What makes scientific research writing and articles different from what is printed in consumer magazines? Well, it has to do with the elements of the publication process and structure of the papers.
Scholarly sources are any academic writing, particularly scientific or psychological articles. They are published in academic journals such as the American Journal of Psychology, in order to report new research and findings.
All areas of psychology have at least one academic journal (but usually more than one) dedicated specifically to that particular area of psychology.
There are several aspects of academic journals that differentiate them from other types of writing:
It's important to keep in mind, though, that the purpose of academic writing is to be scientific--to be descriptive in a way that people can replicate in later studies, or understand the methods in the best possible way. Therefore, this kind of writing style prevents any kinds of errors or misinterpretations by the audience. Note that academic writing can often use words that are very specific to its content area, and can also be somewhat difficult to understand from a layperson's point of view.
In addition, there are specific formats that guide how those citations should be written. Formats, such as APA or MLA, exist to make sure that people are recognized for their previous work.
After an individual completes their research, they would write the article and submit it to a journal for possible publication. The selected journal review board would then provide the submitted article to a group of expert psychologists, for instance, who would look it over for any errors or mistakes in the writing, and also in the research that has been conducted.
Overall, the purpose of this peer review is to maintain academic standards and the credibility of the journal itself, because their reputation is at stake in the scientific community. So, with that in mind, they want to make sure that the research is being done in the correct way and that it also keeps the research scientific and doesn't veer too far off the beaten path.
Outside of the actual process of publishing a research article, there are specific structures within the papers themselves. This is to make sure that the process of writing and recording of research is followed in the right way. Remember, this specifically refers to a scientific article, so the following key parts need to be included:
Suppose you're writing a paper on the effects of soda on children. The first section is the abstract. An abstract is a special structure; it's unique to scholarly research articles. Essentially, it is a short summary, generally about one paragraph long, that briefly explains what the entire article is about. It includes information such as what is being studied in the article, the different variables that researchers are looking at, the methods that they, and the general conclusions that they come to as a result of their research.
Variables would also be defined within the abstract. In this example, variables may be soda and its effect on children. An outline of the experiments and a statement saying that it caused certain problems would also be included.
This is generally displayed at the very beginning of the article. If you access a scholarly research article online, this is usually the first thing you see, even if you can't necessarily view the entire article.
For instance, researchers might include information about previous research on sugar's effects on children, as well as caffeine's effects on children (but not both of them together), because that is what is unique to this your study--soda and its effect on children.
Conditions of the research are also important because if you recall, the purpose of this is to make sure that the experiment is replicable. Researchers want others to perform the study and essentially get the same results.
For example, you might say that the kids were broken into two different groups; one group was given colored water that looked like soda and the other one was given actual soda, and subsequently they were tested in various ways. Perhaps they were given tests, like spatial tests, where they had to do things with manipulatives, or with their hands. They may have had IQ tests, to see how smart they were, as well as emotional tests. This is the kind of information that would be included in the methods section.
Perhaps the data showed that kids drinking soda performed worse on some of the tests--such as the emotional tests and spatial tests--but in other tests, there weren't any changes noted. Perhaps, for instance, the IQ test was the same for both groups.
This is where you generalize it, and explain what the results say about human behavior as a whole. You might, for instance, explain how soda can affect the development of children as they grow up, so a recommendation might be to not give your children soda, especially when they are young.
Source: this work is adapted by sophia author erick taggart.
