Notably, knowledge how to write the research article for journals does not come easily and naturally to the majority of people. The complexity of such work depends on a highly codified rhetorical writing form; however, it is not that hard if the writer studies specific requirements of writing the research article for the peer-reviewed journal. Knowledge of explicit and implied rules may help to get the professional result. Therefore, being aware of how to write the research article for journals would be the useful and highly requested skill for everybody who looks toward writing the article that will get accepted in the journal.
The Purpose of a Research Article for Journals
The core role of the research study for journals is to synthesize current research on the important topic. Specifically, research articles summarize the previous research, point out the gaps, outline advances, and identify influential people in the studied field. An excellent research article addresses urgent questions that catch a lot of attention of society. In particular, the primary research hypothesis takes the central place in writing the research article. Some papers aim to produce new knowledge, while the others are written basing on projects prepared for some operational reasons. In this insight, the purpose of the research article will depend on the central research question.
Structure of Research Article for the Journal
The appropriate and clear structure is crucial in successful scientific writing. The basic framework of all research studies consists of four sections:
- Introduction (identification of the problem that the author intends to address);
- Methods (what the author do to answer the research question);
- Results (observations during the study);
- Discussion (opinion about the meaning of results).
Each section may address several topics; therefore the author may divide the section into several subsections. Nonetheless, the research question should always be specified, but not merely left for readers to guess. In the Methods section, the writer should highlight specific, concrete, fair, and technical details about the study. The following segment is more factual and straightforward without complicated counts or percentages. Finally, the Discussion section gives the most freedom; however, it is also the most difficult. Therefore, the writer should focus on stating the core findings, discuss results, analyze limitations and perspectives, discuss practice and policy, and offer future perspectives. Each research article usually goes through one or more drafts before submitting.
The Basics
The proper structure of the research paper is a good start; thus, is not enough without attending essential details while writing. Firstly, it is highly recommended to read the instructions published by the journal. Native English speaker should necessarily revise the manuscript. Besides, it is important to avoid the most common mistakes such as not specified research question, tautological introduction, chaotic structure, the odd number of words, selective report of results, doubling the results, out of day references, the lack of supporting argument to the research question in the Discussion section. All things considered, keeping an eye out on the mentioned problems, the author can create an excellent research article which will be accepted by the desirable journal.