An abstract summarizes, usually in one paragraph of 300 words or less, the major aspects of the entire paper.
Parts usually include:
1) the overall purpose of the study and the research problem(s)
2) the basic design of the study
3) major findings or trends found as a result of the analysis
4) a brief summary of the interpretations and conclusions.
This article can be found at
Carlo, G., McGinley, M., Hayes, R., Batenhorst, C., & Wilkinson, J. (2007). Parenting styles or practices? parenting, sympathy, and prosocial behaviors among adolescents. The Journal of Genetic Psychology, 168(2), 147-176. https://doi.org/10.3200/GNTP.168.2.147-176
The introduction leads the reader from a general subject area to a particular topic of inquiry. It discusses the scope, context, and significance of the research being conducted by summarizing current understanding and background information about the topic, stating the purpose of the work, explaining briefly the methodological approach used to examine the research problem, highlighting the potential outcomes your study can reveal, and outlining the remaining structure and organization of the paper.
The Introduction begins after the Abstract. In this case, the Introduction also refers to other studies in the research area and serves as a Review of the Literature.
The methods section will describe the research design and methodology used to complete to the study. The general rule of thumb is that readers should be provided with enough detail to replicate the study.
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In this section, the results of the analysis are presented. How the results are presented will depend upon whether the research study was quantitative or qualitative in nature. This section should focus only on results that are directly related to the research or the problem. Graphs and tables should only be used when there is too much data to efficiently include it within the text. This section should present the results, but not discuss their significance.
This section should be a discussion of the results and the implications on the field, as well as other fields. The hypothesis should be answered and validated by the interpretation of the results. This section should also discuss how the results relate to previous research mentioned in the literature review, any cautions about the findings, and potential for future research.
This section establishes the credibility of the authors.
The Author Notes can be at the end or the very beginning of the article, either before or after the Abstract.
The research paper is not complete without the list of references. This section should be an alphabetized list of all the academic sources of information utilized in the paper. The format of the references will match the format and style used in the paper, such as APA or MLA.
