Biology 101 - Kay: Is it a Research Article?

Scientific articles that present the results of original research will include the following sections (though they may be labeled slightly differently):

• Abstract
• Introduction / Literature Review
• Methods
• Results
• Discussion / Conclusion 
• References

Scientific review articles may include the following sections (though they may not be labeled this way):

• Abstract
• Introduction / General Literature Review
• Subtopic Sections / Detailed Literature Review
• Conclusion / Directions for Further Research
• References

The following video was created for COMM classes to demonstrate how to look for the features of research articles. Though it uses articles from the database Communication and Mass Media Complete, it can help students from any class identify research articles in library databases.