Last update:
19-Feb-2014

Research articles are the most important type of scientific publication, since they concern the reporting of studies that have been performed by researchers. Today, most scientific journals apply a common structure for research articles, which is helpful for researchers, editors, reviewers and readers. According to this structure, research articles consist of the following parts: Introduction, methods, results and discussion. In the introduction of your research article, you must answer the question: Why did you perform your study? You must make clear your research question, or in other words, the aim of your study. In the methods section you must answer the question: What did you do in your study and how? You must describe the study design, the study population, the variables, the study size and the statistical analysis. In the results section of your research article, you must answer the question: What did you find in your study? Tables and graphs facilitate substantially the presentation of results and permit the length of the article to be decreased considerably. In the discussion section, you must answer the question: what did the results of your study mean? In the discussion the limitations and conclusions of the study are also included. Usually, the limitations of a study are related to the study design, the study population, the number of participants, statistical analysis and generalization of results.

Key words: Discussion, Introduction, Methods, Research article, Results.