Structure of Scientific Articles

The structure of the scientific paper is similar in many disciplines. The Journal des sçavans was the world's first scientific journal published in France in 1665, mostly in biological and laboratory sciences.

After this great event, and in the following centuries, the speed of production of science grew, and the number of journals was enormous. In the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the methodology of articles was briefly discussed, and gradually editors of the journals asked the authors to write their works in a more organized format. Now, most journals in the "For Authors" section ask researchers to write their articles in the format they have set. Before explaining the structure of an article, you should familiarize yourself with a variety of scientific articles.

Scientific article types

Research Articles: These articles are the result of research activities by a researcher or a scientific group. This type of paper is the most common scientific article, and most journals only accept research articles.

Review article: This type of paper examines a scientific subject by reviewing many articles and summarize their results. many journals point out that this type of article should be written by an expert in that field of research. 

Case Reports: In this type of articles that are mostly used in basic sciences and biology, a particular case or a rare disease is introduced.

Short report: Usually, if a significant scientific result is obtained during a research, it is presented in the form of a short report. This kind of research, for the most part, includes ongoing research.

Letter to the editor: The letter to the editor usually contains the expert comments of the researchers regarding the latest articles published in the journal and reviews them.

Structure of Scientific Articles

According to what has been said, here our goal is to provide the structure of the research articles that is the most type of published articles in the journals. This structure is almost identical, but with respect to the scientific discipline and the journal, there may be slight differences in them.

Structure of a research paper: title, author or authors, abstract, keywords, introduction, method, results, discussion and conclusion, references.

Medical articles follow a roughly similar structure, and only the methods in these articles are presented as "materials and methods" and is more detailed.

Structure of a research paper in medical science: title, author or authors, abstract, keywords, introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion, conclusion, appreciation and thanks, references.

Finally, it should be noted that after submitting your own articles in the above format, you should refer to the relevant journal site and apply the minor changes that each journal requests.