writing one on the same topic, especially if the previous reviews were written many years ago. However, it is important that the body of the new manuscript be written from a new angle that was not adequately covered in the past reviews and should also incorporate new studies that have accumulated since the last review(s). In addition, the new review might also highlight the approaches, limitations, and conclusions of the past studies. But the authors must not be excessively critical of the past reviews as this is regarded by many authors as a sign of poor professionalism [ 3 , 79 ]. Daft [ 79 ] emphasized that it is more important for a reviewer to state how their research builds on previous work instead of outright claiming that previous works are incompetent and inadequate. However, if a series of related papers on one topic have a common error or research flaw that needs rectification, the reviewer must point this out with the aim of moving the field forward [ 3 ]. Like every other scientific paper, the main body of a review article also needs to be consistent in style, for example, in the choice of passive vs. active voice and present vs. past tense. It is also important to note that tables and figures can serve as a powerful tool for highlighting key points in the body of the review, and they are now considered core elements of reviews. For more guidance and insights into what should make up the contents of a good review article, readers are also advised to get familiarised with the Boote and Beile [ 80 ] literature review scoring rubric as well as the review article checklist of Short [ 81 ].

5.8. Tables and Figures

An ideal review article should be logically structured and efficiently utilise illustrations, in the form of tables and figures, to convey the key findings and relationships in the study. According to Tay [ 13 ], illustrations often take a secondary role in review papers when compared to primary research papers which are focused on illustrations. However, illustrations are very important in review articles as they can serve as succinct means of communicating major findings and insights. Franzblau and Chung [ 82 ] pointed out that illustrations serve three major purposes in a scientific article: they simplify complex data and relationships for better understanding, they minimise reading time by summarising and bringing to focus on the key findings (or trends), and last, they help to reduce the overall word count. Hence, inserting and constructing illustrations in a review article is as meticulous as it is important. However, important decisions should be made on whether the charts, figures, or tables to be potentially inserted in the manuscript are indeed needed and how best to design them [ 83 ]. Illustrations should enhance the text while providing necessary information; thus, the information described in illustrations should not contradict that in the main text and should also not be a repetition of texts [ 84 ]. Furthermore, illustrations must be autonomous, meaning they ought to be intelligible without having to read the text portion of the manuscript; thus, the reader does not have to flip back and forth between the illustration and the main text in order to understand it [ 85 ]. It should be noted that tables or figures that directly reiterate the main text or contain extraneous information will only make a mess of the manuscript and discourage readers [ 86 ].

Kotz and Cals [ 87 ] recommend that the layout of tables and figures should be carefully designed in a clear manner with suitable layouts, which will allow them to be referred to logically and chronologically in the text. In addition, illustrations should only contain simple text, as lengthy details would contradict their initial objective, which was to provide simple examples or an overview. Furthermore, the use of abbreviations in illustrations, especially tables, should be avoided if possible. If not, the abbreviations should be defined explicitly in the footnotes or legends of the illustration [ 88 ]. Similarly, numerical values in tables and graphs should also be correctly approximated [ 84 ]. It is recommended that the number of tables and figures in the manuscript should not exceed the target journal's specification. According to Saver [ 89 ], they ideally should not account for more than one-third of the manuscript. Finally, the author(s) must seek permission and give credits for using an already published illustration when necessary. However, none of these are needed if the graphic is originally created by the author, but if it is a reproduced or an adapted illustration, the author must obtain permission from the copyright owner and include the necessary credit. One of the very important tools for designing illustrations is Creative Commons, a platform that provides a wide range of creative works which are available to the public for use and modification.

5.9. Conclusion/Future Perspectives

It has been observed that many reviews end abruptly with a short conclusion; however, a lot more can be included in this section in addition to what has been said in the major sections of the paper. Basically, the conclusion section of a review article should provide a summary of key findings from the main body of the manuscript. In this section, the author needs to revisit the critical points of the paper as well as highlight the accuracy, validity, and relevance of the inferences drawn in the article review. A good conclusion should highlight the relationship between the major points and the author's hypothesis as well as the relationship between the hypothesis and the broader discussion to demonstrate the significance of the review article in a larger context. In addition to giving a concise summary of the important findings that describe current knowledge, the conclusion must also offer a rationale for conducting future research [ 12 ]. Knowledge gaps should be identified, and themes should be logically developed in order to construct conceptual frameworks as well as present a way forward for future research in the field of study [ 11 ].

Furthermore, the author may have to justify the propositions made earlier in the manuscript, demonstrate how the paper extends past research works, and also suggest ways that the expounded theories can be empirically examined [ 3 ]. Unlike experimental studies which can only draw either a positive conclusion or ambiguous failure to reject the null hypothesis, four possible conclusions can be drawn from review articles [ 1 ]. First, the theory/hypothesis propounded may be correct after being proven from current evidence; second, the hypothesis may not be explicitly proven but is most probably the best guess. The third conclusion is that the currently available evidence does not permit a confident conclusion or a best guess, while the last conclusion is that the theory or hypothesis is false [ 1 ]. It is important not to present new information in the conclusion section which has link whatsoever with the rest of the manuscript. According to Harris et al. [ 90 ], the conclusions should, in essence, answer the question: if a reader were to remember one thing about the review, what would it be?

5.10. References

As it has been noted in different parts of this paper, authors must give the required credit to any work or source(s) of information that was included in the review article. This must include the in-text citations in the main body of the paper and the corresponding entries in the reference list. Ideally, this full bibliographical list is the last part of the review article, and it should contain all the books, book chapters, journal articles, reports, and other media, which were utilised in the manuscript. It has been noted that most journals and publishers have their own specific referencing styles which are all derived from the more popular styles such as the American Psychological Association (APA), Chicago, Harvard, Modern Language Association (MLA), and Vancouver styles. However, all these styles may be categorised into either the parenthetical or numerical referencing style. Although a few journals do not have strict referencing rules, it is the responsibility of the author to reference according to the style and instructions of the journal. Omissions and errors must be avoided at all costs, and this can be easily achieved by going over the references many times for due diligence [ 11 ]. According to Cronin et al. [ 12 ], a separate file for references can be created, and any work used in the manuscript can be added to this list immediately after being cited in the text [ 12 ]. In recent times, the emergence of various referencing management software applications such as Endnote, RefWorks, Mendeley, and Zotero has even made referencing easier. The majority of these software applications require little technical expertise, and many of them are free to use, while others may require a subscription. It is imperative, however, that even after using these software packages, the author must manually curate the references during the final draft, in order to avoid any errors, since these programs are not impervious to errors, particularly formatting errors.

6. Concluding Remarks

Writing a review article is a skill that needs to be learned; it is a rigorous but rewarding endeavour as it can provide a useful platform to project the emerging researcher or postgraduate student into the gratifying world of publishing. Thus, the reviewer must develop the ability to think critically, spot patterns in a large volume of information, and must be invested in writing without tiring. The prospective author must also be inspired and dedicated to the successful completion of the article while also ensuring that the review article is not just a mere list or summary of previous research. It is also important that the review process must be focused on the literature and not on the authors; thus, overt criticism of existing research and personal aspersions must be avoided at all costs. All ideas, sentences, words, and illustrations should be constructed in a way to avoid plagiarism; basically, this can be achieved by paraphrasing, summarising, and giving the necessary acknowledgments. Currently, there are many tools to track and detect plagiarism in manuscripts, ensuring that they fall within a reasonable similarity index (which is typically 15% or lower for most journals). Although the more popular of these tools, such as Turnitin and iThenticate, are subscription-based, there are many freely available web-based options as well. An ideal review article is supposed to motivate the research topic and describe its key concepts while delineating the boundaries of research. In this regard, experience-based information on how to methodologically develop acceptable and impactful review articles has been detailed in this paper. Furthermore, for a beginner, this guide has detailed “the why” and “the how” of authoring a good scientific review article. However, the information in this paper may as a whole or in parts be also applicable to other fields of research and to other writing endeavours such as writing literature review in theses, dissertations, and primary research articles. Finally, the intending authors must put all the basic rules of scientific writing and writing in general into cognizance. A comprehensive study of the articles cited within this paper and other related articles focused on scientific writing will further enhance the ability of the motivated beginner to deliver a good review article.

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of South Africa under grant number UID 138097. The authors would like to thank the Durban University of Technology for funding the postdoctoral fellowship of the first author, Dr. Ayodeji Amobonye.

Data Availability

Conflicts of interest.

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Science Research: Primary Sources and Original Research vs. Review Articles

• Additional Web Resources
• Health & Science Databases
• Primary Sources and Original Research vs. Review Articles
• Citation Guides, Generators, and Tools

Original Research vs. Review Articles. How can I tell the Difference?

Research vs review articles.

It's often difficult to tell the difference between original research articles and review articles. Here are some explanations and tips that may help: "Review articles are often as lengthy or even longer that original research articles. What the authors of review articles are doing in analysing and evaluating current research and investigations related to a specific topic, field, or problem. They are not primary sources since they review previously published material. They can be of great value for identifying potentially good primary sources, but they aren't primary themselves. Primary research articles can be identified by a commonly used format. If an article contains the following elements, you can count on it being a primary research article. Look for sections titled:

Methods (sometimes with variations, such as Materials and Methods) Results (usually followed with charts and statistical tables) Discussion

You can also read the abstract to get a good sense of the kind of article that is being presented.

If it is a review article instead of a research article, the abstract should make that pretty clear. If there is no abstract at all, that in itself may be a sign that it is not a primary resource. Short research articles, such as those found in Science and similar scientific publications that mix news, editorials, and forums with research reports, however, may not include any of those elements. In those cases look at the words the authors use, phrases such as "we tested"  and "in our study, we measured" will tell you that the article is reporting on original research."*

*Taken from Ithca College Libraries

Primary and Secondary Sources for Science

In the Sciences, primary sources are documents that provide full description of the original research. For example, a primary source would be a journal article where scientists describe their research on the human immune system. A secondary source would be an article commenting or analyzing the scientists' research on the human immune system.

  EXAMPLES OF PRIMARY AND SECONDARY SOURCES

Source: The Evolution of Scientific Information (from  Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science , vol. 26).

Primary Vs. Secondary Vs. Tertiary Sources

• << Previous: Books
• Next: Citation Guides, Generators, and Tools >>
• Last Updated: Nov 16, 2023 1:58 PM
• URL: https://andersonuniversity.libguides.com/ScienceResearch

Thrift Library | (864) 231-2050 | [email protected] | Anderson University 316 Boulevard Anderson, SC 29621

Frequently asked questions

What’s the difference between a lab report and a research paper.

The purpose of a lab report is to demonstrate your understanding of the scientific method with a hands-on lab experiment. Course instructors will often provide you with an experimental design and procedure. Your task is to write up how you actually performed the experiment and evaluate the outcome.

In contrast, a research paper requires you to independently develop an original argument. It involves more in-depth research and interpretation of sources and data.

A lab report is usually shorter than a research paper.

Frequently asked questions: Academic writing

A rhetorical tautology is the repetition of an idea of concept using different words.

Rhetorical tautologies occur when additional words are used to convey a meaning that has already been expressed or implied. For example, the phrase “armed gunman” is a tautology because a “gunman” is by definition “armed.”

A logical tautology is a statement that is always true because it includes all logical possibilities.

Logical tautologies often take the form of “either/or” statements (e.g., “It will rain, or it will not rain”) or employ circular reasoning (e.g., “she is untrustworthy because she can’t be trusted”).

You may have seen both “appendices” or “appendixes” as pluralizations of “ appendix .” Either spelling can be used, but “appendices” is more common (including in APA Style ). Consistency is key here: make sure you use the same spelling throughout your paper.

The sections of a lab report can vary between scientific fields and course requirements, but it usually contains the following:

• Title: expresses the topic of your study
• Abstract: summarizes your research aims, methods, results, and conclusions
• Introduction: establishes the context needed to understand the topic
• Method: describes the materials and procedures used in the experiment
• Results: reports all descriptive and inferential statistical analyses
• Discussion: interprets and evaluates results and identifies limitations
• Conclusion: sums up the main findings of your experiment
• References: list of all sources cited using a specific style (e.g. APA)
• Appendices: contains lengthy materials, procedures, tables or figures

A lab report conveys the aim, methods, results, and conclusions of a scientific experiment . Lab reports are commonly assigned in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields.

The abstract is the very last thing you write. You should only write it after your research is complete, so that you can accurately summarize the entirety of your thesis , dissertation or research paper .

If you’ve gone over the word limit set for your assignment, shorten your sentences and cut repetition and redundancy during the editing process. If you use a lot of long quotes , consider shortening them to just the essentials.

If you need to remove a lot of words, you may have to cut certain passages. Remember that everything in the text should be there to support your argument; look for any information that’s not essential to your point and remove it.

To make this process easier and faster, you can use a paraphrasing tool . With this tool, you can rewrite your text to make it simpler and shorter. If that’s not enough, you can copy-paste your paraphrased text into the summarizer . This tool will distill your text to its core message.

Revising, proofreading, and editing are different stages of the writing process .

• Revising is making structural and logical changes to your text—reformulating arguments and reordering information.
• Editing refers to making more local changes to things like sentence structure and phrasing to make sure your meaning is conveyed clearly and concisely.
• Proofreading involves looking at the text closely, line by line, to spot any typos and issues with consistency and correct them.

The literature review usually comes near the beginning of your thesis or dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .

There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:

• To familiarize yourself with the current state of knowledge on your topic
• To ensure that you’re not just repeating what others have already done
• To identify gaps in knowledge and unresolved problems that your research can address
• To develop your theoretical framework and methodology
• To provide an overview of the key findings and debates on the topic

Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing research and what new insights it will contribute.

A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources (such as books, journal articles, and theses) related to a specific topic or research question .

It is often written as part of a thesis, dissertation , or research paper , in order to situate your work in relation to existing knowledge.

Avoid citing sources in your abstract . There are two reasons for this:

• The abstract should focus on your original research, not on the work of others.
• The abstract should be self-contained and fully understandable without reference to other sources.

There are some circumstances where you might need to mention other sources in an abstract: for example, if your research responds directly to another study or focuses on the work of a single theorist. In general, though, don’t include citations unless absolutely necessary.

An abstract is a concise summary of an academic text (such as a journal article or dissertation ). It serves two main purposes:

• To help potential readers determine the relevance of your paper for their own research.
• To communicate your key findings to those who don’t have time to read the whole paper.

Abstracts are often indexed along with keywords on academic databases, so they make your work more easily findable. Since the abstract is the first thing any reader sees, it’s important that it clearly and accurately summarizes the contents of your paper.

In a scientific paper, the methodology always comes after the introduction and before the results , discussion and conclusion . The same basic structure also applies to a thesis, dissertation , or research proposal .

Depending on the length and type of document, you might also include a literature review or theoretical framework before the methodology.

Whether you’re publishing a blog, submitting a research paper , or even just writing an important email, there are a few techniques you can use to make sure it’s error-free:

• Take a break : Set your work aside for at least a few hours so that you can look at it with fresh eyes.
• Proofread a printout : Staring at a screen for too long can cause fatigue – sit down with a pen and paper to check the final version.
• Use digital shortcuts : Take note of any recurring mistakes (for example, misspelling a particular word, switching between US and UK English , or inconsistently capitalizing a term), and use Find and Replace to fix it throughout the document.

If you want to be confident that an important text is error-free, it might be worth choosing a professional proofreading service instead.

Editing and proofreading are different steps in the process of revising a text.

Editing comes first, and can involve major changes to content, structure and language. The first stages of editing are often done by authors themselves, while a professional editor makes the final improvements to grammar and style (for example, by improving sentence structure and word choice ).

Proofreading is the final stage of checking a text before it is published or shared. It focuses on correcting minor errors and inconsistencies (for example, in punctuation and capitalization ). Proofreaders often also check for formatting issues, especially in print publishing.

The cost of proofreading depends on the type and length of text, the turnaround time, and the level of services required. Most proofreading companies charge per word or page, while freelancers sometimes charge an hourly rate.

For proofreading alone, which involves only basic corrections of typos and formatting mistakes, you might pay as little as $0.01 per word, but in many cases, your text will also require some level of editing , which costs slightly more.

It’s often possible to purchase combined proofreading and editing services and calculate the price in advance based on your requirements.

There are many different routes to becoming a professional proofreader or editor. The necessary qualifications depend on the field – to be an academic or scientific proofreader, for example, you will need at least a university degree in a relevant subject.

For most proofreading jobs, experience and demonstrated skills are more important than specific qualifications. Often your skills will be tested as part of the application process.

To learn practical proofreading skills, you can choose to take a course with a professional organization such as the Society for Editors and Proofreaders . Alternatively, you can apply to companies that offer specialized on-the-job training programmes, such as the Scribbr Academy .

Ask our team

Want to contact us directly? No problem.  We  are always here for you.

• Email [email protected]
• Start live chat
• Call +1 (510) 822-8066
• WhatsApp +31 20 261 6040

Our team helps students graduate by offering:

• A world-class citation generator
• Plagiarism Checker software powered by Turnitin
• Innovative Citation Checker software
• Professional proofreading services
• Over 300 helpful articles about academic writing, citing sources, plagiarism, and more

Scribbr specializes in editing study-related documents . We proofread:

• PhD dissertations
• Research proposals
• Personal statements
• Admission essays
• Motivation letters
• Reflection papers
• Journal articles
• Capstone projects

Scribbr’s Plagiarism Checker is powered by elements of Turnitin’s Similarity Checker , namely the plagiarism detection software and the Internet Archive and Premium Scholarly Publications content databases .

The add-on AI detector is powered by Scribbr’s proprietary software.

The Scribbr Citation Generator is developed using the open-source Citation Style Language (CSL) project and Frank Bennett’s citeproc-js . It’s the same technology used by dozens of other popular citation tools, including Mendeley and Zotero.

You can find all the citation styles and locales used in the Scribbr Citation Generator in our publicly accessible repository on Github .

Stack Exchange Network

Stack Exchange network consists of 183 Q&A communities including Stack Overflow , the largest, most trusted online community for developers to learn, share their knowledge, and build their careers.

Q&A for work

Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search.

Difference between research paper and scientific paper

What is the difference between a research paper and a scientific paper? Does the research paper also mean a term paper at the end of your Masters?

I need to present a research paper. So does it mean I need to present a solution to an existing problem or does it mean a summary of various solutions already existing?

• terminology

2 Answers 2

A research paper is a paper containing original research. That is, if you do some work to add (or try to add) new knowledge to a field of study, and then present the details of your approach and findings in a paper, that paper can be called a research paper.

Not all academic papers contain original research; other kinds of academic papers that are not research papers are

• review papers, (see What is the difference between a review paper and a research paper? )
• position papers (which present an opinion without original research to support it)
• tutorial papers (which contain a tutorial introduction a topic or area, without contributing new results).

A scientific paper is any paper on a scientific subject.

Does the research paper also mean a term paper at the end of your Masters? I need to present a research paper. So does it mean I need to present a solution to an existing problem or does it mean a summary of various solutions already existing?

If the term paper at the end of your masters contains original research, then it's a research paper.

Depending on the policies of your department, you may or may not be required to attempt original research during your masters. In some departments, a review of existing literature may be fine. If you're not sure exactly what's required from you, you need to ask the relevant faculty or staff members in your department.

• Related: What is a "white paper"? . –  E.P. Commented Jan 20, 2015 at 18:15
• It also bears mention that "a summary of various solutions already existing" does not usually qualify as a research paper. –  E.P. Commented Jan 20, 2015 at 18:16

Research means that you add something new. Something you didn't know before, and ideally something no-one knew before (although at BSc. and MSc. levels the novelty requirement is generally relaxed). This can be a new investigation, or simply an analysis of a number existing papers. It must however not be a summary of existing solutions. It should go beyond that.

An important thing to remember is that in terms of assignment you are expected to demonstrate insight and understanding. To demonstrate this you need to engage with the topics, not merely summarise (which requires less understanding).

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for browse other questions tagged terminology ..

• Featured on Meta
• Bringing clarity to status tag usage on meta sites
• Announcing a change to the data-dump process

Hot Network Questions

• Why didn't Air Force Ones have camouflage?
• Can I counter an opponent's attempt to counter my own spell?
• What was the first "Star Trek" style teleporter in SF?
• What's "the archetypal book" called?
• What is the optimal number of function evaluations?
• Why isn't a confidence level of anything >50% "good enough"?
• Conjugate elements in an extension
• What is the term for the belief that significant events cannot have trivial causes?
• Environment for verbatim boxes
• Why is it spelled "dummy" and not "dumby?"
• When can the cat and mouse meet?
• An instructor is being added to co-teach a course for questionable reasons, against the course author's wishes—what can be done?
• Is it a good idea to perform I2C Communication in the ISR?
• Can reinforcement learning rewards be a combination of current and new state?
• Does the average income in the US drop by $9,500 if you exclude the ten richest Americans?
• Deleting all files but some on Mac in Terminal
• How to clean a female disconnect connector
• A seven letter *
• Replacing jockey wheels on Shimano Deore rear derailleur
• How to change upward facing track lights 26 feet above living room?
• What is the nature of the relationship between language and thought?
• Representing permutation groups as equivalence relations
• Is there a way to read lawyers arguments in various trials?
• Largest number possible with +, -, ÷