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Your professor may ask you
to find primary research articles on a topic. These
are articles in which the authors present a new set of findings
from original research after conducting an experiment. These articles
usually contain the following parts:
Methods: This section describes the techniques
used to execute the experiment in detail, including the collection
of data, and the statistical procedures used. This is usually
full of technical jargon, so it can be difficult for non-specialists
to read.
A detailed explanation of the method is necessary
for two reasons:
(1) other scientists may wish to repeat the experiments
to test the findings
(2) the validity of the results depends in part
on the techniques and types of analyses used
Results: This section is typically a very
technical presentation of the outcome of the experiment. The results
are usually described with the aid of tables, statistical tests
where appropriate, and figures and diagrams if necessary.
Discussion: This is where the authors interpret
their results in light of previous work in the area. Here the
authors must convince the reader of the validity and importance
of their findings. Sometimes, ideas for future or follow-up research
are included.
References cited: The authors must
list all the articles they cited within their own article as the
last section of the paper. This is an excellent way to find citations
to other related articles.
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