Articles: Building Blocks
The Title is descriptive rather than fanciful, and is extremely specific, so readers know exactly what the article is about without wasting any time.
The Abstract is a brief but detailed summary a reader can skim to get a quick idea of the article's contents and gauge whether the rest of the article is relevant and worthwhile enough to read fully.
The Introduction helps the reader figure out the context and importance of the research described in the article.
The Citations, found as footnotes, parenthetical notation, or any other appropriate form, tell the reader where to go to verify the author's assertions or find more information.
The Methods section is a key part of a primary research article. This section makes it possible for the reader to assess how the experiment was done. Were the procedures valid? Are there any factors that might skew the results? Can the experiment or study be replicated?
Results need to be reported with great detail, so that readers can have confidence in your conclusions and evaluate the evidence on which they are based. Not only should the results be clearly reported in written form, they should be supported with detailed visual material as well.
Use
Illustrations like figures, tables,
charts, or schema with detailed captions to concisely show your results.
Readers need to be able to see the data that supports your results
in some detail. Captions explain the significance and origin of the
visual well enough for the illustration to make sense even entirely on its own.
The Conclusion allows readers to draw out the ultimate meaning of your research and follow up with research of their own. This section puts your piece of empirical information into a larger picture.
Of course different types of science writing in different fields have different needs, but the basic structure of the article or lab report is similar.
Moreover, the needs and philosophies underlying article structures recur in other types of writing. See below for a list of the parts of an article and the functions they serve:
Title and abstract:
Gives a quick, clear idea of your topic.Introduction:
What are the objective premises underlying your work and why is it important? Who else does work like this?Methods:
How good is your work, and can it be reproduced?Results:
What really happened?Conclusions:
What does your work mean? What does it show or change? How can others build on it?
Even when your writing does not use these formal building blocks, keeping the questions they represent in mind will improve your writing.
Built by R. Kuglitsch.
Updated November 18, 2008