Scientists communicate their research ideas, techniques, and results by publishing scientific papers in journals. Articles that summarize findings from many investigations are called secondary research articles or review articles. When a scientist conducts an investigation with original research and results to be published in a journal, the published work is considered a primary research article.

Primary research articles typically follow the same format and have six sections: abstract, introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion, and references. Sometimes the results and discussion section will be combined into one section. Each section of a primary research article has a specific purpose; knowing the parts of a primary research article can help you when you need to conduct research.

Click on the circles on a paper below to learn more about the information located in each part of primary research article. This information comes from the ScienceBuddies website.