Research Studies: How Will I Know One When I See One?

Scholarly Research Studies
To conduct and publish a research stud, an author or team of authors designs an experiment, gathers data, then analyzes the data and discusses the results of the experiment. A published research study (also known as an empirical study, a primary research article, or an experimental article) will therefore look very different from other types of articles (newspaper stories, magazine articles, essays, etc.) found in our library databases.

In fact, newspapers, magazines, and Web sites written by journalists report on research studies all the time, summarizing published experiments in non-technical language for the general public. Although that kind of article can be interesting to read (and can even lead you to look up the original experiment published by the researchers themselves), to write a paper about an academic topic, you should, generally, use research studies written by researchers. The following guidelines will help you recognize a research study, written by the researchers themselves and published in a scholarly journal.

Structure of a Research Study
Typically, a research study has the following sections:

• Abstract
  • The author summarizes her article
• Introduction
  • The author discusses the general background of her research topic; often, she will present a literature review, that is, summarize what other experts have written on this particular research topic
• Method
  • The author describes the experiment she designed and conducted
• Results
  • The author presents the data she gathered during her experiment
• Discussion
  • The author offers ideas about the importance and implications of her research findings, and speculates on future directions that similar research might take
• Literature Cited
  • The author gives a References list of sources she used in her paper

As you can see from the following snapshots from the full text of a research study, the structure of the article is often clearly shown by headings, for example, Method, Results, Discussion:

Another common feature of research studies is that they are often full of statistical data analysis, tables, and graphs. Here's an example:

As you know, in most library databases, even before you view the full text of an article, you can see detailed information about the article, including an abstract. By reading an article's abstract, you can tell if the author has performed an experiment or research study, because the purpose, method, and results of the study will be summarized in the abstract: