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ABSTRACT

Fundamental principles of writing research articles

P. GALANIS

Center for Health Services Management and Evaluation, Department of Nursing, National

and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece

Archives of Hellenic Medicine 2014, 31(1):97107

Research articles are the most important type of scientific publication, since they concern the reporting of studies

that have been performed by researchers. Today, most scientific journals apply a common structure for research ar-

ticles, which is helpful for researchers, editors, reviewers and readers. According to this structure, research articles

consist of the following parts: Introduction, methods, results and discussion. In the introduction of your research ar-

ticle, you must answer the question: Why did you perform your study? You must make clear your research question,

or in other words, the aim of your study. In the methods section you must answer the question: What did you do in

your study and how? You must describe the study design, the study population, the variables, the study size and the

statistical analysis. In the results section of your research article, you must answer the question: What did you find

in your study? Tables and graphs facilitate substantially the presentation of results and permit the length of the ar-

ticle to be decreased considerably. In the discussion section, you must answer the question: what did the results of

your study mean? In the discussion the limitations and conclusions of the study are also included. Usually, the limi-

tations of a study are related to the study design, the study population, the number of participants, statistical anal-

ysis and generalization of results.

Key words: Discussion, Introduction, Methods, Research article, Results

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Corresponding author:

P. Galanis, 67 Mikras Asias street, GR-115 27 Athens, Greece

e-mail: pegalan@nurs.uoa.gr