3.4 Research Journal Article:General Considerations

Research has no value until it is reported for evaluation and consideration by other researchers. Therefore, you must report your research. The usual way this is done is by publishing an article in a research journal in the relevant field. Here let us examine research journal articles and how to go about writing a good one to report your research.

A research journal article should tell the interested reader the following:

(1) Why your research is important

(2) What you did

(3) What you found

(4) Why what you found is important.

The flow of information starts from the external world of knowledge, takes up one specific topic, examines it in detail, then returns the newly found information to its place in the universe of knowledge. In order to do this efficiently, a journal article usually is comprised of the following:

Title

Abstract

Introduction

Experimental Section

or Materials and Methods

Results (including figures and tables)

Discussion

These two sections are sometimes combined as

Results and Discussion

Acknowledgments

References

Now let us examine each of these parts of the research journal article in more detail. We will consider the P (purpose), A(audience), I (information), and L (language features) of each using examples and exercises.