Literature Research for Discovery Learning Apprenticeship: What are Research Articles?

On this page, you will learn what research articles are, including:

• the process for publishing research articles
• the parts of a research article
• the purpose of each section of a research article
• why finding and citing research is important

Researchers, like your DLA mentors, conduct original research and then publish articles about their research in scholarly journals. Articles published in scholarly journals usually go through a peer review process. Researchers may also present their research at a professional conference and in this case they also write a paper that is peer reviewed and published in the proceedings of the conference.

Lets explore how the peer review process works using the video "Peer Review in 3 Minutes" by the the North Carolina State University Library. 

Identify the information on the article that is needed to cite the article. To create a citation for an article, you need the authors, year published, article title, journal title, volume number, and page numbers (if given). Here is an example image of the top of a research article with the citing information below. Find each piece of information on the article, clicking on the image will open the article in a new window:

Authors: Katzschmann, R. K., DelPreto, J., MacCurdy, R., & Rus, D. 
Year published: 2018
Article title: Exploration of underwater life with an acoustically controlled soft robotic fish
Journal title: Science Robotics
Volume number: 3(16)

Here is another example image of the top of a research article with the citing information below. Find each piece of information on the article, clicking on the image will open the article in a new window:

Authors: Ranasinghe, N., Tolley, D., Nguyen, T. N. T., Yan, L., Chew, B., & Do, E. Y.-L. 
Year published: 2019
Article title: Augmented Flavours: Modulation of Flavour Experiences Through Electric Taste Augmentation
Journal title: Food Research International
Volume number: 117
Page numbers: 60–68

Next, lets explore the what is in each section of a typical scholarly literature article using the video The Anatomy of a Scientific Article by the Writing Center at CU Denver. 

Now that you know how researchers publish their research in peer-reviewed journal articles, lets consider why searching for these research articles is an important part of doing your own original research. Reasons to find and read research articles include:

• Understand what is known on this topic.
• Understand the research currently being done in the field, and learn who the other researchers in your field are.
• Learn why the research is important.
• Learn what questions remain unanswered and thus what research remains to be done. 
• Learn what methods have been used to explore the topic.
• Learn about a new method.
• Ensure you are not repeating work that has already been done.
• In the anatomy of a research article video you heard about several sections of an article that may cite literature, including the introduction, methods, and discussion, so you may need to find literature to cite in similar sections of your paper or presentation.
  • Science isn’t done in a vacuum, you need to give credit to work previosly done by others. 
  • Citing others work establishes your credibility as a researcher.
  • Citing others work helps your readers develop a deeper understanding of your work and the broader topic.