Scholarly articles in the sciences follow a particular format. You may not always see every part labeled, but the content will include the following:
ABSTRACT – a summary of the article
INTRODUCTION – a brief explanation of the research topic and why this particular research was performed.
MATERIALS and METHODS – How the research was performed
RESULTS – The results of the research. An explanation of what happened.
DISCUSSION or CONCLUSION – What do the results mean? What is significant or important of them? What was learned?
REFERENCES – The research of others that was consulted in the writing of this article.
View the example article below. Click on the labeled components to learn more.
Used with permission of Western University under Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US)