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A Guide To...Mathematics & Computer Science: Guide to Research Articles

Guide to Research Articles

Identifying Research Articles

Listed below are some clues to help identify research articles. However, it should be noted that numerous exceptions occur for all of the points listed below. Therefore, the following information should be used as a guideline when looking for research articles

  • Topic: Research articles tend to be highly specific in nature, relate to a particular field, or specialty within a field, and are written by authors who have done research in the field.
  • Audience: The target audience is other researchers, colleagues, students and specialists in the same field. Research articles are written for the scholarly community, rather than a general audience.
  • Language: The language of research articles is formal, generally does not use the first person, and includes jargon used in the field. Research articles are written to contribute to the knowledge base of the discipline.
  • Length: research articles can vary in length, but are typically five to fifty pages long.
  • Authors: Research articles may have numerous authors. The organization, institute or professional society the authors belong to will be listed.
  • Content: Generally the article is written at a sophisticated enough level that the reader will need to read the article more than once in order to understand and evaluate the article.

The following list of  headings within the article should be used as a guideline when looking for research articles: 

•·         Title

•·         Abstract 

•·         Introduction/literature review

•·         Purpose of the study/hypothesis/problem statement

•·         Methodology/procedures/research design

•·         Major findings/results/analysis/discussion

•·         Summary/conclusion/ideas for future studies/implications

•·         Works cited/references/acknowledgements

•·         Notes/appendices

•·         Tables, charts, figures, statistical data (throughout the article)

  

Sources:

Finding Research Articles and Refereed Journals Tutorial Summary of Main Points. (n.d.) Finding Research Articles and Refereed Journals.Retrieved November 5, 2007 from University Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (http://www.library.uiuc.edu) Link no longer available.

Section 3: Identifying Research Articles and Refereed Journals. (n.d.) Finding Research Articles and Refereed Journals. Retrieved November 5, 2007 from University Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (http://www.library.uiuc.edu) Link no longer available.