Five Basic Sections of a Research Paper
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1) Abstract
2) Introduction
3) Method
4) Results
5) Discussion
Order of APA Paper Sections
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The order of the sections of the manuscript are as follows:
 A.Title Page
 B.Abstract
 C.Introduction
 D.Method
 E.Results
 F.Discussion
 G.References
 H.Other Sections
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Appendix
Tables
Figure captions
Figures
Title Page
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The title page formally announces the title and
running head of your lab report.
The title page contains:
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The article title
Author name(s)
Author affiliation
Manuscript page header
Page number
Running head
Abstract
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The abstract is the "Reader's Digest" version of the
paper
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Condensed format.
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Abstracts must be condensed yet stand alone. The abstract
should be understandable to someone who has not read the
paper.
Order.
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Its purpose is to show the reader the research at a glance.
Each section of the paper requires 1 to 2 sentence in the
abstract. Information is arranged in the same order as the
sections in the lab report: Introduction, Method, Results, and
Discussion.
Single paragraph.
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Abstracts should be presented as one paragraph.
Introduction
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The goal of the introduction is to justify your study.
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Introduce the research question
Summarize the research done to date
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Not just the studies whose results you agree with. Identify
studies that support an opposite finding, and explain what
might underlie the differences.
Explain what work has yet to be done (your study).
At the end, state your hypotheses.
Method
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The Method section is a detailed breakdown of your
experiment.
Give the reader enough information to be able
replicate the experiment.
The Method section is often divided into subsections
(for example: )
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Participants and Design
Materials
Procedure
Measures
Note: Current APA style requires ITALICS
where you see underlining here.
Results
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This section presents the statistical analysis of the
data collected.
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The Results section is the most condensed and
standardized of all the sections in a paper
Statistical results are presented but not discussed in
this section.
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States what stat procedures were used and the results of the
analyses
As predicted, children who viewed the aggressive model were
significantly more aggressive than children in the no-model
condition t (18) = 4.03, p < .01. The mean aggression score in
the model group was M = 5.20 and in the no-model group was
M = 3.10.
Discuss results in the Discussion section.
Note: Current APA style requires ITALICS
where you see underlining here.
Note: Current APA style requires ITALICS
where you see underlining here.
Discussion
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In this section, interpret your results by relating
them to your hypotheses.
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Discuss the results in relation to each hypothesis.
Discuss possible explanations for your results.
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Use words to explain the quantitative information from the
results section.
Do the results agree or disagree with the ideas that you
introduced in the Introduction?
How do the results relate to previous literature or current
theory?
Identify and discuss limitations of the study.
Generalize your results.
References
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Must contain complete citations for all
sources mentioned in the paper
Use APA format
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Capitalization, spacing, punctuation, and
underlining must be exactly as specified.
Appendix, Tables and Figures
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Appendix
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Tables and figures often represent results more
clearly and concisely than does text.
Tables
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Put information that would be distracting in the body of the paper
(like questionnaires or a list of stimulus items)
Often statistical information (correlations, means, etc) are placed
in a table.
Figures
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AKA Graphs
A separate page with Figure Captions is provided before the
figures
Note: Current APA style requires ITALICS
where you see underlining here.
The Hourglass Method
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INTRODUCTION
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METHOD
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Very narrow, detailed, technical, and specific.
RESULTS
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Starts out very broad, ends up narrowly focusing on your specific
study and its hypotheses
Still narrowly focused on the specific results of the specific tests
you performed to test your hypotheses.
DISCUSSION
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Starts out very narrow, summarizing your results; then becomes
broader as you discuss the implications and limitations to your
research; ends up broadly conveying the 2-4 most important
things you want your readers to remember from your research.