Format of the Research Manuscript
"In my writing, I average about ten pages a day. Unfortunately, they're all the same page."
Michael Alley, The Craft of Scientific Writing
Cover Page :
- Title of Paper : Make your title specific enough to describe the contents of the paper, but not so technical that only specialists will understand. The title should be appropriate for the intended audience.
- Name of Author(s) : The person who did the work and wrote the paper is generally listed as the first author of a research paper. For published articles, other contributors to the work are also listed as authors. Ask your Guides or Mentor's permission before including his/her name as co-author.
- Academic Departments
- Institutional Affiliation of Author
- Positions of Author
- Postal Address
- Email Address
- Contact / Mobile Number
Abstract :
An abstract, or summary, is published together with a research article, giving the reader a "preview" of what's to come. Such abstracts may also be published individualy in other bibliographical sources. They allow other scientists to quickly scan the large scientific literature, and decide which articles they want to read in depth. The abstract should be a little less technical than the article itself. Your abstract should be one paragraph, of 100-250 words, which summarizes the purpose, methods, results and conclusions of the paper. Don't use abbreviations or citations in the abstract. It should be able to stand alone without any footnotes.
Keywords :
About 5 to 10 keywords in alphabetical order, separated by comma and key phrases describing the content
Article Content :
INTRODUCTION : What is the purpose of writing this article? What question did you ask in your experiment? Why is it interesting? The introduction summarizes the relevant literature so that the reader will understand why you were interested in the question you asked. One to four paragraphs should be enough. End with a sentence explaining the specific query you raised in this experiment.
BODY OF ARTICLE : Give background on the subject (provide context and embody references on previous work), justify your interest within the topic, prepare the readers for what they'll realize in later sections, and summarize (in a number of sentences) your main findings and/or contributions. This section should be unbroken short. Body of the paper ought to incorporates sections addressing varied aspects of the investigation as appropriate; e.g., theory, applications, style problems, tradeoffs, evaluation, experiments, comparisons with different ways or approaches. do not be afraid to match, criticize, and customarily leave your personal mark on the paper. there's no general rule, except that subdivisions should be coherent and of cheap length.
MATERIALS AND METHODS : How did you answer this question? There should be enough information here to allow another scientist to repeat your experiment. Look at other papers that have been published in your field to get some idea of what is included in this section. If you had a complicated protocol, it may helpful to include a diagram, table or flowchart to explain the methods you used.Do not put results in this section. You may, however, include preliminary results that were used to design the main experiment that you are reporting on. Mention relevant ethical considerations. If you used human subjects, did they consent to participate. If you used animals, what measures did you take to minimize pain?
TABLES AND GRAPHS : If you present your data in a table or graph, include a title describing what's in the table. For graphs, you should also label the x and y axes. Don't use a table or graph just to be artistic purpose. If you can summarize the information in one sentence, then a table or graph is not necessary.
CONCLUSION : Give a transient outline (in many sentences) of what has been conferred and/or accomplished. Emphasize the benefits and drawbacks of the planned approach, technique, or design. Discuss doable extensions of the work and any interesting/open drawback that you just will conceive of. just like the INTRODUCTION, this section should be fairly short.
REFERENCES / CITATIONS : Provide complete bibliographic information for each reference with appropriate numbering. Review or survey-type papers tend to have much more extensive bibliographies and original contributions breaking new ground may have fewer references.
Sample of Research Paper Format :
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