Young Women's Wellness

        Reading a research paper can be daunting. After all, it can be long, boring, and filled with fancy words. Especially if you’re a student and just trying to understand the main concepts, it can be challenging and inefficient to read the entire paper. Here, we’re going to cover the different sections of a research paper and some tips that might help you get the most out of a research paper, without falling asleep!

 

What is a research paper?

        Research papers are a way that scientists and researchers can present their findings to the rest of the world. Typically having to do with science, research papers are written to deliver information and data collected from experiments to other scientists, researchers, and students.

 

Parts of a research paper:

 

Abstract

        The abstract is easily one of the most important and easiest to understand parts of a research paper. It’s basically the summary of the paper. This section typically includes some background, goals, and basic information about the research and experiments the rest of the paper covers.

 

Introduction

        The introduction simply introduces the paper and what it’s going to cover. This section goes more in-depth about the background, purpose, and goals of the research.

 

Results

        It’s exactly what the title suggests: the results of the experiments. The purpose of this section is to give the reader the results of the experiments as pure facts, without bias.

 

Discussion

        This section’s title is a bit more vague than the others. Typically, the discussion explains the results of the research and compares them to existing research. This section can include the real-world practical uses of the research, talk about the limitations of the research, and how the research might contribute to the future of science. This section is like giving the previous section the results and context.

 

Methods

        This section goes over the exact processes of the research, how they collected the data, what technology or materials they used, etc. If you ever wanted to do the experiments in a research paper yourself, this is where you’d find the information to be able to replicate them.

 

Tips:

 

1. If you’re just trying to understand the basic ideas in a research paper, it’s usually best to read the abstract, introduction, results, and discussion. You can skip any other parts of the research paper unless there’s something specific you want to find.

2. Research papers typically have lots of professional terms and concepts. Don’t be afraid to search them up and do extra research to understand the research paper better.