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The Structure of Scientific Papers

Objectives

  • You know how scientific works are structured in general
  • You are able to develop an appropriate structure according to the specific type of your scientific work

This page contains information about the general structure of scientific papers. It helps you to structure your paper (and with it your research) accordingly and provides links to pages where you find detailed information about each structural element.

Scientific Communities have their own Rules

Please be aware that different scientific communities might employ slightly different structures – although the main structural elements and their content remain identical.

Preamble

Scientific papers follow a predefined structure the objective of which is to present acquired results and the deployed methodology upon which the results were generated in appropriate ways. The objective of deploying such a predefined structure is to support the exploitation and comprehension of research results and demonstrate the adherence of good scientific work practices such as

  • internal and external validity
  • construct validity
  • reliability of results
  • etc.

In the following, we present a structural recommendation for the two main types of scientific papers in computer science:

  1. Original Research Papers, and
  2. Surveys

Each structural element for both types of works is described in detail on a separate details page that can be retrieved by following the link pointing to it.

The details pages are all structured identically:

  1. They introduce a structural element by describing its

    • Function – Explaining the main purpose of a section

    • Style – Expounding the type of writing stlye usually applied for writing the section

    • Structure – Describes elements or tipps on how to structure a section accordingly

  2. and provide some tipps or remarks for some elements.

Structure of a Research Paper

Click on the respective element to get detailed information about its function, stlye, and structure.

Structure of a Survey

Click on the respective element to get detailed information about its function, stlye, and structure.


Letztes Update: 17. September 2024