Composing the Sections of a Research Paper

To deliver content with the least distractions, scientific papers have a stereotyped form and style. The standard format of a research paper has six sections:

• Title and Abstract, which encapsulate the paper

• Introduction, which describes where the paper's research question fits into current science

• Materials and Methods, which translates the research question into a detailed recipe of operations

• Results, which is an orderly compilation of the data observed after following the research recipe

• Discussion, which consolidates the data and connects it to the data of other researchers

• Conclusion, which gives the one or two scientific points to which the entire paper leads

This format has been called the IMRAD (Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, And Discussion) organization. I,M,R,D is the order that the sections have in the published paper, but this is not the best order in which to write your manuscript. It is more efficient to work on the draft of your paper from the middle out, from the known to the discovered, i.e.