Identifying an original research article
Research articles, primary articles or scholarly articles, are based on original research. Other kinds of articles appear in scholarly journals as well, including commentary and review articles. If you need to limit your sources to research articles, you must be able to tell the difference.
Identifying an original research articles requires a careful reading of the article information page. Is the article reporting on original research or is it a review of the literature review?
Read the abstract for information on the research being conducted, methodology used, what types of tests were applied, the data collected, the results of the study and conclusions drawn.
Research article structure:
Article Title
Abstract
A summary of the article
Introduction/Objective
Provides background information about what is known from previous related research, citing the relevant studies, and points out the gap in previous research that is being addressed by the new study. Often, many of the references cited in a paper are in the introduction.
Literature Review
A review of the research in the field
Methods
Clearly explains how the study was conducted. The details of how the study was conducted it will include the methods used by the research and the tools they used. The tools can be an experiment conducted, surveys, data sources, etc. The methods section should include enough details so that our researchers can then replicate the study.
Results
Reports and presents the raw data gathered and the statistical analysis of the data.
Discussion/Conclusion
States the primary findings of the study by analyzing the data and drawing conclusions.
References
A list of the references used by the author. A great place to find additional articles on your topic.
These standard parts of a research article may not always be labeled, and sometimes they are combined (for example, "Data and Methods"). Still, every research article indicates what methods and tools were used to conduct the research, what the results were, and how the author interprets those results.
Identifying different peer review article types