The structure of a research paper.

A research paper written for publication in one of International scientific journals is supposed to consist of the following sections:

1. Title

2. Abstract

3. Introduction

4. Material and Methods

5. Results

6. Discussion

7. Conclusions

8. Acknowledgements

9. References

Every paper starts with the Title, after that one can find the names of the authors, their affiliation, post and e-mail addresses and the institution where research was carried out. Then goes the Abstract, at the end of which there is a list of key words

Basic tips how to write a good title.

Browsers on the Internet looking for a paper may read hundreds of titles before they select an Abstract to read.

Every word in the title is important. The title should be easily found by a search engine or indexing system. It also must attract the right kind of readers. As a matter of fact it does not consist of a string of nouns and will be immediately comprehensible to anyone in your general field. It should be short and has a definite and concise indication of what it is written in the paper itself.

Usually titles are incomplete sentences but they can be in a question form as well. If the title is an incomplete sentence, no period is placed at the end of the sentence. If the title is a question, there must be a question mark.

All the words in the title should be capitalized, apart from articles, prepositions and conjunctions. If the title consists of two parts, they are divided by a colon. Remember, the first word after the colon is written with a capital letter no matter what part of speech it may be.

One important issue is use of the articles in the title. Although the title is more often an incomplete sentence, it should be grammatically correct. That’s why you can use either definite or indefinite articles if you need.

The prepositions that are frequently used in the title are by (how something is done), for (for the purpose of), from (the origin of), in/on (where something is located; what something regards) of (belonging to, regarding).

1. Remember: the title should consist of 6-10 words, the relevant key words included.

Think about the following questions:

• What have I found that will attract attention?

• What is new, different and interesting about my findings?

• What are the 3-5 key words that highlight what makes my research and my findings unique?

On the basis of your answers you should be able to formulate a title.

The key words in your title are likely to be nouns. So choose these nouns very carefully. Try to choose adjectives that indicate the unique features of your work.

Exercise I

1. How many words does the title consist of?

2. What parts of speech does it consist of?

3. Are there any keywords in the title?

4. What parts of speech are capitalized?

5. Are there any prepositions? What do they mean?

DOUBLY STOCHASTIC POISSON PROCESS

AND THE PRICING OF CATASTROPHE REINSURANCE CONTRACT

Ji-Wook Jang

Actuarial Studies, The University of New South Wales

Sydney NSW 2052, Australia

Tel.: +61 2 9385 3360, Fax: +61 2 9385 1883, Email: j.jang@unsw.edu.au

KEYWORDS

Doubly stochastic Poisson process. Shot noise process. Piecewise deterministic Markov process theory. Stoploss

reinsurance contract. Equivalent martingale probability measure. Esscher transform.

Exercise II

1. Does the title attract the right kind of readers?

2. What parts of speech does it consist of?

3. Does it have a definite and concise indication of what it is written in the paper itself?

4. What information about the authors is given? Is it complete or not.

A Cross-Cultural Comparative Study of Users’ Perceptions

of a Webpage: With a Focus on the Cognitive Styles of

Chinese, Koreans and Americans

Ying Dong * and Kun-Pyo Lee

Industrial Design Department, KAIST, Daejeon, Korea

Keywords – Cross-Cultural Study, Cognitive Style, Webpage Perception, Eye Tracking.

Exercise III

1. What key words might be?

2. What parts of speech are capitalized?

3. Are there punctuation marks in the title?

Design pattern recovery through visual language parsing and source code analysis

Andrea De Lucia, Vincenzo Deufemia, Carmine Gravino *, Michele Risi

Dipartimento di Matematica e Informatica, Universita di Salerno, Via Ponte Don Melillo, 84084 Fisciano (SA), Italy

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:

Received 23 October 2008

Received in revised form 5 February 2009

Accepted 5 February 2009

Available online 20 February 2009

What is an abstract? How long should it be?

There are four main types of abstracts, all of which summarize the highlights of

your research and all of which will be judged in isolation from the accompanying

paper (if there is one). Abstracts are sometimes called Summaries.

Abstracts are found before a full article in a journal, standalone in databases of

abstracts, and in conference programs.

u n s t r u c t u r e d a b s t r a c t

A single paragraph of between 100-250 words containing a very brief summary of each of the" main sections of your paper

s t r u c t u r e d a b s t r a c t

The same as (1) but divided into several short sections.

e x t e n d e d a b s t r a c t

A mini paper organized in the same way as a full paper (e.g. Introduction, Methods, Discussion...), but substantially shorter (two to four pages). Depending on the journal, conference or competition, the extended abstract may or may not include an abstract - for example, it may begin directly with an introduction

c o n f e r e n c e a b s t r a c t

Normally a standalone abstract (sometimes up to 500 words), designed to help conference organizers to decide whether they would like you lo make an oral presentation at their conference (Sect. 12.13). It may be of any of the three forms above.

The type of abstract you choose and the format to use will depend on the journal or conference. Make sure you read their instructions to authors before you begin writing.

How should I write the Abstract?

It is common practice to write the abstract of the paper when the rest of the article has been finished. However, the draft of the abstract is to be written before the article.

While writing an abstract the author should answer the following questions:

• Why did I carry out this project? Why am I writing this paper?

• What did I do, and how?

• What were my results? What was new compared to previous research?

• What are the implications of my findings? What are my conclusions and/or

recommendations?

There are four possible styles for writing abstracts and papers:

STYLE I I found that x = y.

STYLE 2 We found that x = y.

STYLE 3 It was found that x = y.

STYLE 4 The authors found that x = y.

The most commonly used tenses in abstracts are:

the p r e s e n t s i m p l e (we show) and

the p a s t simple (we showed).

The present perfect (we have shown)

The link words are very important in the abstract. The most frequently used are however, otherwise, instead, moreover, also, in this paper, consequently.

The use of the keywords.

The key words are of great importance because they are used by search engines when indexing articles. That’s why the authors must have the key words in the title and the abstract of the article. The readers also use the key words in their search. It is recommended that the key words should not be repeated more than 3 times in the abstract.

Exercise I