Scientific Article

Structure
ABHINAV ALAKSHENDRA
Introduction

 Writing research paper and publishing is hard.

 Hard is some discipline and harder in rest
 It’s time consuming
 And there are lot of barriers some personal and some profession

 What to do ?
 Why to do ?
 How to do ?
Title of the paper

 One of the most important component

 Choosing a title is an art –
 Should be specific enough to describe the content of the paper
 Should not be too technical that you only get few interested people
 Should have subject matter – should be able to predict content
 Should be catchy and interesting – but that’s not the sole objective
 Should have important keywords
Title of the paper

 What not to do
 Avoid long titles – usually it means you can delete unnecessary words
 Don’t use phrase like “A study to investigate.. ” , “A report on ..”
 Avoid extremely short titles such as “Indonesian Planning” or “Asian
Architecture”
 Avoid using abbreviations unless common in the field
Title of the paper
 Formulating a working title with following parameters (not necessarily all at
once)

 The purpose of the research

 The scope of the research
 The type of the research
 Method description

“A world of cities: The causes and consequences of

urbanization in poorer countries”
“Poor Countries and Urbanization throughout the world :
Causes and Consequences”
Abstract

 Extremely important section of any paper

 An abstract determines whether paper is worth reading or not
 In a way this is a preview of the product – or a perfect marketing
opportunity
 Some authors find writing abstract equally or more challenging than
writing the paper
Abstract

 Should be able to stand alone as an abstract is a summary of the

paper
 Should be concise and accurate
 Should reveal just as much so readers are attracted and should
reveal only as much so that readers are compelled to read the full
article
Introduction and Literature Review

 This is you making the first impression – be careful

 The introduction sets a general tone for the readers – they are
expected to move from a general subject/research area to a
particular research topic
 This is your opportunity to establish rules of the game – scope,
purpose, and research question (s)
 Fundamentally, you are informing your readers
 About what has been done
 About the gaps in the literature and how your research fills that gap
 About broader empirical/theoretical and policy implication of your
research
Research Methods

 This is where you take care of “How to do”

 Research question should determine your research method and not
vice-versa
 Not using appropriate method leads to immediate rejection
 There is no established superior method to use
 Every time you don’t have to come up with a new research method
Research Methods

 Qualitative vs Quantitative debate

 Primary data based vs Secondary data based
 Experimental vs. non-experimental
Results

 Communicating your findings – very important but often ignored

 Findings are important but presentation is equally important
 Some examples:
• Different starting
point
• No zero axis
• Bad title
Axis mis-label
Color mismatch
Conclusion

 It’s hard to judge a paper without a clear conclusion section

 You should not be repeating the abstract or your results.

 Discuss why your work is important.

 This is the time to talk about future research, possible extensions.
 You can propose present global and specific conclusions, in relation to the
objectives included in the introduction.
Bibliography and References

 Is like saying thank you.

 Don’t keep it for the last – it almost always ends in a disaster
 Keep in mind the style – APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.
 Sources
 ProQuest
 Google Scholar
 PsycInfo
 PAIS
 PubMed
 Jstor
At the end – Just remember

 Can you answer the following question convincingly?

 What does the author want to know?

 Why? Or, so what?
 What’s the author’s answer
 How does the author go about finding out if it is wrong?
Thank You