Journal references

Since technical papers or journals or so important in research, it is best that student become familiar with a basic format of a journal article. Although not all journals are written alike, please let the following serve as a basic model. You will notice that the sections and what's in each section is similar to what should goes in a well-written laboratory paper.

Basic Format of a Journal Article
1. Abstract
2. Introduction
1. Review of literature
2. Statement of purpose
3. Methods
1. Subjects
2. Design (how the subjects are arranged prior to a statistical analysis)
3. Materials
4. Procedure
4. Results
5. Discussion
6. References

1. Abstract - an abstract is a summary of the entire journal article which generally appears at the beginning of the article. Although it normally provides the following information, the abstract is usually 5 or 6 sentences.
1. Statement of purpose or objective of study
2. A description of the individuals who served as participants
3. A brief explanation of what the participants did during the study
4. A summary of the important results

****Once you have gained an understanding of the vocabulary used by researchers you will be able to read an abstract with good understanding and decide whether or nor to read the whole article.

2. Introduction (could be long or short)
1. Review of literature - discusses previous literature
• An author by doing this is making an attempt to demonstrate how his project is related to previous projects
• The review also provides background information
2. Statements of purpose - rational for studying
• This is one of the most important parts since it explains the authors destination
3. Method - the author explains in detail how he conducts his study. His explanation should contain enough information so that a reader could duplicate the study. To accomplish this goal the author addresses himself to 4 questions:
1. Subjects - who participated in the study
• Indicates how many were used
• Who they were
• How they were selected (were they selected randomly?)
2. Design - In most research studies the researcher attempts to acquire or confirm information about a particular question by making comparisons among two or more groups. The term experimental design is used to describe the way in which the groups are arranged before the analysis of the data.
3. Materials - description of materials
1. Concept of reliability - will the instrument measure the same trait consistently upon repeated measurement?
2. Validity - deals with whether the instrument is truly measuring the specific trait that it is supposed to measure.
4. Procedure - how was the study conducted; where, when, and how many times
4. Results - there are three main ways to present the results of the statistical data:
• Description
• Summarize
• Graph (figure)
5. Discussion - how results turn out
• Author explains results in relation to the central purpose of study
• The purpose implies a research question and the discussion should provide a direct answer to that question
• Why authors think the results turned out the way they did
• Possible reasons why the results failed
• Suggest ideas for further research
6. References