Writing Textbooks Boundless Writing Writing Across Disciplines Writing in the Natural and Social Sciences: The Research Paper and the IMRAD Model
Writing Textbooks Boundless Writing Writing Across Disciplines
Writing Textbooks Boundless Writing
Writing Textbooks
Writing
Concept Version 17
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Overview of the IMRAD Model

The body of a scientific paper generally consists of the following sections: introduction (which may include a literature review), methods, results, and discussion.

Learning Objective

  • Define each element of the IMRAD structure

Key Points

    • The IMRAD model is the conventional structural approach to academic writing in the sciences. The IMRAD model has four parts: introduction, methods, results, and discussion.
    • The literature review provides an overview of relevant research in your discipline. This may be included as part of the introduction, or it may stand as its own section.
    • The methods section should explain how you collected and evaluated your data.
    • If your project conducts an experiment or an original data analysis, you should include a separate section that reports your results.
    • The discussion section should analyze your results without reporting any new findings.

Terms

  • quantitative

    Of research methods that rely on objective measurements and data analysis.

  • literature review

    A synthesis of the critical points of current knowledge in a given field, which includes significant findings as well as theoretical and methodological contributions to a particular topic.

  • IMRAD

    An acronym for Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion—the conventional structure of a scientific paper.

  • result

    The discovery (or absence of discovery) that arises from the scientific method of investigation.

  • qualitative

    Of research methods that create a more subjective understanding by studying a subject's defining qualities and character.

Full Text

In the natural and social sciences, the format for the body of the paper varies depending on the discipline, audience, and research methods. Generally, the body of the paper contains an introduction, a methods section, results, and discussion. This method is called IMRAD for short. 

These sections are usually separate, although sometimes the results are combined with the methods. However, many instructors prefer that students maintain these divisions, since they are still learning the conventions of writing in their discipline. Most scientific journals prefer the IMRAD format, or variations of it, and even recommend that writers designate the four elements with uniform title headings.  

Try to stay true to each section's stated purpose. You can cite relevant sources in the methods, discussion, and conclusion sections, but again, save the lengthy discussion of those sources for the introduction or literature review. The results section should describe your results without discussing their significance, while the discussion section should analyze your results without reporting any new findings. Think of each section as a course served at a fancy dinner—don't pour the soup into the salad or add leftover scraps from the entree to the dessert!

Introduction

In the first section of your paper, make a case for your new research. Explain to your reader why you chose to research this topic, problem, or issue, and why such research is needed. Explain any "gaps" in the current research on this topic, and explain how your research contributes to closing that gap.

Literature Review

While not always required, the literature review can be an important part of your introduction. It provides an overview of relevant research in your discipline. Its goal is to provide a scholarly context for your research question, and explain how your own research fits into that context. A literature review is not merely a summary of the sources you've found for your paper—it should synthesize the information gathered from those sources in order to demonstrate that work still needs to be done.

Explain your selection criteria early on—why did you choose each of your sources? The literature review should only refer to work that affects your particular question. Seek out a diverse range of sources. Look at primary-research reports and data sets in addition to secondary or analytical sources.

Methods

This section should explain how you collected and evaluated your data. Use the past tense, and use precise language. Explain why you chose your methods and how they compare to the standard practices in your discipline. Address potential problems with your methodology, and discuss how you dealt with these problems. Classify your methods. Are they empirical or interpretive? Quantitative or qualitative? 

After you support your methods of data collection or creation, defend the framework you use to analyze or interpret the data. What theoretical assumptions do you rely on?

After you provide a rationale for your methodology, explain your process in detail. If you are vague or unclear in describing your methods, your reader will have reason to doubt your results. Furthermore, scientific research should present reproducible (i.e., repeatable) results. It will be impossible for other researchers to recreate your results if they can't determine exactly what you did. Include information about your population, sample frame, sample method, sample size, data-collection method, and data processing and analysis.

Results

When you describe your findings, do so in the past tense, using impartial language, with no attempt to analyze the significance of the findings. You will analyze your results in the next section. However, it is perfectly acceptable to make observations about your findings. For instance, if there was an unexpectedly large gap between two data points, you should mention that the gap is unusual, but save your speculations about the reasons for the gap for the discussion section. If you find some results that don't support your hypothesis, don't omit them. Report incongruous results, and then address them in the discussion section. If you find that you need more background information to provide context for your results, don't include it in the results section—go back and add it to your introduction.

Discussion

This is the place to analyze your results and explain their significance—namely, how they support (or do not support) your hypothesis. Identify patterns in the data, and explain how they correlate with what is known in the field, as well as whether they are what you expected to find. (Often, the most interesting research results are those that were not expected!) You should also make a case for further research if you feel the results warrant it.

It can be very helpful to include visual aids such as figures, charts, tables, and photos with your results. Make sure you label each of these elements, and provide supporting text that explains them thoroughly.

Royal Academy School

One of the goals of the literature review is to demonstrate familiarity with a body of knowledge.

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