Structure of an ISI paper

When you decide to write for academic journals, you face a highly competitive and challenging task since you should consider all rules and principles to write a perfect paper that will be immune to rejection.

All scientific and research-based papers provide a method for scientists to communicate with other scientists about the results of their research. They have the same general format and distinct parts that demonstrate a specific type of information. The number and the headings of sections may vary among journals, but for the most part, you should maintain a basic structure.

A scientific paper contains the following sections:

• Title
• Abstract
• Keywords
• Introduction
• Materials and Methods
• Results
• Discussion
• Conclusion
• Acknowledgments
• References

Title

A title is the first thing that attracts others to read your paper. The title should be scientifically sound and properly present what has been done in research, as it is the first element a journal editor or a reader sees. The title should summarize the main theme of the article and be attractive. A researcher should avoid writing long titles and using unknown acronyms in the title of a paper.

Abstract

An abstract provides the reader with a complete, but a very brief summary of the paper. In this section, the researcher should summarize his research while clearly and precisely highlighting the importance of the topic and the results obtained, in a limited number of words (depending on the type of journal, for example up to 200 words). The abstract should be written in a way to encourage others to read your paper. Do not include any information beyond those used in your paper. An abstract is usually written in passive voice to report findings rather than focusing on individuals. It generally does not include any references.

If you use acronyms in the abstract, you should also include the full phrase in parentheses after the acronym or the acronym inside the parentheses after the complete phrase. You can usually use the present tense in your abstract, but the past tense verbs can also be used. There are generally two types of abstracts:

Descriptive: Descriptive abstracts are used in the fields of human and social sciences or psychology and briefly describes the longer work. These types of abstracts are about 50 to 100 words.

The structure of a descriptive abstract is generally as follows:

• History
• Purpose
• Scope of the research

Informative: Informative abstracts are commonly used in engineering, science, or psychology articles and present all the main arguments and important results. These abstracts contain approximately 200 words and consist of the following sections:

• History
• Purpose
• Method
• Findings/Results
• Conclusion

Keywords

The keywords should preferably be phrases of 2-4 words that suggest what the topic is about and are closely related to your topic; keywords written in a single word are acceptable, but they may cause many false matches. With the help of your keyword, other authors and researchers can find your paper.

Introduction

Briefly speaking, in the introduction section, you should answer the question ‘Why’ and clarify your reasons regarding choosing that topic for research, its importance, the methods or approaches to your research, and so on. In this part, you also give some background information and set the context describing the research problem or question. Here, you can also point out the gap in knowledge to be filled in the rest of your paper.

At the beginning of the introduction, it is better to speak in general terms and to gradually explain the details and the main topic of the research.

In this section, you should describe the research and results found in the past, their shortcomings or deficiencies, and then the approach used to write the paper.

The last paragraph of the introductory section outlines the general structure of the paper and the topics that should be discussed in subsequent sections. The verb tenses used in this section are a combination of the present and the past.

Materials and Methods

Writing the Materials and Methods section can be tiresome, but if it is described and written well, it strengthens your conclusions and can increase the chance of your paper to be published in a good journal.

The methods section will describe the participants, outcomes, interventions, randomization, objective, blind tests, etc. to help the reader determine exactly the way the experiment has been performed by the authors.  The author(s) of a paper describe(s) specific techniques and the overall experimental strategy in this section.

Writing this section, you should begin with general information that applies to the entire context and ends with specific experimental details. You can and include statistical tests and experimentations as complete as possible and avoid referring to the advantages and disadvantages of certain methods or results of any kind.

Results

In this section, the achievements, findings, and numerical values ​​of the test results, their importance and validity, as well as statistical characteristics, should be clearly and precisely explained. The verb tense used in this section is in the past. The main purpose of this section is to present your results. Make this section an objective report of the results, and keep all interpretations for this section.

Summarize your findings in this section and present them in tables or figures, if possible. Describe all the results in the text and direct the reader to the observations that are relevant. Describe the results of control tests, and include observations that are not presented in tables or figures. Analyze the data, then present them in the form of charts, tables or figures.

Discussion

This section interprets and analyzes research results and achievements and therefore requires extensive knowledge. This section should outline previous researches relevant to the topic of the paper mentioned in the introduction and compare the methods or results of those papers with the ones in your study. It is also necessary to carefully explain the advantages and disadvantages of the current research as well as the consistency or inconsistency of your findings with previous ones. The verb tense used in this section is in the past.

Conclusion

This section is a very brief overview of the entire article. In fact, this section is similar to the abstract, but more generally, it does not impose any restriction on the number of words. This section explains and outlines the importance of the topic, the overall results of the research, and the conducted research, as well as future research on this topic. The verb tenses used in this section are the combination of past and future.

Acknowledgments

This section is not necessarily found in all papers. In this part, you thank all those who have helped in carrying out the research. You can also thank the institutions that have sponsored or provided the equipment for your research study, and express gratitude to the reviewers who have helped to provide valuable insights on how to improve your paper.

References

This section provides the sources cited throughout the paper and goes at the end of your paper. The references must be listed in alphabetical order according to the name of the first author and not numbered.