Writing Guides

Research articles (RAs) share new findings from a study and prove that the discoveries are valid and significant (Van Enk and Power 2017). They overview the context for the research, say what question was studied, how the research was done, what was discovered, and why it matters. 

Who writes research articles? ✍️

• RAs are authored by researchers. Many of these researchers are professors at universities, but some also work in scientific labs, think tanks, research institutes, etc.
• These researchers are experts in their discipline and typically focus on a specific subfield. For example, a researcher may be a biology professor whose research focuses narrowly on neurobiology and how the nervous system functions. 

Who reads research articles? 🔬

• The audience for an RA may vary depending on the discipline and the publication, but typically the intended audience is a small readership of specialized researchers in the same field. 
• A key feature of RAs is that they are peer-reviewed, which means that they have been anonymously examined by experts for accuracy, validity, and relevance. Peer-review is a quality control function of the disciplinary community. 

Unlike researchers, undergraduate students are not expected to produce new knowledge. Still, they are often expected to read and write RAs as a way of familiarizing themselves with the subject knowledge, methodological approaches, and theoretical orientations of their chosen area of study. 

What is the IMRaD model? 🦠

This popular template for structuring RAs begins with the Introduction and proceeds through Methods, Results, and Discussion sections. Day (1989) locates early traces of IMRaD in the writings of the 19^th-century scientist Louis Pasteur, but it is difficult to attribute the model in its current form to any one source. Instead, it seems likely that IMRaD was standardized alongside the scientific method itself, such that the model “began to be adopted by scientific journals around the 1940s, and quickly became the dominant format for research papers in a majority of leading scientific journals by the late 1970s” (Wu, 2011, p. 1346). The IMRaD model is effective because each section of the template corresponds with a stage in the scientific process. 

Who uses the IMRaD model? 🧪

Not all RAs follow the IMRaD model, but it is a common format in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and math) and some social sciences. The model helps scientists to write clearly about their research by providing a structured way to present information with minimal bias. Many peer-reviewed journals require authors to conform to IMRaD, sometimes mandating the use of headings and subheadings to identify the sections. 

Figure 1: The IMRaD Model. Reproduced from Wu, J. (2011). 

Parts of the IMRaD Model 🧩

🚪 Introduction

The introduction answers the question, “Why was this study done?”

As Swales (1990) demonstrates in his Create-a-Research-Space Model, introductions fulfill three key objectives:

1. 🔍 Demonstrating familiarity with the existing state of knowledge in their field; 

2. ❓ Identifying a gap, lack, problem or need in the pre-existing state of knowledge; and

3. 🧩 Making an original contribution which fills the gap and/or addresses the problem

Introductions often explicitly feature a research question, hypothesis, or—especially in student research papers—an argument/thesis statement. 

🔭 Method  

The method section answers the question, “How was this study done?”

Smagorinsky (2008) calls the methods section the “conceptual epicentre” of the RA, which “serve[s] as the nexus for other sections of the paper’s organization and alignment” (p. 390). A comprehensive methods section describes the study as it was carried out, ideally with a level of detail which would allow for the study to be repeated by others. It also accounts for the data (or object of study) and explains the interpretive framework and/or analytical approach which will be applied.

📊 Results and discussion 

The results section answers the question, “What did you find by doing your study?” The results are the outcome of the study as described in the Methods section. 

The discussion answers the question, “What conclusions did you draw based on the results?” The discussion offers an interpretation of the results, explaining their significance in relation to the research question. It points to strengths and limitations of the study, addresses potential implications or consequences of the findings, and suggests possible directions for further research.

Day, R.A. (1989). The origins of the scientific paper: The IMRAD format. AMWA Journal, 4, 16-18. 

Smagorinsky, P. (2008). The method section as conceptual epicenter in constructing social science research reports. Written Communication, 25(3), 389-411. https://doi.org/10.1177/0741088308317815

Swales, J. (1990). Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings. Cambridge UP.

Van Enk, A. and Power, K. (2017). What is a research article?: Genre variability and data selection in genre research. Journal of English for academic purposes, 29, 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2017.07.002

Wu, J. (2011). Improving the writing of research papers: IMRAD and beyond. Landscape ecology, 26, pp. 1345-1349. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-011-9674-3.