Conceptualizing the Research Article: Review

You may remember from Chapters 3 and 4 that research articles have specific sections regardless of discipline or journal. Generally, there are five commonly acknowledged sections of an empirical research manuscript: Introduction (including the Literature Review), Methods, Results, Discussion/Conclusion.

Notice that the figure depicts an article in the shape of an hourglass. That shape provides a way for us to consider whether the content of the sections of a research article will be general or specific. The middle parts — the Methods and Results sections — are the most specific pieces of the entire article. As you learned in Chapter 4 (Methods), the move toward the middle of your research manuscript allows you to really hone in on your exact study’s parts, so the content will necessarily narrow in scope. In this chapter, we will present the goals and strategies for writing the Results.