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So what makes a research paper effective?

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And before we can understand this we first need to make sure that we understand the general structure

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of research papers.

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So let me tell you right now that there are two main components that every research paper has and that

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would have to be included in for example a one sentence summary of your research paper.

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And these two parts are your research question and your answer to the question.

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For example your research question could be:

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Is this theory true? Or does this treatment work?

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Or is this algorithm tractable? Or does gravity work on light?

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Pretty much every research paper starts with some research question because that's what research is

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about.

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It's about answering questions.

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Of course there's a little bit more in a research paper that is going on.

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So for example, before the research question we usually first explain why we actually want to ask this

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question.

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Then, after we have introduced the research question, we usually explain how we try to answer it. For an

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empirical study this will usually be about describing the study that you did. Or if you did computer

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simulations then it's about describing those computer simulations. Or maybe you tried to answer a question

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through a literature review. Whatever it is you did, after the research question you usually let the reader

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know what it is you did.

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And then after that you explain what you found.

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And that will lead to your answer to your research question. And most research papers are structured

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into four sections.

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And the first section is the introduction section in which you explain what your research question is

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and why you picked it.

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Then, there is the method section in which you explain what you did to answer your question.

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Then, there's the results section in which you explain your findings. And then finally there's the discussion

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section in which you speculate what you can conclude from your findings and what you cannot conclude.

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So this is what a research paper generally looks like.

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So the next question is: what makes a research paper effective?

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And as I just said the main two components of a research paper are the research question and the answer.

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And therefore the two things that an effective research paper needs are an interesting question and

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a compelling answer.

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And you will find that everything that you have learned about research, everything that you need to pay

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attention to in a research paper either falls under the first or the second point.

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Either it's about whether your research question is interesting and a minimum aspect here is that it

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should be a new question that hasn't been answered before... or it is about how compelling your answer

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is.

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So an effective research paper communicates an interesting research question and then gives a compelling

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answer.

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And that means that the sections in which we actually sell our research are the introduction section

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and the discussion section. In the introduction section we sell our research question and in the Discussion

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section we sell our answer. And comparatively the method section and the results section are more descriptive.

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You just describe what you did and you describe the findings that you obtained. And most people find

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the methods and the results section the easiest to write because in those sections they just describe

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what they did and they just talk about the things that they have been trained in... which is research.

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While the Introduction section and the Discussion section where you actually need to sell your research

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feel a lot more fuzzy and therefore most people find them a lot more difficult. But these are actually

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the sections that matter the most because if a researcher is not interested in your question then that

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researcher will not read your paper.

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And if a researcher is not convinced by your answer then most likely that research won't cite your paper.

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So the key lessons of this lecture are that in order to sell your research you need to show that your

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research question is interesting and you need to show that your answer or your conclusion is compelling

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Now because these aspects are so important let us look at them in more detail in the next lecture.