Research Paper Structure

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Welcome to the Research Paper Guide

This site is a concise guide designed to help you structure and write your research papers effectively. Whenever possible, questions are used: the answers should provide a good starting point for each section. Use the icons to expand and collapse sections. The icons at the top expand and collapse everything. Click here for more info about the author

General Instructions

Total length: About 10 500 words
Topic: I am studying X
Question: because I want to find out what | why | how Y
Significance: to help my reader understand the bigger question Z

Claim: What do you want me to believe? What's your point?
Reasons: Why do you say that? Why should I agree?
Evidence: How do you know? Can you back it up?
Warrant: How does that follow? What's your logic? Can you explain your reasoning?
Acknowledgment and Response: But what about . . . ?

Title

How will I search for this piece of information?
Fewest possible words
Avoid excess punctuation

Abstract: ≅ 250 words

Clear and simple miniature version of the paper
Self-contained
Past tense for the current study
Present tense to refer to stablished facts

Background

What is already known about the subject

Motivation

Why do we care about the problem and the results?

Problem | Objectives

What problem is the paper trying to solve?

Scope

Methods | Procedure | Approach

What did you actually do to get your results?

Results | Findings | Product

most important part
what did you learn | invent | create?

Conclusions | Implications

What are the larger implications of your findings

Keywords

Introduction: ≅ 600 words

broad to specific
show that the research question is clear, concise, and worthy of study.
allow the reader to understand the rest of the paper without referring to previous publications on the topic
What did you do?
conclusions

Opener sentence

Question | Assertion | Intriguing Revelations

Literature review | Brief Context of Prior Research

put your research in the context of other research
Nature and scope of the problem investigated
give them a framework for understanding it
What is the problem to be solved?
Are there any existing solutions?
Which is the best?
What is its main limitation?
What do you hope to achieve?

Restate Your Question as Something Not Known or Fully Understood by Prior Research

identify the gap in the literature
use but, however, etc…

State the Significance of Your Question

make readers understand why they should read your report

State Your Claim | Objective | Hypothesis

should clearly relate to the information gap

brief outlook on the structure of the paper

Methods: ≅ 1000 words

How did you do it?
Justify choices
Describe the work so as people can reproduce it

Overview of methods

Restate the purpose of the work

Essential background information

Relate to other studies

Indicate where problems occurred

Results: ≅ 3000 words

What did you find?
Use figures, tables, etc.
Clearly and simply stated.

Revisit purpose and methods

Overview of results

Key results in details

Comparison with results in other works

Comparison with predictions

Problems with results

Possible implications

Discussion: ≅ 2000 words

Put results into a broader context.
specific to broad
What does it all mean?
an interpretation of how each of the experiments supported your central hypothesis
add in supporting findings from the literature
what principles have been established or reinforced

Conclusion: ≅ 250 words

leave readers with a clear idea of your claim
make readers understand its importance
suggest further research

how the work advances the field?
significance and implications of the results
implications for broader application
research opportunities

Restate Your Claim

Point Out: New Significance | Practical Application | New Research

References: 20 ⇔ 60 itens

Turabian, Kate L. A manual for writers of research papers, theses, and dissertations: Chicago style for students and researchers. University of Chicago Press, 2018.