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- How to Write Discussions and Conclusions
The discussion section contains the results and outcomes of a study. An effective discussion informs readers what can be learned from your experiment and provides context for the results.
What makes an effective discussion?
When you’re ready to write your discussion, you’ve already introduced the purpose of your study and provided an in-depth description of the methodology. The discussion informs readers about the larger implications of your study based on the results. Highlighting these implications while not overstating the findings can be challenging, especially when you’re submitting to a journal that selects articles based on novelty or potential impact. Regardless of what journal you are submitting to, the discussion section always serves the same purpose: concluding what your study results actually mean.
A successful discussion section puts your findings in context. It should include:
- the results of your research,
- a discussion of related research, and
- a comparison between your results and initial hypothesis.
Tip: Not all journals share the same naming conventions.
You can apply the advice in this article to the conclusion, results or discussion sections of your manuscript.
Our Early Career Researcher community tells us that the conclusion is often considered the most difficult aspect of a manuscript to write. To help, this guide provides questions to ask yourself, a basic structure to model your discussion off of and examples from published manuscripts.
Questions to ask yourself:
- Was my hypothesis correct?
- If my hypothesis is partially correct or entirely different, what can be learned from the results?
- How do the conclusions reshape or add onto the existing knowledge in the field? What does previous research say about the topic?
- Why are the results important or relevant to your audience? Do they add further evidence to a scientific consensus or disprove prior studies?
- How can future research build on these observations? What are the key experiments that must be done?
- What is the “take-home” message you want your reader to leave with?
How to structure a discussion
Trying to fit a complete discussion into a single paragraph can add unnecessary stress to the writing process. If possible, you’ll want to give yourself two or three paragraphs to give the reader a comprehensive understanding of your study as a whole. Here’s one way to structure an effective discussion:
Writing Tips
While the above sections can help you brainstorm and structure your discussion, there are many common mistakes that writers revert to when having difficulties with their paper. Writing a discussion can be a delicate balance between summarizing your results, providing proper context for your research and avoiding introducing new information. Remember that your paper should be both confident and honest about the results!
- Read the journal’s guidelines on the discussion and conclusion sections. If possible, learn about the guidelines before writing the discussion to ensure you’re writing to meet their expectations.
- Begin with a clear statement of the principal findings. This will reinforce the main take-away for the reader and set up the rest of the discussion.
- Explain why the outcomes of your study are important to the reader. Discuss the implications of your findings realistically based on previous literature, highlighting both the strengths and limitations of the research.
- State whether the results prove or disprove your hypothesis. If your hypothesis was disproved, what might be the reasons?
- Introduce new or expanded ways to think about the research question. Indicate what next steps can be taken to further pursue any unresolved questions.
- If dealing with a contemporary or ongoing problem, such as climate change, discuss possible consequences if the problem is avoided.
- Be concise. Adding unnecessary detail can distract from the main findings.
Don’t
- Rewrite your abstract. Statements with “we investigated” or “we studied” generally do not belong in the discussion.
- Include new arguments or evidence not previously discussed. Necessary information and evidence should be introduced in the main body of the paper.
- Apologize. Even if your research contains significant limitations, don’t undermine your authority by including statements that doubt your methodology or execution.
- Shy away from speaking on limitations or negative results. Including limitations and negative results will give readers a complete understanding of the presented research. Potential limitations include sources of potential bias, threats to internal or external validity, barriers to implementing an intervention and other issues inherent to the study design.
- Overstate the importance of your findings. Making grand statements about how a study will fully resolve large questions can lead readers to doubt the success of the research.
Snippets of Effective Discussions:
Consumer-based actions to reduce plastic pollution in rivers: A multi-criteria decision analysis approach
Identifying reliable indicators of fitness in polar bears
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Research Paper Conclusion: Know How To Write It
- 4 minute read
Table of Contents
The conclusion of your research paper is often where many readers begin. Thus, it’s imperative that your conclusion leaves the reader with a clear and concise understanding of your final impressions and ideas. It is a time to recap the key points in your paper and summarize your data in simple terms. It may also be used as a platform and an opportunity to call for further action that may be needed.
The conclusion will vary depending on the structure of your paper. If you are presenting original data in an objective format, that conclusion looks a lot different from one where a strong argument as to a future direction is presented. But, there is a similar pattern and structure to a good conclusion regardless of its content.
How to Write a Conclusion for a Research Paper
How do you start a conclusion for a research paper? It needs to be written as if it is a summary of your work. The audience should be considered to be your colleagues, but the tone should be more conversational than technical, so don’t get bogged down with details. Keep it clear, with straightforward terminology. This is the place to put forward your thoughts about the significance of your results. What does your research point to? If more research is needed, this is the time to indicate what direction you believe it needs to go. If you are presenting a strong conclusion, then defend.
Begin by clarifying your goals and restating the main points of your thesis. Don’t get into numbers or details, leave that for the body of your paper. Now is the time to put forth your conclusions by analyzing the significance of your findings. What importance is your research to the subject at hand? What further information is needed?
This is the time to be thought-provoking. Yes, briefly and clearly summarize your work, but don’t simply repeat it, add meaning to it. Expand on your findings in a way that challenges the reader to consider the implications of your research. Try to show the bigger picture, so the reader can see why your research matters in the real world.
Don’t simply repeat yourself or focus on minor details, the conclusion is the time to paint with broad strokes and point the way forward. Allow yourself to go beyond the narrow confines of the details and into the powerful conclusion of your work. Here is the time to give it meaning and significance.
Conclusion Format for Research Paper
A common format for a research paper begins with first explaining the topic and then the purpose of your research. This can be as short as one or two sentences. Then, you summarize your findings in clear language that emphasizes the importance of your research. After summarizing your main points, it’s important to defend the unique importance of your findings. If you are putting forth an argument, it’s essential to stress the consequences of the action and its relevance to real-world problems. Present your findings in a way that expresses the broader associations they have in your field. Make a case for the practical implications of your findings. If appropriate, you should end your conclusion with a call to action that may pave the way for future research projects.
Example of Conclusion in Research
Below is a sample conclusion that you can use as a model. Notice how it includes the aspects mentioned above.
Clean air and water is critical to environmental balance and public health. Since 2009, water pollution has contributed to a marked decrease in wildlife aquatic populations, as well as a decrease of safe drinking water. Corn production in the nation’s Midwest region has resulted in an exponential increase in pollutants contaminating freshwater aquifers and above-ground supplies. This has resulted in catastrophic fish die-off, increased instances of respiratory illness in rural communities, as well as a shortage of clean and safe potable drinking water. Environmental scientists continue to measure water quality, and trying to find ways to counteract pollution runoff from agricultural activities. Further research and innovation is needed to increase clean and safe water supplies, continue to support agricultural needs related to water supply shortages, and maintain a healthy environment for flora, fauna and human populations.
Language Editing Plus
Elsevier’s Language Editing Plus service can help ensure that your conclusion is well-written, and articulates your research. Via our most comprehensive editing package, you can count on a thorough language review by native-English speakers who are PhDs or PhD candidates. We’ll check for effective logic and flow of your manuscript, as well as document formatting for your chosen journal, reference checks, and much more.
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Writing a "good" discussion section
This is is usually the hardest section to write. You are trying to bring out the true meaning of your data without being too long. Do not use words to conceal your facts or reasoning. Also do not repeat your results, this is a discussion.
Goals: • Present principles, relationships and generalizations shown by the results • Point out exceptions or lack of correlations. Define why you think this is so. • Show how your results agree or disagree with previously published works • Discuss the theoretical implications of your work as well as practical applications • State your conclusions clearly. Summarize your evidence for each conclusion. • Discuss the significance of the results
WHAT HAPPENS AFTER I COMPLETE MY PAPER?
The peer review process is the quality control step in the publication of ideas. Papers that are submitted to a journal for publication are sent out to several scientists (peers) who look carefully at the paper to see if it is "good science". These reviewers then recommend to the editor of a journal whether or not a paper should be published. Most journals have publication guidelines. Ask for them and follow them exactly. Peer reviewers examine the soundness of the materials and methods section. Are the materials and methods used written clearly enough for another scientist to reproduce the experiment? Other areas they look at are: originality of research, significance of research question studied, soundness of the discussion and interpretation, correct spelling and use of technical terms, and length of the article.
"Discussion and Conclusions Checklist" from: How to Write a Good Scientific Paper. Chris A. Mack. SPIE. 2018.
Discussion and Conclusions
Evidence does not explain itself; the results must be presented and then explained.
Typical stages in the discussion: summarizing the results, discussing whether results are expected or unexpected, comparing these results to previous work, interpreting and explaining the results (often by comparison to a theory or model), and hypothesizing about their generality.
Discuss any problems or shortcomings encountered during the course of the work.
Discuss possible alternate explanations for the results.
Avoid: presenting results that are never discussed; presenting discussion that does not relate to any of the results; presenting results and discussion in chronological order rather than logical order; ignoring results that do not support the conclusions; drawing conclusions from results without logical arguments to back them up.
CONCLUSIONS
Provide a very brief summary of the Results and Discussion.
Emphasize the implications of the findings, explaining how the work is significant and providing the key message(s) the author wishes to convey.
Provide the most general claims that can be supported by the evidence.
Provide a future perspective on the work.
Avoid: repeating the abstract; repeating background information from the Introduction; introducing new evidence or new arguments not found in the Results and Discussion; repeating the arguments made in the Results and Discussion; failing to address all of the research questions set out in the Introduction.
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- Conclusion Sections in Scientific Research Reports (IMRaD)
In IMRaD* reports, conclusions often fall under the discussion section. In some disciplines and journals, however, conclusions are separated from discussions. If this is the case for the paper you are working on, you may find the following description of common conclusion moves and sample language useful.
* IMRaD refers to reports with the structure Introduction-Method-Results-Discussion used in empirical research in natural and social sciences. Please refer to the Writing Center quick guide “Writing an IMRaD Report” for more explanations.
The table is based on the information from University of Manchester’s Academic Phrasebank http://www.phrasebank.manchester.ac.uk/writing-conclusions/
As always, it is important to remember that depending on the discipline, journal, or purpose of the paper, certain moves may or may not be present.
Sample conclusion
Below is an example of a conclusion from a published research article. Notice how the moves are utilized in it.
Italics = Restating the aim of the study
Underlined = Summarizing main findings
Italics/Bold = Suggesting implications for the field of knowledge
Bold = Explaining significance or contribution of the study
Underlined/Bold = Acknowledging Limitations
Italics/Underlined = Offering recommendations for practice or policy
This is one of the first studies to more comprehensively examine adolescents' knowledge of and attitudes towards e-cigarette ingredients, addictive properties, safety, perceived prevalence, acceptability, and regulation* … In our study of 9th and 12th graders, participants had more favorable attitudes towards and perceived less risk from e-cigarettes than cigarettes, and they expressed less support for policies that applied to e-cigarette than cigarette regulation. Participants believed that about 30% of their closest friends used e-cigarettes, which is approximately 10% higher than the self-reported rates in the sample … As we hypothesized, adolescents who have ever used tobacco perceive greater prevalence of e-cigarette use among their parents, siblings, and peers … These findings demonstrate the importance of developing educational and health messages that correct misperceptions about use rates of e-cigarettes, since it is plausible that beliefs about how many peers use e-cigarettes can translate into increased adolescent e-cigarette use . Our findings are particularly concerning considering that positive perceptions of e-cigarettes may be increasingly common among teens … This study was limited to a school-based convenience sample recruited from California schools, and given the relatively low response rate, as is true with other convenience samples, it is unclear how representativeness and generalizable the sample is compared to California adolescents .
… health care providers need to understand basic facts concerning e-cigarettes as well as adolescents' attitudes towards these products since e-cigarettes are becoming a more predominant tobacco product among adolescents . (adapted from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0091743516303413 )
*this sentence also shows significance or contribution of the study
Activity to help you prepare for writing IMRAD conclusions
Choose three different papers in your discipline and look through their conclusions. What moves do you see? What language clues helped you identify these moves? Are there any moves missing in a way that impacts the interpretation of the conclusion? Consider doing this activity and discussing your findings with others.
Last updated 4/26/2018
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- 1. Thesis statement
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- 5. Conclusion1111
Essay Structure: How to Write a Conclusion | Essay Writing Part 5
In part five of our Essay Series, we show you how to write a killer conclusion.
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This post, How to Write a Conclusion, is part 4 in our Essay Writing Series.
Some common questions students have about essay structure are:
- How do I develop strong essay structure?
- Are conclusions important for essay structure?
- Can a conclusion be too long or too short?
- What should a conclusion include?
- How do I write a good conclusion?
In this post we’ll discuss the theory behind essay structure and show you why conclusions, are essential. We will then give you a step-by-guide for writing a Band 6 conclusion for your killer essay!
Table of Contents
1. Essential Essay Structure 2. Sustained Arguments and Conclusions 3. Recapping Essay Structure 4. Structuring Your Conclusion 5. How to Write a Conclusion – A Step-by-Step Guide
If you are unsure how to write an introduction or topic sentences, then you should read the previous posts in the series:
- Introduction Structure: How to Write a Thesis Statement | Essay Writing Part 1
- Introduction Structure: How to Write a Thematic Framework | Essay Writing Part 2
- Paragraph Structure: How to Write a Topic Sentence | Essay Writing Part 3
- Paragraph Structure: How to Write a Body Paragraph | Essay Writing Part 4
These posts give you step-by-step advice for writing well structured essays that will score you Band 6. They will provide the foundations of essay structure that we will conclude (pun intended!) in this post.
Now, let’s discuss how to develop a conclusion that sustains your argument and concludes it effectively and memorably before walking through an easy step-by-step process for writing fabulous conclusions.
Let’s go!
Essential essay structure: How to write a conclusion | Essay writing Part 5
Essay writing is not an innate skill, it is a craft that it is learned and refined through practice and dedication. Whether you write fiction or non-fiction, writing is something you need to work at to perfect. Writing good conclusions takes practice. But before you begin practising, you should learn how to write them effectively.
Let’s see how Matrix Students are taught how to write conclusions.
What is a conclusion?
A conclusion is the part of an essay that summarises your argument and recaps what has come before it.
A conclusion needs to do three things:
- Restate the thesis : It needs to reassert you overarching argument, first;
- Recap the key ideas : It needs to revisit the key ideas from the essay and touch on the logic for their inclusion or relevance.
- Make a closing statement : It needs to include a statement that explains your final thought on the matter, a statement on what you have taken away from writing the essay, or perhaps provide an overall statement about studying the text or Module you have been engaging with.
Think about that.
A conclusion is a simple thing, but very important to your argument. So, you have to get it right!
Let’s discuss how to do that.
Conclusions, and sustained arguments – Thinking for the reader
A good speech or a good essay is essentially manipulative. It is crafted to convince your readers of a position or belief that you have. To do this effectively, you need to present information in an order and fashion that makes it digestible and logical.
You want to do the reader’s thinking for them!
This is a crucial part of readability that Matrix students learn. Writing that is readable presents the information the composer feels is relevant to an audience, and connects it together in a way that makes it seem unified and logical.
A good essay keeps a reader in it, rather than jarring them out of it. You don’t want a reader to stop reading and question your ideas while they are in the middle of the essay. This means that you have a logical flaw, or part of the structure and writing is convoluted in a manner that makes it difficult for your reader to follow your argument.
Remember, it’s fine for people to question your ideas and disagree with them, but you want to present your position in a clear and logical fashion first, so they have your whole perspective before critiquing it. A concise but comprehensive conclusion is essential for this.
A conclusion restates all the key parts of your argument to leave a complete picture in your reader’s mind.
So, your essay needs to be easy to read, and your conclusion has to sum things up for the reader so they can think about the broader picture you’ve argued. It is important that they do not struggle to remember the various parts of the argument.
Before we jump into writing conclusions, let’s recap the structure of an essay. This will help us focus on the logical role of the conclusion while we write it.
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Recapping essay structure
In the previous posts in this series we discussed how the key parts of the introduction and body work together to produce a sustained argument. Let’s see how that worked again to understand the role of the conclusion:
Diagram: Essay Structure and Signposting (©Matrix Education, 2017)
As you can see, there are clear connections between the different parts of the essay.
The Thesis and Thematic Framework connect to the Topic Sentences and Linking Statements in the Body . But importantly, all of these structural elements are reasserted and connected in the conclusion.
The conclusion ties all of your ideas together.
By the time a reader reaches the conclusion, they may have forgotten key parts of your argument. The best way to reassert your ideas so they remain fresh in a reader’s mind when they finish reading your essay, is to use the logical structure of the introduction.
Let’s have a look at how to do that.
Structuring your conclusion
A conclusion needs to be structured to remind the audience what they have encountered, what the logic of it was, and then present them with a final, conclusive remark.
To do this effectively there are some important rules to follow:
- Your conclusion needs to be at least 3 sentences – You’re summarising an argument, not making a point;
- You must reassert your thesis in the first sentence – Make it clear what you have been arguing!
- Don’t try and cram your themes into one sentence – You have presented a carefully structured argument that is logical and develops several complex ideas. It is often impossible to boil this down to one sentence, use two or, even, three if you need to be clear. Clarity is essential.
- Don’t ramble – You must be concise. Even though you need to recap a significant amount of information, you need to be efficient. Aim to keep your conclusion shorter than your introduction.
- Aim to keep your conclusion under 5 sentences – Your conclusion must be memorable. If it is too long, a reader will struggle to hold the essence of your essay in their minds as their final interaction with your argument.
Think about those points for a moment.
So, what does this mean for you when you write conclusions?
Let’s have a look.
Restate the thesis
The first part of the conclusion needs to reassert the key idea that you have argued. This means it needs to restate your thesis statement. But we don’t want to merely say the exact same thing we have already said. No. We want to paraphrase our central argument in an authoritative way.
To sound authoritative it is important to avoid low modality expressions. Low modality words reflect uncertainty – for example, “may,” “can,” might”. We need to make clear statements so we need high modality words – for example, “is”, “are”, “will.” Don’t say, “a reader might understand.” Say “the composer compels the audience to understand.”
Recap the themes
You need to restate your ideas in a logical manner. You don’t want to merely say “I have discussed theme 1, theme 2, and theme 3.” This doesn’t develop a sustained argument. If you say this, a reader will have to glance back to your introduction and body to remember your exact argument.
These are moments where you are taking the reader away from your argument. In those moments you just dropped two to three marks. That is a potential change from a Band 5 to a Band 6!
Instead, you want quickly recap your themes in a way that conveys the logic of your argument. Try saying “I discussed themes 1 and 2 because they support this part of my thesis. I looked at theme 3 because it supports a different way of looking at the same idea.” This structure allows you to maintain any of the nuance you have structured into your essay.
Make a final statement
You need to leave the reader with a powerful statement that encapsulates your argument. Don’t try and say something profound about the text.
Statements like “Thus, the human condition is innately volatile” don’t mean anything unless they are anchored in the text. They might sound insightful, and perhaps are in a broad way, but they don’t contribute to your reader’s understanding of your insights into the text and/or module.
Instead, try to make a statement that conveys your understanding of the key idea in your text and, if applicable, connect it to the module you’re studying. In light of this, your final statement should instead be “Hence this texts illustrates how difficult circumstances can make human experience volatile.”
This second statement does something that the first does not, it adds context and logic. It creates a sustained argument by doing the thinking for the reader.
Your final statement wants to leave your reader thinking because they are intrigued, not because they are trying to piece together your point!
Now that we have a rough idea of what a conclusion should do, and how it should do it. Let’s have a go at putting one together.
How to write a conclusion – A step-by-step guide
What we will do now is go through the step-by-step process of writing a conclusion. We will continue to look at Macbeth , so that we have a clear text to study. So to do this effectively, we need to quickly recap what the question was, and what our thesis and thematic framework were in response to it.
Revisiting the question
The question in the previous posts was:
“William Shakespeare’s Macbeth is not about revenge, it is a play concerned with morality and madness.”
To what extent do you agree with this statement? Make use of detailed references to the play in your response.
Revisiting our argument
To recap, our argument was that:
- Macbeth is about morality
- Macbeth goes mad with guilt
- His fear of revenge, a convention of the play’s genre, is what leads to his madness.
Revisiting our thesis
In the previous posts, our thesis statement was:
“The resolution of The Tragedy of Macbeth (1606) is driven by revenge. However, it is Shakespeare’s interrogation of the morality of Macbeth’s actions and his subsequent descent into madness that is the central focus of the text.”
Revisiting our thematic framework
And, similarly, our thematic framework introduced the following thematic points:
- “Macbeth’s madness is a response to his awareness of his immorality, it is driven by his fear of the revenge he feels he deserves.”
- “Macbeth’s actions are immoral, killing a king is regicide and the murder of his friends demonstrate his increasing depravity.”
- “As Macbeth’s madness emerges as he questions his morality and is plagued by visions and haunted by the spirits of his victims.”
Now we know what we’ve argued, let’s go through the step-by-step process for writing conclusions.
Step 1: Restate your thesis
The first step is reiterating our core argument. Our thesis was that, “The resolution of The Tragedy of Macbeth (1606) is driven by revenge. However, it is Shakespeare’s interrogation of the morality of Macbeth’s actions and his subsequent descent into madness that is the central focus of the text.” We need to restate that in an effective way to summarise what we have just argued.
So, we need to restate that:
- Macbeth is Tragedy concerned with revenge and morality
- Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are driven by lust for power
- They are stricken by guilt for the immoral way they gained power.
Matrix students learn how to paraphrase things concisely and directly. So let’s have a go at paraphrasing these 2 sentences into 1:
This sentence is assertive and makes a clear and strong statement about what has been argued in the essay. We have made it more concise than the introduction’s thesis. This gives us more room to discuss the logic of our thematic framework.
What we need to do now is restate our thematic framework.
Step 2: Reassert your thematic framework
To reassert our thematic framework we need to revisit the logic of our argument first. Our argument structure was:
- Macbeth is about morality;
- Macbeth goes mad with guilt; and,
And in our introduction we broke this down into three separate sentences to show you how to write a thematic framework:
For our conclusion we want to demonstrate concision and erudition, so we will paraphrase this in a shorter more direct way. To do this we will wrap these ideas into two sentences. Let’s see what that looks like:
Matrix students are taught to take this logical approach to writing conclusions. This statement reasserts the framework we presented in our introduction, but streamlines it and presents it in a chronological and logical order.
Now we need to make a statement that summarises our position on the question and conveys our central idea about the text.
Step 3: Make a final statement that summarises your argument
Your final statement is very important. It is the last engagement that you have with your reader. You need to demonstrate your knowledge of the text, your understanding of the questions, and an insight into the module being studied.
We were analysing at this text through the lens of Module B: Critical Study of Literature . As you remember, Module B look at well known texts to see why they are considered important and whether or not they have lasting value.
For our argument we will consider the text’s lasting value for audiences.
Our concluding statement, then, needs to reference this idea of a text’s lasting value and connect it to the themes in the text. Macbeth is concerned with morality and guilt. So, we can argue that it is Macbeth ‘s depiction of morality and guilt that makes it relevant to modern audiences.
We also need to connect this to our restated thesis which was:
“Clearly, Shakespeare’s Macbeth is a tragedy primarily focused on the consequences of guilt on those who discard their morality in the pursuit of power.”
Now, let’s have a look at the kind of concluding statement a Matrix student would be taught to write that connects all of these threads together:
The finished conclusion
To get a better sense of what we have argued, let’s have a look at how the finished conclusion looks:
Now that we have finished writing our conclusion, what next?
Next you need to practice writing your essays! Remember to proofread and edit your essay after you have finished writing it. Never submit the first draft!
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Writing a First-Class Scientific Paper – Best Tips and Examples
01 September, 2021
13 minutes read
Author: Kate Smith
A scientific paper is a nightmare to most students and even experienced researchers. After all, this time-consuming process involves library journeys, dozens of writing hours, and intense mental effort. What if you do this task for the first time? What is a scientific paper, how long should it be, and how do you write it? We will help you figure this all out, so keep reading.
What is a Scientific Paper?
A scientific paper is a manuscript that reports scientific findings to the public. Scientists publish research pieces in scientific journals, and you have probably come across several scientific papers while doing your homework. These pieces are usually 3,000 – 10,000 words long.
Writing a scientific paper is intimidating because most students and researchers struggle to encapsulate raw data into digestible format. How do you put all those numbers on paper then? Well, for this, you should stick to a specific scientific paper structure. Check it out below.
Understanding the Scientific Paper Outline
In general, all writing pieces follow an outline consisting of three main elements:
- Introduction.
- Conclusion.
A scientific paper is no exception, but its outline comprises more parts within these three elements:
As you see, a scientific paper contains nine parts, but they all fall into three categories. However, following a logical and clear scientific paper outline is not enough to complete this task with flying colors. The truth is that the topic of your scientific paper matters much more than its outline. How to choose the right topic then? Check this out below.
How to Choose a Topic for a Scientific Paper?
Here is why you should think twice before selecting a topic for your scientific paper:
- You can waste precious time reinventing the wheel. Discussing an already solved issue will devalue your research instantly. Worse yet, you may accidentally discover that your subject has already been discussed thousands of times once you finish your paper.
- You may get overly ambitious by choosing a topic that has little coverage in the scientific community. By doing so, you will fail to support your findings with credible sources or deliver meaningful research due to a lack of information.
Now, let’s check the effective tips on choosing your research topic:
Narrow Down the Scope of Your Research
Let’s say you’re going to discuss global warming, and you chose the “global warming” title. But what are you going to research in the first place? The temperature increase rates? Livestock as the primary contributor to CO2 emissions? Or the practices to postpone the inevitable death of human civilization?
Fitting gigabytes of related information into a scientific paper is impossible. Therefore, you should narrow down your research topic.
Choose Manageable Topics
If choosing a widely discussed/solved topic or attempting something revolutionary is a bad idea, you should aim for the happy middle.
Select a subject with enough coverage and potential for further discoveries. For example, proving that permafrost is melting is a bad idea. Every news channel is screaming about it. But calculating the future ice melting rates based on the current climate situation is much more captivating and valuable.
Pick Debatable Topics
Well, let’s talk more about global warming. Scientists and politicians scratch their heads over slowing down climate change. Some say people should eat less meat, drive/fly less, and consume fewer plastic products. Others say companies should shut down their factories that pump millions of tons of CO2 into the air 24/7.
But what if overpopulation is an overlooked trigger of global warming? What if governments should invest more cash into birth control research programs? One can develop this highly debatable topic into a winning scientific paper with eye-opening calculations and projections.
How to Write a Scientific Paper Step By Step
How to start a scientific paper .
- Choose the topic. Choosing the topic is the starting point of your research because your subject is as important as its logical structure.
- Define the goal of your study. Once you select a topic, you should come up with the point of your research. Ask yourself: “What will I do with my subject matter?”
- Draft an outline. You need an outline to direct your research the right way and fulfill the goal of your paper. Note that the basic scientific paper outline may contain several subheadings.
- Research. At this point, the actual work begins. Find information on your subject, conduct an experiment, and collect data.
- Write a draft. Once you finish your experiment, it’s high time to put your findings on paper.
How to End a Scientific Paper?
In the end, revise your paper and make sure it’s error-free, authentic, and follows the designated format. Assuming that your paper is around 3,000-10,000 words, you will fail to edit and proofread it in one go. Therefore, you have to split this work into several stages.
First, you can do the heavy editing. Perhaps, you would want to rewrite entire paragraphs. Then, you can check your paper for factual errors, inconsistencies, and illogical statements. After that, you can switch to proofreading. It’s better to dedicate a day or two to this job because a fresh pair of eyes will spot many more errors than a tired one.
How to Write Scientific Paper Sections?
Writing sections of a scientific paper is no joke, especially for the first time. But after implementing our writing tips, you will nail it. Check how you can write each section of your scientific paper below.
How to Write an Abstract for a Scientific Paper?
An abstract is a 200-250-word summary of your paper. It explains to your reader the sense of your research. Scientists believe that an ideal abstract is a standalone piece. Your reader should understand your research without reading the full text. Your abstract should convey the essence of your study through these mini sections:
- Background information. This part is a sort of an introduction where you briefly define what’s already known about your topic and what aspects your study reveals. This part should be no longer than three sentences.
- Methods. This part explains what experiments and calculations you did in your research. Simply put, it should articulate how you conducted your research.
- Results. It is the longest section of your abstract that provides as many details about your findings as possible. Make sure to include valuable numbers, percentages, comparisons, etc.
- Conclusions. This piece should underline the main message and identify the potential of your research in two or three sentences.
As you see, the abstract copies the general paper structure on a smaller scale.
Scientific Paper Introduction
A scientific paper introduction provides background information, explains the significance of your research, and guides the reader further to the body of your paper. The introduction answers the following questions:
- What topic do you research?
- Why does your subject deserve attention?
- What do scientists say about this topic?
- What will you cover in your study?
- How will your study contribute to the existing research on this topic?
Scientific Paper Body
The Methods section describes what you did to achieve the goal of your paper. It explains how you did your research and what steps you took. As scientists say, this part must provide your reader with enough information to repeat your experiment and get the same results.
Think of it as a recipe. While searching for a stewed beef recipe, you expect one to tell you how much meat, salt, oil, and pepper you need, and for how long you should cook the meal. The same applies to scientific papers.
The Results section describes your findings based on your research methods and explains how they correlate with the goal of your paper. A good rule of thumb is to include graphs and tables to illustrate your results.
Check these tips for writing a meaningful Results section:
- Your graphs and tables should summarize your raw data. If you experiment with anything, it’s better to include a comparative table showing readings before and after the observation. You can leave less significant graphs and figures in the Tables and Figures section.
- Don’t discuss your results in this section.
Scientific Paper Conclusion
Discussion is one of the most challenging parts of a scientific paper. After all, you have to interpret your results, give them meaning, find dependencies, relationships, etc. The discussion piece aims to:
- Summarize your results.
- Define whether you expected them or not.
- Tell whether your results support or contradict existing studies within your topic.
- Explain what your findings mean.
- Define whether your results have any alternative explanations.
- Tell about challenges you faced while doing your research.
- Explain why your results are significant.
- Tell about the theoretical significance and practical applications of your results.
Scientific Paper Examples
If you are searching for a proper scientific paper example, here are a couple of samples to lead you in:
- A sample biology paper.
- A paper about obesity.
- A study on cannabis.
Scientific Paper Writing Tips
These three tips will help you take your research to the next level. Read further, and you will understand how.
Incorporate Simple Language
Your paper must deliver a message to your audience, so ensure that your readers will understand your findings.
Sure, scientific writing implies strong arguments and academic language. But jargon, abstract terms, and filler words don’t make papers scientific. Clarity and precision do that instead.
To keep your paper clear and concise, you should avoid wordy phrases, passive voice, and long sentences as much as possible. Here is a bad example:
“In the event that the sentence of a scientific paper exceeds 25 words, its structural components must be separated in order to achieve clarity of writing.” Here is a good example: “You should keep your sentences up to 25 words long for higher readability.”
Some research topics, however, may not allow such simple writing techniques. Therefore, you have to balance scientific jargon and plain language. By doing so, you will perform better than most researchers do.
Avoid Zombie Nouns
Zombie nouns are made from other parts of speech. For instance, apply – application, assume – assumption, prepare – preparation, indicate – indication, etc.
Many scholars stuff their papers with zombie nouns insofar that nobody understands what they want to say. Here is a bad example:
“The prognostication of further global temperature inflation leads to the conclusion that the polar ice cap termination is possible in the nearest future.”
You can transform this piece into a shorter sentence though: “Scientists predict that the polar ice cap will melt soon due to climate change.”
Use Writing Tools
Why not use writing tools like grammar and plagiarism checkers, citation machines, and readability tools? They will save you hours of editing and proofreading because you can reduce errors in real-time while using them. Check these helpful writing tools:
- Grammarly – for full-fledged editing.
- Hemingway Editor – for higher readability.
- Citation Generator – to follow your scientific paper format.
Writing Help by HandmadeWriting
Writing a scientific paper is challenging but pretty doable once you apply all the tips we mentioned above. In practice, a scientific paper doesn’t differ too much from other academic tasks regarding the actual writing process.
Treat it like a detailed essay – research and wrap your findings into precise logical language. But if you feel you’re writing a scientific paper against the clock, you can delegate this assignment to our essay writers and we will do all the heavy lifting for you. Just place an order, and once it’s done, hand the first-class scientific paper to your professor.
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How to write a scientific conclusion
When you finish a scientific experiment, you are left with data that needs to be analyzed and interpreted. This is done by writing a scientific conclusion. A good scientific conclusion will accurately reflect the results of your experiment, while also being clear and concise. In this guide, we will teach you how to write a scientific conclusion that will impress your professor and help you get better grades!
What is a scientific conclusion?
A scientific conclusion is the result of an investigation or experiment that has been conducted using the scientific method. A scientific conclusion must be based on evidence that has been collected and analyzed systematically. It is not enough to simply observe something happening; scientists must also be able to explain why it is happening. To be convincing, a scientific conclusion must be supported by data that can be verified by other scientists. When all of the evidence is taken into account, a scientific conclusion can be considered to be true. However, it is important to remember that all scientific conclusions are provisional, and new evidence may lead to new conclusions being drawn in the future.
Why write a good conclusion for a scientific report?
When writing a scientific report, it is important to include a conclusion . The conclusion is a summary of the main findings of the report. It should be concise and to the point. It is important to write a good conclusion because it gives the reader a sense of closure and helps them to understand the main points of the report. Additionally, a well-written conclusion can make the difference between a report that is merely average and one that is truly memorable. Therefore, it is essential to take care when writing the conclusion of a scientific report. With a little effort, you can ensure that your report ends on a strong note.
Science Questions and Answers
Read More: How to write a conclusion for a lab report
How to write a strong scientific conclusion
A strong conclusion to a scientific paper can help to solidify the findings of the study and underscore the importance of the research. Here are four steps to writing a strong conclusion:
1. Restate the main findings.
A strong conclusion to a scientific report will briefly restate the main findings of the study. This helps to remind the reader of what they have just read, and provides a good starting point for discussion or further research. It is important to be concise in your restatement, as you do not want to simply repeat the entire body of your paper. Instead, focus on the key points that are most relevant to your study’s conclusions. For example, if you conducted a study on the effect of different fertilizers on plant growth, you would want to mention the results of your experiments in your conclusion. By briefly restating the main findings of your study, you can help to ensure that your reader understands and remembers the most important aspects of your work.
2. Discuss the implications of the findings.
When writing a scientific conclusion, it is important to discuss the implications of the findings and how they contribute to our understanding of the topic. This helps to provide context for the reader and to demonstrate the importance of the work. It also shows that the researcher has thought carefully about the implications of the findings and what they mean for future research. In some cases, it may be necessary to discuss the limitations of the study and how these might affect the conclusions that have been drawn. However, overall, discussing the implications of the findings is an essential part of writing a strong scientific conclusion.
3. Summarize the key takeaways from the report.
A good scientific conclusion should first summarize the key takeaways from the paper. These takeaways should be stated clearly and concisely. The conclusion should then explain how the findings can be used in future research. This explanation should be based on the data presented in the paper and should be supported by logical reasoning. Ultimately, a strong scientific conclusion should leave readers with a clear understanding of the significance of the findings and how they can be applied to further scientific knowledge.
4. State any limitations of the study and suggest areas for further research.
To write a strong scientific conclusion, it is important to first state any limitations of the study. This will help to ensure that the reader understands the context of the research and does not overinterpret the findings. In addition, it is also important to suggest areas for further research. By doing so, you can help to contribute to the body of knowledge in your field and potentially make a lasting impact on the scientific community.
With these things in mind, follow these steps to write a strong scientific conclusion. First, state any limitations of the study. Second, suggest areas for further research. Third, reiterate the main findings of the study. Fourth, explain how the findings can be applied in a real-world setting. Finally, thank any funding sources
By following these steps, you can ensure that your conclusion is both clear and concise, making it an important part of your scientific paper.
Common mistakes in scientific conclusions
There are a few common mistakes that scientists often make when drawing conclusions from their data.
Assuming that correlation implies causation
One error is to assume that correlation implies causation. Just because two variables are related does not mean that one is causing the other. For example, there may be a correlation between ice cream sales and swimming pool drownings, but that doesn’t mean that eating ice cream causes people to drown!
Generalizing results from a small sample size
Another mistake is generalizing results from a small sample size. If a study includes only a few participants, it’s not possible to know whether the findings would be the same if the study was conducted on a larger group.
Falling prey to confirmation bias
Finally, scientists sometimes fall prey to confirmation bias, which is the tendency to see what you expect to see and overlook contradictory evidence.
These are just a few of the potential mistakes that can be made when writing a scientific conclusion. By being aware of these common errors, you can avoid them in your work.
Now that you understand the basics of writing a scientific conclusion, it’s time to put this knowledge into practice.
Further Readings
- Scientific Method: Step 6: CONCLUSION – Subject Guides
- Scientific conclusions need not be accurate, justified, or
- Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Paper
- Conclusion Sections in Scientific Research Reports (IMRaD)
- Scientific Papers | Learn Science at Scitable – Nature
- Writing conclusion paragraphs in a science lab report
Financial accounting ratios
Cash flow statement (definition, example, format), related guides.
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Writing up the results from an experiment can be difficult, as the nature of scientific research requires rigorous testing techniques and accurate recordings of data. The scientific report allows researchers to record their findings and publish them out into the world, expanding on the area of expertise. So, what comprises a scientific report?
- We are going to establish and explore scientific reports in psychological research.
- We will start by looking at scientific reports in psychology and how scientific report writing should be conducted.
- Then we will explore the scientific report structure, including the introduction, method, results, scientific report conclusion and discussion.
- Finally, we will delve into scientific report examples.
Scientific Reports: Psychology
Research can be identified as primary or secondary research; whether the researcher collects the data used for analysis or uses previously published findings determines this. The different types of research produce different types of scientific reports, such as:
Primary research is data collected from the researcher, e.g., when carrying out an experiment.
For example, a laboratory produces a primary scientific psychology report.
On the other hand, secondary research is carried out using previously published research.
For example, a meta-analysis uses statistical means to combine and analyse data from similar studies.
Or, a systematic review uses a systematic approach (clearly defining variables and creating extensive inclusion and exclusion criteria to find research in databases) to gather empirical data to answer a research question.
Scientific Report: Importance
The reason why research should follow the APA recommendations for writing up psychological scientific research is that:
- It ensures the researcher adds enough information to replicate and peer-review the study.
- It makes it easier to read and find relevant information.
- It ensures the report is written to a good standard.
- It ensures any secondary research used acknowledges and credits the original author.
Scientfic Report: Writing
When conducting scientific report writing, several things must be kept in mind. A scientific report aims to help readers understand the study's procedure, findings and what this means for psychology. A scientific report should be clear and logical to make it easier to understand the research.
The American Psychological Association (APA) has created guidelines on how a scientific report should be written, including the scientific report structure and format.
APA suggests several headings for use in psychology reports. The scientific report structure and details included in the report will vary based on the researcher's experiment. However, a general framework is used as a template for research.
Scientific Report Structure
Psychology research should always start with an abstract. This section briefly summarises the whole study, typically 150-200 words. The crucial details the abstract should give include an overview of the hypothesis, sample, procedure, results, details regarding data analysis, and the conclusions drawn.
This section allows readers to read the summary and decide if the research is relevant to them.
The purpose of the introduction is to justify why the research is carried out. This is usually done by writing a literature review of relevant information to the phenomena and showing that your study will fill a gap in research.
The information described in the literature review must show how the researcher it was used to formulate and derived the hypothesis investigated.
The literature review will reflect research supporting and negating the hypothesis.
In this section, the investigated hypotheses should be reported.
The introduction should consist of a third of the psychology research report.
Scientific Report Structure: Method
The method consists of multiple subsections to ensure the report covers enough details to replicate the research. It is important to replicate investigations to identify if it is reliable. The details included in the methodology are important for peer-reviewing the quality of the study.
It allows the person peer-reviewing it to determine if the research is scientific, reliable, and valid and if it should be published in a psychological journal.
The subsections written in the methods section of a scientific report are:
State the experimental design.
State all of the (operationalised) variables investigated.
If multiple conditions are investigated, e.g., people treated for one, two, and four weeks, researchers should report it.
It is also important to note how researchers allocated participants into groups and whether they used counterbalancing methods.
The research design used, e.g., correlational research.
Counterbalancing is used to combat order effects. In some designs, participants repeat the same experiment counterbalancing techniques deal with these.
Sample/ Participants
The sampling method should be noted, e.g., opportunity.
Researchers should state the number of participants and the number of males and females participating in the study.
They should state the demographics of the participants used in the research, e.g., age (including the mean and standard deviation), ethnicity, nationality, and any other details relevant to the investigation.
Materials/Apparatus
This section should state all the relevant equipment used in the study, i.e., equipment/materials used to measure the variables , e.g., questionnaires (researchers should include a copy of this in the appendix).
Some research does not use this subsection if it does not use any specialised materials, e.g., researchers do not need to state if participants used pens or a stopwatch.
- This section should describe what researchers did in the research in the order they conducted it.
They should include details about standardised instruction, informed consent, and debriefing.
This section should be concise but provide enough details so it is replicable.
This section states which ethical committee reviewed and granted the research.
It should state any ethical issues that could have occurred in the research and how researchers dealt with them.
Scientific Report Conclusion and Results
The results section is where you state your findings. This section only states what you have found and does not discuss or explain it. You can present the data found through numerical values, tables, and figures. However, there are specific guidelines on reporting data per APA guidelines when reporting or adding these.
Researchers should not use the raw data collected. Instead, it should be analysed first. The results should start with descriptive data followed by inferential statistics (the type of statistical test used to identify whether a hypothesis should be accepted or rejected).
These statistics should include effect size and significance level (p).
Researchers should report data regardless of whether it is significant or not. They should report the p-value to three decimal places but everything else to two.
After the results, the scientific report conclusion should be reported; this summarises what was found in the study.
- The scientific report conclusion provides a less detailed summary of the study's results which is built on in the discussion section.
Scientific Report: Discussion
This section should discuss and conclude with the research results. The first thing researchers should write about in the discussion is whether the findings support the proposed hypothesis.
If the results support the hypothesis, researchers should compare the findings to previously published findings in the introduction that also found the same results.
You should add very little new research to the discussion section. If the hypothesis is not supported, the discussion should explain from research why this may be. Here, adding new research to present the findings is acceptable (perhaps another theory better explains it).
Critiquing this research, such as its strengths and weaknesses, how it contributed to the psychology field, and its next direction is essential. In the discussion, researchers should not add statistical values.
Scientific Report Example
An example of a scientific report includes any of those seen in studies, such as when a laboratory produces a primary scientific psychology report, or a meta-analysis which uses statistical means to combine and analyse data from similar studies.
The purpose of the reference section is to give credit to all the research used in writing the report. Researchers list this section in alphabetical order based on the author's last name – t he references listed need to be reported per the APA format.
Researchers use background information, e.g. data or theories from previous publications, to form hypotheses, support, criticise findings and learn how research should progress.
The two most common secondary sources used in scientific reports are findings from published journals or books.
Let's look at some scientific report examples of how books and journals should be referenced following APA guidelines.
Book : Author, initial (year of publication). Book title in italics. Publisher. DOI if available (digital object identifier).
Example: Comer, R. J. (2007). Abnormal psychology . New York: Worth Publishers.
Journal: Author, initial (year). Article title. Journal title in italics, volume number in italics , issue number, page range. DOI if available.
Example: Fjell, A. M., Walhovd, K. B., Fischl, B., & Reinvang, I. (2007). Cognitive function, P3a/P3b brain potentials, and cortical thickness in ageing. Human Brain Mapping, 28 (11), 1098-1116. https://doi.org/10.1002/hbm.20335
Scientific Report - Key takeaways
A scientific report consists of details regarding scientists reporting what their research entailed and reporting the results and conclusions drawn from the study.
- Researchers should write scientific psychology reports per the APA format to ensure the scientists report enough information. It makes the report easier to read and find relevant information and ensures that the original authors of the research are acknowledged and credited.
- The scientific report structure should use the following subheadings: abstract, introduction, method (design, participants, materials, procedure and ethics), results, discussion, references and occasionally appendix, in this order.
Frequently Asked Questions about Scientific Report
--> how do you write a scientific report in psychology.
When psychologists carry out research, an essential part of the process involves reporting what the research entails and the results and conclusions drawn from the study. The American Psychological Association (APA) provides guidelines for the correct format researchers should use when writing psychology research reports.
--> How do you write a scientific introduction to a report?
It is usually done by writing a literature review of relevant information to the phenomena and showing that your study will fill a gap in research.
--> How do you structure a scientific report?
The structure of a scientific report should use the following subheadings: abstract, introduction, method (design, participants, materials, procedure and ethics), results, discussion, references and occasionally appendix, in this order.
--> What is a scientific report?
A scientific report consists of details regarding scientists reporting what their research entailed and reporting the results and conclusions drawn from the study.
--> What are the types of a scientific report?
Scientific reports can be primary or secondary. A primary scientific report is produced when the researchers conduct the research themselves. However, secondary scientific reports such as peer reviews, meta-analyses and systematic reviews are a type of scientific report that scientists produce when the researcher answers their proposed research question using previously published findings.
Final Scientific Report Quiz
What is a scientific report?
Show answer
Show question
Why is scientific research reported per APA in psychology?
- It ensures the scientists report enough information.
- It makes the report easier to read and find relevant information.
- It ensures the original research authors are acknowledged and credited.
How should the following book be reported per APA guidelines? The book is called Abnormal psychology, Worth Publishers published it in New York in 2007. Ronald J Comer wrote the book.
Comer, R. J. (2007). Abnormal psychology . New York: Worth Publishers.
What structure should a scientific report follow?
The structure of a scientific report should use the following subheadings:
- Introduction.
- Discussion.
- References.
- Occasionally appendix.
What are potential subheadings we can find in the methods section of a scientific report?
- Participants.
Where can readers find the hypothesis of research?
In the abstract and introduction.
What is the purpose of the abstract?
The purpose of the abstract is to provide an overview of the research so that the reader can quickly identify if the research is relevant or of interest to them.
How long should an abstract be?
250-300 words.
Is the following reference reported in accordance with APA guidelines ‘Fjell, A. M., Walhovd, K. B., Fischl, B., & Reinvang, I. Cognitive function, P3a/P3b brain potentials, and cortical thickness in ageing. Human Brain Mapping, 28 (11), 1098-1116. doi:10.1002/hbm.20335’?
No, the publication year is missing.
Do researchers have to report insignificant data?
Yes, they need to report all data, whether significant or not.
What is the difference between the information that should be put in the results and discussion section?
In the results section, the researcher should insert the inferential data analysed, which could take the form of numerical numbers, graphs and figures. In this section, they should not discuss or explain the results. Instead, they should write it under the discussion heading. However, the data reported in the results section should not be repeated here.
What is a primary scientific report?
A primary scientific report is produced when the researchers conduct the research themselves.
What is a secondary scientific report?
Secondary scientific reports such as peer-reviews, meta-analysis and systematic reviews are a type of scientific report that scientists produce when the researcher answers their proposed research question using previously published findings.
What kind of details should be added in the discussion section?
- The first thing that researchers should write about in the discussion is whether the findings support the hypothesis proposed or not.
- They should then discuss and explain the results the research found.
- They should then compare the findings to previously published findings that investigated the phenomena.
- It is essential to critique this research, such as the strengths and weaknesses, how it contributed to the psychology field and its next direction.
What information should be provided in the procedure section of a scientific report?
- They should include the details about standardised instruction, informed consent, and debriefing.
Researchers need to add enough details of their study so that it can be .....
replicated.
When referring to another study the researcher should always the original .
credit, author.
Meta-analyses and systematic reports are both examples of research.
According to APA, six main headings should be included in a report, true or false?
According to APA, the way to reference a book and journal is the same, true or false?
After a paper is written, what is done?
The paper is peer-reviewed.
What does peer-reviewing ensure?
Identify if the research is scientific, reliable, and valid and if it should be published in a psychological journal.
Can researchers refer to raw data in their scientific report?
Should researchers refer to their statistical findings to back what they are saying?
No, data should not be referred to in the discussion. Instead, the researcher can describe what was found and the inferences that can be made from observed trends.
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How to Read a Scientific Paper: Structure of an Article
- Structure of an Article
- eTools for Further Learning
The Abstract of an article is a short summary of the article's contents. Generally, it includes the focus, results, and conclusions of the study. Since the abstract does not contain all the information found in the article, it's best to view it as a tool for deciding if you should investigate the article further. Regardless of a subscription, an article's abstract will always be available to view.
Reading order : first.
Questions to ask while reading the abstract :
- Does this interest me?
- Is this related to my area of research?
Introduction
The Introduction of an article explains the idea being investigated, and gives background information if necessary. Generally, it will include a "literature review," which is a summary of research others have already performed on the topic. The introduction should also indicate why the study done in this particular article is unique, or how it adds to the overall discussion.
Reading order : second if the abstract is unclear; later if not.
Questions to ask while reading the introduction :
- What have other people done in regards to this topic?
- How is this research unique?
- Will this article tell me anything new?
Materials and Methods
The Materials and Methods of an article tells you how the study was performed. Generally, it should include the specifics of the experiment, so as to be repeatable.
Reading order: later.
Questions to ask while reading :
- Could I repeat their work?
- Is all the information present in order to repeat it?
The Results of an article should give an unbiased account of what the study's findings were, with data included.
Reading order: before reading the discussion if you wish to review the data without the opinions of the researchers; after reading the discussion if you are still figuring out whether the article interests you.
Questions to ask while reading:
- Are the results presented in a factual and unbiased way?
- Is all the data present?
- What conclusion do you formulate from this data?
Discussion/Conclusion
The Discussion of an article tells you what the researchers felt was significant about the results. This section contains an analysis of the data, and may point to facts and figures.
The Conclusion of an article gives you the final thoughts of the researchers. It may reiterate what they noted in the discussion, or may be combined with the discussion. It may also give recommendations for further research.
Reading order: conclusion last; discussion before or after results.
Questions to ask while reading:
- Does the analysis agree with the data presented?
- What are the weaknesses in their argument?
- Is the conclusion valid?
- Based on what you have read, what other research should be explored next?
The References of an article lists the works used in the research and writing of the article. Any articles mentioned in the introduction should be present here, as should any studies that were modeled in the materials and methods.
Reading order: at any time.
Question to ask while reading:
- What other articles should I read?
- What other authors are respected in this field?
Suggested Further Reading
Dean, R. (2013). How to read a paper and appraise the evidence. In Practice , 35(5) , 282-285.
Durbin, C. G. J. (2009). How to read a scientific research paper. Respiratory Care , 54(10) , 1366-1371.
Lang, T. A. (2011). The illusion of certainty and the certainty of illusion: a caution when reading scientific articles. The International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine , 2(2 ), 118-123.
Science Buddies. (n.d.). How to Read a Scientific Paper . Science Buddies. http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/top_science-fair_how_to_read_a_scientific_paper.shtml
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Conclusions
Your conclusions summarize how your results support or contradict your original hypothesis:
- Summarize your science fair project results in a few sentences and use this summary to support your conclusion. Include key facts from your background research to help explain your results as needed.
- State whether your results support or contradict your hypothesis. (Engineering & programming projects should state whether they met their design criteria.)
- If appropriate, state the relationship between the independent and dependent variable.
- Summarize and evaluate your experimental procedure, making comments about its success and effectiveness.
- Suggest changes in the experimental procedure (or design) and/or possibilities for further study.
Your conclusions will summarize whether or not your science fair project results support or contradict your original hypothesis. If you are doing an Engineering or Computer Science programming project, then you should state whether or not you met your design criteria. You may want to include key facts from your background research to help explain your results. Do your results suggest a relationship between the independent and dependent variable?
If Your Results Show that Your Hypothesis is False
If the results of your science experiment did not support your hypothesis, don't change or manipulate your results to fit your original hypothesis, simply explain why things did not go as expected. Professional scientists commonly find that results do not support their hypothesis, and they use those unexpected results as the first step in constructing a new hypothesis. If you think you need additional experimentation, describe what you think should happen next.
Scientific research is an ongoing process, and by discovering that your hypothesis is not true, you have already made huge advances in your learning that will lead you to ask more questions that lead to new experiments. Science fair judges do not care about whether you prove or disprove your hypothesis; they care how much you learned.
Here are sample conclusions .
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Scientific Papers
Scientific papers are for sharing your own original research work with other scientists or for reviewing the research conducted by others. As such, they are critical to the evolution of modern science, in which the work of one scientist builds upon that of others. To reach their goal, papers must aim to inform, not impress. They must be highly readable — that is, clear, accurate, and concise. They are more likely to be cited by other scientists if they are helpful rather than cryptic or self-centered.
Scientific papers typically have two audiences: first, the referees, who help the journal editor decide whether a paper is suitable for publication; and second, the journal readers themselves, who may be more or less knowledgeable about the topic addressed in the paper. To be accepted by referees and cited by readers, papers must do more than simply present a chronological account of the research work. Rather, they must convince their audience that the research presented is important, valid, and relevant to other scientists in the same field. To this end, they must emphasize both the motivation for the work and the outcome of it, and they must include just enough evidence to establish the validity of this outcome.
Papers that report experimental work are often structured chronologically in five sections: first, Introduction ; then Materials and Methods , Results , and Discussion (together, these three sections make up the paper's body); and finally, Conclusion .
- The Introduction section clarifies the motivation for the work presented and prepares readers for the structure of the paper.
- The Materials and Methods section provides sufficient detail for other scientists to reproduce the experiments presented in the paper. In some journals, this information is placed in an appendix, because it is not what most readers want to know first.
- The Results and Discussion sections present and discuss the research results, respectively. They are often usefully combined into one section, however, because readers can seldom make sense of results alone without accompanying interpretation — they need to be told what the results mean.
- The Conclusion section presents the outcome of the work by interpreting the findings at a higher level of abstraction than the Discussion and by relating these findings to the motivation stated in the Introduction .
(Papers reporting something other than experiments, such as a new method or technology, typically have different sections in their body, but they include the same Introduction and Conclusion sections as described above.)
Although the above structure reflects the progression of most research projects, effective papers typically break the chronology in at least three ways to present their content in the order in which the audience will most likely want to read it. First and foremost, they summarize the motivation for, and the outcome of, the work in an abstract, located before the Introduction . In a sense, they reveal the beginning and end of the story — briefly — before providing the full story. Second, they move the more detailed, less important parts of the body to the end of the paper in one or more appendices so that these parts do not stand in the readers' way. Finally, they structure the content in the body in theorem-proof fashion, stating first what readers must remember (for example, as the first sentence of a paragraph) and then presenting evidence to support this statement.
The introduction
- First, provide some context to orient those readers who are less familiar with your topic and to establish the importance of your work.
- Second, state the need for your work, as an opposition between what the scientific community currently has and what it wants.
- Third, indicate what you have done in an effort to address the need (this is the task).
- Finally, preview the remainder of the paper to mentally prepare readers for its structure, in the object of the document.
Context and need
At the beginning of the Introduction section, the context and need work together as a funnel: They start broad and progressively narrow down to the issue addressed in the paper. To spark interest among your audience — referees and journal readers alike — provide a compelling motivation for the work presented in your paper: The fact that a phenomenon has never been studied before is not, in and of itself, a reason to study that phenomenon.
Write the context in a way that appeals to a broad range of readers and leads into the need. Do not include context for the sake of including context: Rather, provide only what will help readers better understand the need and, especially, its importance. Consider anchoring the context in time, using phrases such as recently , in the past 10 years , or since the early 1990s . You may also want to anchor your context in space (either geographically or within a given research field).
Convey the need for the work as an opposition between actual and desired situations. Start by stating the actual situation (what we have) as a direct continuation of the context. If you feel you must explain recent achievements in much detail — say, in more than one or two paragraphs — consider moving the details to a section titled State of the art (or something similar) after the Introduction , but do provide a brief idea of the actual situation in the Introduction . Next, state the desired situation (what we want). Emphasize the contrast between the actual and desired situations with such words as but , however, or unfortunately .
One elegant way to express the desired part of the need is to combine it with the task in a single sentence. This sentence expresses first the objective, then the action undertaken to reach this objective, thus creating a strong and elegant connection between need and task. Here are three examples of such a combination:
To confirm this assumption , we studied the effects of a range of inhibitors of connexin channels . . . on . . .
To assess whether such multiple-coil sensors perform better than single-signal ones , we tested two of them — the DuoPXK and the GEMM3 — in a field where . . . To form a better view of the global distribution and infectiousness of this pathogen , we examined 1645 postmetamorphic and adult amphibians collected from 27 countries between 1984 and 2006 for the presence of . . .
Task and object
An Introduction is usually clearer and more logical when it separates what the authors have done (the task) from what the paper itself attempts or covers (the object of the document). In other words, the task clarifies your contribution as a scientist, whereas the object of the document prepares readers for the structure of the paper, thus allowing focused or selective reading.
For the task,
- use whoever did the work (normally, you and your colleagues) as the subject of the sentence: we or perhaps the authors;
- use a verb expressing a research action: measured , calculated , etc.;
- set that verb in the past tense.
The three examples below are well-formed tasks.
To confirm this assumption, we studied the effects of a range of inhibitors of connexin channels, such as the connexin mimetic peptides Gap26 and Gap27 and anti-peptide antibodies, on calcium signaling in cardiac cells and HeLa cells expressing connexins.
During controlled experiments, we investigated the influence of the HMP boundary conditions on liver flows.
To tackle this problem, we developed a new software verification technique called oblivious hashing, which calculates the hash values based on the actual execution of the program.
The list below provides examples of verbs that express research actions:
For the object of the document,
- use the document itself as the subject of the sentence: this paper , this letter , etc.;
- use a verb expressing a communication action: presents , summarizes , etc.;
- set the verb in the present tense.
The three examples below are suitable objects of the document for the three tasks shown above, respectively.
This paper clarifies the role of CxHc on calcium oscillations in neonatal cardiac myocytes and calcium transients induced by ATP in HL-cells originated from cardiac atrium and in HeLa cells expressing connexin 43 or 26. This paper presents the flow effects induced by increasing the hepatic-artery pressure and by obstructing the vena cava inferior. This paper discusses the theory behind oblivious hashing and shows how this approach can be applied for local software tamper resistance and remote code authentication.
The list below provides examples of verbs that express communication actions:
Even the most logical structure is of little use if readers do not see and understand it as they progress through a paper. Thus, as you organize the body of your paper into sections and perhaps subsections, remember to prepare your readers for the structure ahead at all levels. You already do so for the overall structure of the body (the sections) in the object of the document at the end of the Introduction . You can similarly prepare your readers for an upcoming division into subsections by introducing a global paragraph between the heading of a section and the heading of its first subsection. This paragraph can contain any information relating to the section as a whole rather than particular subsections, but it should at least announce the subsections, whether explicitly or implicitly. An explicit preview would be phrased much like the object of the document: "This section first . . . , then . . . , and finally . . . "
Although papers can be organized into sections in many ways, those reporting experimental work typically include Materials and Methods , Results , and Discussion in their body. In any case, the paragraphs in these sections should begin with a topic sentence to prepare readers for their contents, allow selective reading, and — ideally — get a message across.
Materials and methods
Results and discussion.
When reporting and discussing your results, do not force your readers to go through everything you went through in chronological order. Instead, state the message of each paragraph upfront: Convey in the first sentence what you want readers to remember from the paragraph as a whole. Focus on what happened, not on the fact that you observed it. Then develop your message in the remainder of the paragraph, including only that information you think you need to convince your audience.
The conclusion
At the end of your Conclusion , consider including perspectives — that is, an idea of what could or should still be done in relation to the issue addressed in the paper. If you include perspectives, clarify whether you are referring to firm plans for yourself and your colleagues ("In the coming months, we will . . . ") or to an invitation to readers ("One remaining question is . . . ").
If your paper includes a well-structured Introduction and an effective abstract, you need not repeat any of the Introduction in the Conclusion . In particular, do not restate what you have done or what the paper does. Instead, focus on what you have found and, especially, on what your findings mean. Do not be afraid to write a short Conclusion section: If you can conclude in just a few sentences given the rich discussion in the body of the paper, then do so. (In other words, resist the temptation to repeat material from the Introduction just to make the Conclusio n longer under the false belief that a longer Conclusion will seem more impressive.)
The abstract
Typically, readers are primarily interested in the information presented in a paper's Introduction and Conclusion sections. Primarily, they want to know the motivation for the work presented and the outcome of this work. Then (and only then) the most specialized among them might want to know the details of the work. Thus, an effective abstract focuses on motivation and outcome; in doing so, it parallels the paper's Introduction and Conclusion .
Accordingly, you can think of an abstract as having two distinct parts — motivation and outcome — even if it is typeset as a single paragraph. For the first part, follow the same structure as the Introduction section of the paper: State the context, the need, the task, and the object of the document. For the second part, mention your findings (the what ) and, especially, your conclusion (the so what — that is, the interpretation of your findings); if appropriate, end with perspectives, as in the Conclusion section of your paper.
Although the structure of the abstract parallels the Introduction and Conclusion sections, it differs from these sections in the audience it addresses. The abstract is read by many different readers, from the most specialized to the least specialized among the target audience. In a sense, it should be the least specialized part of the paper. Any scientist reading it should be able to understand why the work was carried out and why it is important (context and need), what the authors did (task) and what the paper reports about this work (object of the document), what the authors found (findings), what these findings mean (the conclusion), and possibly what the next steps are (perspectives). In contrast, the full paper is typically read by specialists only; its Introduction and Conclusion are more detailed (that is, longer and more specialized) than the abstract.
An effective abstract stands on its own — it can be understood fully even when made available without the full paper. To this end, avoid referring to figures or the bibliography in the abstract. Also, introduce any acronyms the first time you use them in the abstract (if needed), and do so again in the full paper (see Mechanics: Using abbreviations ).
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Essay Structure
Writing an academic essay means fashioning a coherent set of ideas into an argument. Because essays are essentially linear—they offer one idea at a time—they must present their ideas in the order that makes most sense to a reader. Successfully structuring an essay means attending to a reader's logic.
The focus of such an essay predicts its structure. It dictates the information readers need to know and the order in which they need to receive it. Thus your essay's structure is necessarily unique to the main claim you're making. Although there are guidelines for constructing certain classic essay types (e.g., comparative analysis), there are no set formula.
Answering Questions: The Parts of an Essay
A typical essay contains many different kinds of information, often located in specialized parts or sections. Even short essays perform several different operations: introducing the argument, analyzing data, raising counterarguments, concluding. Introductions and conclusions have fixed places, but other parts don't. Counterargument, for example, may appear within a paragraph, as a free-standing section, as part of the beginning, or before the ending. Background material (historical context or biographical information, a summary of relevant theory or criticism, the definition of a key term) often appears at the beginning of the essay, between the introduction and the first analytical section, but might also appear near the beginning of the specific section to which it's relevant.
It's helpful to think of the different essay sections as answering a series of questions your reader might ask when encountering your thesis. (Readers should have questions. If they don't, your thesis is most likely simply an observation of fact, not an arguable claim.)
"What?" The first question to anticipate from a reader is "what": What evidence shows that the phenomenon described by your thesis is true? To answer the question you must examine your evidence, thus demonstrating the truth of your claim. This "what" or "demonstration" section comes early in the essay, often directly after the introduction. Since you're essentially reporting what you've observed, this is the part you might have most to say about when you first start writing. But be forewarned: it shouldn't take up much more than a third (often much less) of your finished essay. If it does, the essay will lack balance and may read as mere summary or description.
"How?" A reader will also want to know whether the claims of the thesis are true in all cases. The corresponding question is "how": How does the thesis stand up to the challenge of a counterargument? How does the introduction of new material—a new way of looking at the evidence, another set of sources—affect the claims you're making? Typically, an essay will include at least one "how" section. (Call it "complication" since you're responding to a reader's complicating questions.) This section usually comes after the "what," but keep in mind that an essay may complicate its argument several times depending on its length, and that counterargument alone may appear just about anywhere in an essay.
"Why?" Your reader will also want to know what's at stake in your claim: Why does your interpretation of a phenomenon matter to anyone beside you? This question addresses the larger implications of your thesis. It allows your readers to understand your essay within a larger context. In answering "why", your essay explains its own significance. Although you might gesture at this question in your introduction, the fullest answer to it properly belongs at your essay's end. If you leave it out, your readers will experience your essay as unfinished—or, worse, as pointless or insular.
Mapping an Essay
Structuring your essay according to a reader's logic means examining your thesis and anticipating what a reader needs to know, and in what sequence, in order to grasp and be convinced by your argument as it unfolds. The easiest way to do this is to map the essay's ideas via a written narrative. Such an account will give you a preliminary record of your ideas, and will allow you to remind yourself at every turn of the reader's needs in understanding your idea.
Essay maps ask you to predict where your reader will expect background information, counterargument, close analysis of a primary source, or a turn to secondary source material. Essay maps are not concerned with paragraphs so much as with sections of an essay. They anticipate the major argumentative moves you expect your essay to make. Try making your map like this:
- State your thesis in a sentence or two, then write another sentence saying why it's important to make that claim. Indicate, in other words, what a reader might learn by exploring the claim with you. Here you're anticipating your answer to the "why" question that you'll eventually flesh out in your conclusion.
- Begin your next sentence like this: "To be convinced by my claim, the first thing a reader needs to know is . . ." Then say why that's the first thing a reader needs to know, and name one or two items of evidence you think will make the case. This will start you off on answering the "what" question. (Alternately, you may find that the first thing your reader needs to know is some background information.)
- Begin each of the following sentences like this: "The next thing my reader needs to know is . . ." Once again, say why, and name some evidence. Continue until you've mapped out your essay.
Your map should naturally take you through some preliminary answers to the basic questions of what, how, and why. It is not a contract, though—the order in which the ideas appear is not a rigid one. Essay maps are flexible; they evolve with your ideas.
Signs of Trouble
A common structural flaw in college essays is the "walk-through" (also labeled "summary" or "description"). Walk-through essays follow the structure of their sources rather than establishing their own. Such essays generally have a descriptive thesis rather than an argumentative one. Be wary of paragraph openers that lead off with "time" words ("first," "next," "after," "then") or "listing" words ("also," "another," "in addition"). Although they don't always signal trouble, these paragraph openers often indicate that an essay's thesis and structure need work: they suggest that the essay simply reproduces the chronology of the source text (in the case of time words: first this happens, then that, and afterwards another thing . . . ) or simply lists example after example ("In addition, the use of color indicates another way that the painting differentiates between good and evil").
Copyright 2000, Elizabeth Abrams, for the Writing Center at Harvard University
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Writing an Introduction for a Scientific Paper
Dr. michelle harris, dr. janet batzli, biocore.
This section provides guidelines on how to construct a solid introduction to a scientific paper including background information, study question , biological rationale, hypothesis , and general approach . If the Introduction is done well, there should be no question in the reader’s mind why and on what basis you have posed a specific hypothesis.
Broad Question : based on an initial observation (e.g., “I see a lot of guppies close to the shore. Do guppies like living in shallow water?”). This observation of the natural world may inspire you to investigate background literature or your observation could be based on previous research by others or your own pilot study. Broad questions are not always included in your written text, but are essential for establishing the direction of your research.
Background Information : key issues, concepts, terminology, and definitions needed to understand the biological rationale for the experiment. It often includes a summary of findings from previous, relevant studies. Remember to cite references, be concise, and only include relevant information given your audience and your experimental design. Concisely summarized background information leads to the identification of specific scientific knowledge gaps that still exist. (e.g., “No studies to date have examined whether guppies do indeed spend more time in shallow water.”)
Testable Question : these questions are much more focused than the initial broad question, are specific to the knowledge gap identified, and can be addressed with data. (e.g., “Do guppies spend different amounts of time in water <1 meter deep as compared to their time in water that is >1 meter deep?”)
Biological Rationale : describes the purpose of your experiment distilling what is known and what is not known that defines the knowledge gap that you are addressing. The “BR” provides the logic for your hypothesis and experimental approach, describing the biological mechanism and assumptions that explain why your hypothesis should be true.
The biological rationale is based on your interpretation of the scientific literature, your personal observations, and the underlying assumptions you are making about how you think the system works. If you have written your biological rationale, your reader should see your hypothesis in your introduction section and say to themselves, “Of course, this hypothesis seems very logical based on the rationale presented.”
- A thorough rationale defines your assumptions about the system that have not been revealed in scientific literature or from previous systematic observation. These assumptions drive the direction of your specific hypothesis or general predictions.
- Defining the rationale is probably the most critical task for a writer, as it tells your reader why your research is biologically meaningful. It may help to think about the rationale as an answer to the questions— how is this investigation related to what we know, what assumptions am I making about what we don’t yet know, AND how will this experiment add to our knowledge? *There may or may not be broader implications for your study; be careful not to overstate these (see note on social justifications below).
- Expect to spend time and mental effort on this. You may have to do considerable digging into the scientific literature to define how your experiment fits into what is already known and why it is relevant to pursue.
- Be open to the possibility that as you work with and think about your data, you may develop a deeper, more accurate understanding of the experimental system. You may find the original rationale needs to be revised to reflect your new, more sophisticated understanding.
- As you progress through Biocore and upper level biology courses, your rationale should become more focused and matched with the level of study e ., cellular, biochemical, or physiological mechanisms that underlie the rationale. Achieving this type of understanding takes effort, but it will lead to better communication of your science.
***Special note on avoiding social justifications: You should not overemphasize the relevance of your experiment and the possible connections to large-scale processes. Be realistic and logical —do not overgeneralize or state grand implications that are not sensible given the structure of your experimental system. Not all science is easily applied to improving the human condition. Performing an investigation just for the sake of adding to our scientific knowledge (“pure or basic science”) is just as important as applied science. In fact, basic science often provides the foundation for applied studies.
Hypothesis / Predictions : specific prediction(s) that you will test during your experiment. For manipulative experiments, the hypothesis should include the independent variable (what you manipulate), the dependent variable(s) (what you measure), the organism or system , the direction of your results, and comparison to be made.
If you are doing a systematic observation , your hypothesis presents a variable or set of variables that you predict are important for helping you characterize the system as a whole, or predict differences between components/areas of the system that help you explain how the system functions or changes over time.
Experimental Approach : Briefly gives the reader a general sense of the experiment, the type of data it will yield, and the kind of conclusions you expect to obtain from the data. Do not confuse the experimental approach with the experimental protocol . The experimental protocol consists of the detailed step-by-step procedures and techniques used during the experiment that are to be reported in the Methods and Materials section.
Some Final Tips on Writing an Introduction
- As you progress through the Biocore sequence, for instance, from organismal level of Biocore 301/302 to the cellular level in Biocore 303/304, we expect the contents of your “Introduction” paragraphs to reflect the level of your coursework and previous writing experience. For example, in Biocore 304 (Cell Biology Lab) biological rationale should draw upon assumptions we are making about cellular and biochemical processes.
- Be Concise yet Specific: Remember to be concise and only include relevant information given your audience and your experimental design. As you write, keep asking, “Is this necessary information or is this irrelevant detail?” For example, if you are writing a paper claiming that a certain compound is a competitive inhibitor to the enzyme alkaline phosphatase and acts by binding to the active site, you need to explain (briefly) Michaelis-Menton kinetics and the meaning and significance of Km and Vmax. This explanation is not necessary if you are reporting the dependence of enzyme activity on pH because you do not need to measure Km and Vmax to get an estimate of enzyme activity.
- Another example: if you are writing a paper reporting an increase in Daphnia magna heart rate upon exposure to caffeine you need not describe the reproductive cycle of magna unless it is germane to your results and discussion. Be specific and concrete, especially when making introductory or summary statements.
Where Do You Discuss Pilot Studies? Many times it is important to do pilot studies to help you get familiar with your experimental system or to improve your experimental design. If your pilot study influences your biological rationale or hypothesis, you need to describe it in your Introduction. If your pilot study simply informs the logistics or techniques, but does not influence your rationale, then the description of your pilot study belongs in the Materials and Methods section.
How will introductions be evaluated? The following is part of the rubric we will be using to evaluate your papers.
Guideline for Writing Conclusion in Scientific Paper
Last Updated on September 10, 2021
After your paper has entered the conclusion writing phase, it means that you are only one step away. After this, you will be able to submit your paper to a journal. However, writing conclusions can not be taken lightly, because this section is also a crucial part of writing a paper. A correct trick is needed to make a good conclusion. Because the part that will be read first after the abstract is a conclusion.
In addition, this article will also discuss how to write acknowledgments or thank you and write references. Let’s look at the article until it runs out.
Write a Good Conclusion
Writing conclusions in the paper is very different from writing conclusions in scientific reports or thesis. In the paper, conclusions will write in one sub-chapter containing conclusions from the results of the overall research that can answer the problem formulation along with suggestions for the future development of this research. There are no written advice sub-chapters and no numbering, conclusions written in one or a maximum of two paragraphs. Important points in writing a conclusion are:
- Describe the overall results of the study in a few short sentences.
- Make sure your description has answered the proposed problem statement.
- Also, write suggestions for the future development of this research in the last sentence.
Example of Conclusion
Next, I give an example of writing a conclusion drawn from a paper entitled Modeling Backpropagation Neural Network for Rainfall Prediction in Tengger East Java .
This research has to model the Backpropagation Neural Network (BPNN) for rainfall prediction in Tengger. From the testing result, the most optimum modeling of parameter BPNN gets the result the value of the learning rate is 0.4, the number of hidden layers is 3, and the number of a maximum epoch is 4000. This modeling has short time execution and small RMSE. From the prediction testing result, get the value of average RMSE from the learning process is 8.14 and the RMSE from the testing process is 8.28.
Acknowledgment
In the paper, sometimes you need to write acknowledgments. The remarks were conveyed to related parties who have contributed to helping researchers in the form of funds, data, or assistance in other forms. Examples of writing thank-you notes are usually used in research funded by certain sources such as Kemenristekdikti. The following is an example of writing a thank you note to the source of the funding. For example:
This research was supported by the local Meteorological and Geophysics Agency Tengger, East Java and Faculty of Computer Science, Brawijaya University.
To improve your writing skills, you can follow some guidelines in writing each section in the following article.
Introduction to Structure of Scientific Paper
4 important points in writing abstract on scientific paper, 5 important point to make a good introduction.
- Previous Research Writing Guidelines
- Methodology Writing Guideline
- Result and Discussion Writing Guideline
- References Writing Guideline
Lastly, this is the explanation in the video version.
Author: Ida Wahyuni Instagram Direct Message: @idawahyuni92
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The steps below show you how to construct an effective conclusion for either type of research paper. Table of contents Step 1: Restate the problem Step 2: Sum up the paper Step 3: Discuss the implications Research paper conclusion examples Frequently asked questions about research paper conclusions Step 1: Restate the problem
Regardless of what journal you are submitting to, the discussion section always serves the same purpose: concluding what your study results actually mean. A successful discussion section puts your findings in context. It should include: the results of your research, a discussion of related research, and
The conclusion will vary depending on the structure of your paper. If you are presenting original data in an objective format, that conclusion looks a lot different from one where a strong argument as to a future direction is presented. But, there is a similar pattern and structure to a good conclusion regardless of its content.
Your research paper's conclusion must be concise and straightforward. Avoid dwelling on descriptions and interpretations that should have been in the body of your paper, including discussing methodologies and results of your studies in detail.
Conclude by setting your discussion into a different, perhaps larger, context. For example, you might end an essay on nineteenth-century muckraking journalism by linking it to a current news magazine program like 60 Minutes. Conclude by redefining one of the key terms of your argument. For example, an essay on Marx's treatment of the conflict ...
CONCLUSIONS Provide a very brief summary of the Results and Discussion. Emphasize the implications of the findings, explaining how the work is significant and providing the key message (s) the author wishes to convey. Provide the most general claims that can be supported by the evidence. Provide a future perspective on the work.
Conclusion Sections in Scientific Research Reports (IMRaD) Download this guide as a PDF Return to all guides In IMRaD* reports, conclusions often fall under the discussion section. In some disciplines and journals, however, conclusions are separated from discussions.
Aim to keep your conclusion shorter than your introduction. Aim to keep your conclusion under 5 sentences - Your conclusion must be memorable. If it is too long, a reader will struggle to hold the essence of your essay in their minds as their final interaction with your argument. Think about those points for a moment.
An effective conclusion will contain all five elements of summing up your research paper: Restate your research topic. Restate the thesis. Summarize the main points. State the significance or results. Conclude your thoughts. The following example can help illustrate what an effective research paper conclusion looks like:
What is the structure of a scientific paper? All scientific papers have the same general format. They are divided into distinct sections and each section contains a specific type of information. The number and the headings of sections may vary among journals, but for the most part a basic structure is maintained.
Understanding the Scientific Paper Outline In general, all writing pieces follow an outline consisting of three main elements: Introduction. Body. Conclusion. A scientific paper is no exception, but its outline comprises more parts within these three elements:
A scientific conclusion is the result of an investigation or experiment that has been conducted using the scientific method. A scientific conclusion must be based on evidence that has been collected and analyzed systematically. It is not enough to simply observe something happening; scientists must also be able to explain why it is happening.
In each paragraph, the first sentence defines the context, the body contains the new idea and the final sentence offers a conclusion. For the whole paper, the introduction sets the context, the ...
Scientific Report Structure Psychology research should always start with an abstract. This section briefly summarises the whole study, typically 150-200 words. The crucial details the abstract should give include an overview of the hypothesis, sample, procedure, results, details regarding data analysis, and the conclusions drawn.
The Conclusion of an article gives you the final thoughts of the researchers. It may reiterate what they noted in the discussion, or may be combined with the discussion. It may also give recommendations for further research. Reading order: conclusion last; discussion before or after results. Questions to ask while reading:
Your conclusions summarize how your results support or contradict your original hypothesis: Summarize your science fair project results in a few sentences and use this summary to support your conclusion. Include key facts from your background research to help explain your results as needed. State whether your results support or contradict your ...
Papers that report experimental work are often structured chronologically in five sections: first, Introduction; then Materials and Methods, Results, and Discussion (together, these three...
Framing a scientific paper. The structure of a paper mirrors that of an hourglass, opening broadly and narrowing to the specific question, hypothesis, methods, and results of the study. Effective papers widen again in the discussion and conclusion, connecting the study back to the existing literature and explaining how the current study filled ...
Step 1: Answer your research question. Step 2: Summarize and reflect on your research. Step 3: Make future recommendations. Step 4: Emphasize your contributions to your field. Step 5: Wrap up your thesis or dissertation. Full conclusion example. Conclusion checklist. Frequently asked questions about conclusion sections.
Essay Structure. Writing an academic essay means fashioning a coherent set of ideas into an argument. Because essays are essentially linear—they offer one idea at a time—they must present their ideas in the order that makes most sense to a reader. Successfully structuring an essay means attending to a reader's logic.
A thorough rationale defines your assumptions about the system that have not been revealed in scientific literature or from previous systematic observation. These assumptions drive the direction of your specific hypothesis or general predictions.
In the paper, conclusions will write in one sub-chapter containing conclusions from the results of the overall research that can answer the problem formulation along with suggestions for the future development of this research. ... Introduction to Structure of Scientific Paper; 4 Important Points in Writing Abstract on Scientific Paper; 5 ...