An instructor may give you the assignment of finding research articles in your field, but you may not be sure what a research article is. We have written this guide to describe research articles and tell you how to recognize them.

What is a Research Article?
A research article is a journal article in which researchers present the results of an original research project, experiment, etc. Usually this type of article is written by more than one person, since it typically requires a team to design, carry out, and analyze the data from such a research project. This type of article is then published in a journal devoted to the particular field in which the research was performed.

Finding Research Articles
To find citations for research articles in your field, you should search periodical indexes which index journals in that field. A good way to begin is by searching general indexes, databases that index the periodicals from many different fields, including your own. The general indexes most widely used here at Grace Library are EBSCOhost Academic Search Elite and Wilson Omnifile, both of which are available through the Grace Library home page. Both of these databases index professional journals from many academic disciplines, as well as a wide range of popular magazines. These indexes supply the full text of many articles. If you need only a small number of research articles, try these indexes first.

After typing in your search terms, but before you actually run your search in either EBSCOhost Academic Search Elite or Wilson Omnifile, be sure to limit your search to professional journals only. To do this in Academic Search Elite, scroll down the search screen, looking for the phrase “Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals,” and then click in the box following this. Then click on “Search.” To do this on Wilson Omnifile, look for “Limit to,” under which you will find the phrase “Peer Reviewed.” Click in the box in front of this phrase. Then click on “Start” to run your search. Limiting your search to professional journals will not give you only research articles in your search result, but it will exclude articles from magazines, so you will have fewer and more relevant citations to sift through.

You can also find citations for research articles in subject specific indexes, such as those on FirstSearch, a collection of databases available in Grace Library. These are indexes that cover only the professional journals of a given academic discipline. As a general rule, these do not supply the full text of articles, only citations and abstracts. These indexes should certainly be used if you are doing in-depth research on a topic, but are probably not necessary if you need only a small number of articles. If you need to use subject-specific indexes, a librarian can help you determine which indexes to use to find research and other sorts of articles in your field.

Recognizing Research Articles
Even after doing a successful search in an appropriate index you will still have to determine which of the articles in your result list are research articles and which are not. (Remember, all research articles are journal articles, but not all journal articles are research articles.) So how can you tell which journal articles are research articles?

Ask yourself:

1. Does the article have multiple authors? As stated above, most articles have multiple authors. If it has only one author it is probably not a research article.
   
   
2. How long is the article? If it is only one or two pages long, it is probably not a research article. It is safe to say that research articles are usually about a dozen or more pages in length.
   
   
3. Read the abstract. Look for a sentence that says something like, “In this study, we…” or “We did research to find…” If you see a sentence that says one of these things, or something similar, this is a clear indication that you have found a citation to a research article.
   
   
4. Now look at the article itself. If the full text is available, display it and scroll through it. If the full text is not available, find the article in the print version of the journal and glance through it. Research articles all follow the format below, no matter what the field of endeavor. Does the article follow this format? Is the article divided into the parts listed below? If so, you have found what the instructor is after.

The parts of a research article are:

• Abstract: Summarizes the article’s contents. This is written by the author(s) of the article.
• Introduction: Orients the reader. This will tell the reader why the authors performed their particular research. The introduction usually begins with a literature review. The introduction does not receive a heading.
• Method: Tells the reader how the research was conducted. This section may be subdivided into subsections describing Materials, Apparatus, Subjects, Design, and Procedures.
• Results: Summarize the data collected.
• Discussion: The authors explain how the data fits their original hypothesis, state their conclusions, and look at the theoretical and practical implications of their research.
• References: Lists the complete bibliography of sources cited in the research article.

Sometimes different but synonymous words are used to head the various sections, but regardless of how the sections are headed, every research article will contain the sections listed above.

Reference
Sternberg, R.J. (1993). The psychologist’s companion: A guide to scientific writing for students and researchers (3rd ed.). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

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