Planning your paper
Once you’ve formed your argument and related it to your target journal, it’s time to create a plan for your paper. This will help you a lot in the writing stage.
Article types
In your planning, consider what type of paper you’re going to write based on the type of material you have on your topic. Deciding the type of article you write will help you to determine its structure. Different journals may accept different article types, but there are generally four main publication focuses:
- Empirical paper
Usually follows an IMRAD structure (Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion) or some variation of this - Review paper
Includes literature reviews, systematic reviews and other reviews - 'Think piece' / theoretical paper
Focuses on discussing an idea conceptually - Modelling paper
Proposes and justifies a new model for solving a problem based on research
These types of paper differ in focus rather than exclusive content. Some papers strike a balance between these focuses and are therefore harder to categorise. You just need to be aware of these choices and which paper type your piece is leaning toward.
Examples of the four article types and their structures are given in the 'Title and abstract' section.
Mapping your writing
Watch this video to find out how to plan your paper using an article mapping template, then download the template below.
Download the article mapping template (Word Doc)
Use the side menu to go the next section: Title and abstract, where we look at writing an effective article title and abstract.