how to read an empirical research article

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Reading an Empirical Scholarly Article: Home

What is an empirical article.

Empirical journal articles detail the findings of a study conducted by the author or authors.  The study may be based on observation or research .  Empirical evidence is usually presented in a journal article using statistics, tables, charts or graphs. 

• Retinal structure and function in monkeys with fetal alcohol exposure
• Adolescents' perspectives on strengths-based group work and group cohesion in residential treatment for substance abuse
• The Effect of Education on Crime: Evidence from Prison Inmates, Arrests, and Self-Reports
• Anxiety about internet hacking: Results from a community sample

Structure of Article

A bstract-  Useful for Article Selection

• Provides a brief summary of the article.
• Included in it are the purpose of the article, the author's hypothesis/argument, and their findings. 

*Introduction/ Literature Review-  Article Selection and understanding what the article is about.

What is included may vary a bit.  May include:

• Article's purpose 
• What information they are trying to find out.
• What is already known on the topic.
• Review of previous relevant research on the topic.

*Methodology- Judging credibility of article and finding data/ techniques for your own research.

• Techniques used for experiment.
• How the research was designed.
• Sample size.
• What is control.                                                               

Findings/Results - Checking author's conclusion against actual results.

• Data as an of the analysis/research.
• Charts, Graphs Statistics

Discussion/ Conclusion- Interpreting the authors findings and how they fit into literature, implications for future research.

• restate the author's stance on the subject
• Prove or disprove the authors thesis.
• show how their particular argument fits into the existing literature
• sometimes propose new ideas for further research or thought.

  References/Works Cited/Bibliography- Finding similar resources, checking authors claims.

• At the end of any scholarly article will be a section entitled bibliography or works cited. In this you will find references to all of the sources and data that the author used to prove their point.

* Articles may call these different things.

How to Read an Empirical Article

General Advice

• Plan to read the article more than once
• Don't read it all the way through in one sitting, read strategically first.
• Identify relevant conclusions and limitations of study

1. Begin by reading the abstract to get a sense of the article's purpose and findings.  Remember this is not an in depth treatment of the article and should only be used as a means to determine if the article is useful for your research

2. Skim the article, read headings to identify article structure, some articles may be labeled with sections, so label the parts yourself.

3. Read the introduction/literature review, look for the main argument. Think about these questions: What problem are they trying to solve?  What has been done before? What do the authors believe needs to be done next?  What is the hypothesis?​

4. Read the methodology section.  How did they collect the data?  If analyzing data, where is the data coming from?  Can you identify the variables?

5. Examine the Findings/Results.  Look at tables and figures, see if you can determine what they found without reading the captions.  Based upon your examination, do the findings support the hypothesis/argument?

6. Read the Discussion/Conclusion. Do the author(s) believe that their findings support their argument/hypothesis?  Do they acknowledge limitations or issues with their research?

Further Reading/Sources

• Infographic: How to read a scientific paper, Elsevier
• How to Read a Scientific Article by Mary Purugganan & Jan Hewitt
• How to read and understand a scientific article by Jennifer Raff
• How to (seriously) read a scientific paper By Elisabeth Pain
• How to Read a Scientific Article by Mary Vance, Psychology Today
• Ask A Librarian Click here to email, chat with, or make an appointment to speak with a librarian.

Have an idea for a tutorial that we should make next? Let us know!

• Last Updated: Sep 27, 2021 11:49 AM
• URL: https://libguides.marist.edu/readingempiricalarticles

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Empirical research in the social sciences and education.

• What is Empirical Research and How to Read It
• Finding Empirical Research in Library Databases
• Designing Empirical Research
• Ethics, Cultural Responsiveness, and Anti-Racism in Research
• Citing, Writing, and Presenting Your Work

Contact the Librarian at your campus for more help!

Introduction: What is Empirical Research?

Empirical research is based on observed and measured phenomena and derives knowledge from actual experience rather than from theory or belief. 

How do you know if a study is empirical? Read the subheadings within the article, book, or report and look for a description of the research "methodology."  Ask yourself: Could I recreate this study and test these results?

Key characteristics to look for:

• Specific research questions to be answered
• Definition of the population, behavior, or phenomena being studied
• Description of the process used to study this population or phenomena, including selection criteria, controls, and testing instruments (such as surveys)

Another hint: some scholarly journals use a specific layout, called the "IMRaD" format, to communicate empirical research findings. Such articles typically have 4 components:

• Introduction: sometimes called "literature review" -- what is currently known about the topic -- usually includes a theoretical framework and/or discussion of previous studies
• Methodology: sometimes called "research design" -- how to recreate the study -- usually describes the population, research process, and analytical tools used in the present study
• Results: sometimes called "findings" -- what was learned through the study -- usually appears as statistical data or as substantial quotations from research participants
• Discussion: sometimes called "conclusion" or "implications" -- why the study is important -- usually describes how the research results influence professional practices or future studies

Reading and Evaluating Scholarly Materials

Reading research can be a challenge. However, the tutorials and videos below can help. They explain what scholarly articles look like, how to read them, and how to evaluate them:

• CRAAP Checklist A frequently-used checklist that helps you examine the currency, relevance, authority, accuracy, and purpose of an information source.
• IF I APPLY A newer model of evaluating sources which encourages you to think about your own biases as a reader, as well as concerns about the item you are reading.
• Credo Video: How to Read Scholarly Materials (4 min.)
• Credo Tutorial: How to Read Scholarly Materials
• Credo Tutorial: Evaluating Information
• Credo Video: Evaluating Statistics (4 min.)
• Credo Tutorial: Evaluating for Diverse Points of View
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• Last Updated: Aug 13, 2024 3:16 PM
• URL: https://guides.libraries.psu.edu/emp

Sociology Research Guide: Identifying & Finding Empirical Articles

• Evaluating Your Sources
• Types of Publications
• Boolean Searching
• Identifying & Finding Empirical Articles
• Known Item Searching
• EndNote Web

How to Recognize Empirical Journal Articles

Definition of an empirical study: An empirical research article reports the results of a study that uses data derived from actual observation or experimentation. Empirical research articles are examples of primary research.

Parts of a standard empirical research article: (articles will not necessary use the exact terms listed below.)

• Abstract ... A paragraph length description of what the study includes.
• Introduction ...Includes a statement of the hypotheses for the research and a review of other research on the topic.
• Method ...A description of how the research was conducted, such as:          ◊ Who are participants          ◊  Design of the study          ◊  What the participants did          ◊  What measures were used
• Results ...Describes the outcomes of the measures of the study.
• Discussion...C ontains the interpretations and implications of the study.
• References...C ontains citation information on the material cited in the report. (also called bibliography or works cited)

Characteristics of an Empirical Article:

• Empirical articles will include charts, graphs, or statistical analysis.
• Empirical research articles are usually substantial, maybe from 8-30 pages long.
• There is always a bibliography found at the end of the article.

Type of publications that publish empirical studies:

• Empirical research articles are published in scholarly or academic journals These journals are also called “peer-reviewed,” or “refereed” publications.
• Examples of such publications include:        ◊ American Journal of Sociology        ◊ Sociological Quarterly        ◊ Sociological Methods and Research

Databases that contain empirical research: (selected list only)

• Academic Search Premier add these words to your search terms: method* or research or research design or survey* or data or result*
• PsycINFO limit your searches by Form/Content Type to Empirical Study
• ERIC limit to Pub. Type to Reports - Research/Technical Change one dropdown box to Record. This finds REPORTS--RESEARCH.
• Sociological Abstracts 1963 - present.
• Sports Discus Change search limit to Level = Advanced for original scientific research

Empirical Articles - Sample Research Tips

Empirical articles detail original research/studies that have been done.    

Some of the major components of empirical articles include the following: Abstract , Introduction , Method , Results , Discussion , References

Locating Empirical Articles in APA   PsycINFO

Use the "Methodology" limiter to select:   EMPIRICAL STUDY

Locating Empirical Articles in  ERIC

Use the "Publication Type" limiter to select:   Reports - Research

Locating Empirical Articles in Other Databases

Use terms such as: study , research , empirical , methods , methodology , research design , survey , data , results

Please remember to use OR  between your combination of terms. For example, you may enter the following in one search box:

study OR research OR empirical

research OR methods OR data OR results

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• Empirical Research: Defining, Identifying, & Finding

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Sometimes you may be asked to find and use empirical research. If you aren't sure what is and is not empirical research, this might seem scary. We are here to help. 

Note:  while this guide is designed to help you understand and find empirical research, you should always default to your instructor's definition if they provide one and direct any specific questions about whether a source fits that definition to your instructor. 

Guide Overview

In this guide, you will learn:

• The definition and characteristics of empirical research.
• How to identify the characteristics of empirical research quickly when reading an article.
• Ways to search more quickly for empirical research. 

Photo by  Pixabay  from  Pexels

• Next: Defining Empirical Research >>
• Last Updated: Apr 2, 2024 11:25 AM
• URL: https://libguides.memphis.edu/empirical-research

Empirical Articles/Studies

• How to tell and find quality articles

How to tell what's an empirical article

Step 1:  What's an empirical article?

Learn to recognize an empirical article by watching the video.

Step 2:  Judge for yourself

Open the articles by clicking on the letters.  Decide which ones are empirical and the sort of thing you would want to cite.

Step 3:  Quiz yourself

Check your understanding with this one question quiz .

Finding empirical studies

Watch the video to see how easy it is to find empirical articles using PsycINFO. 

• PsycINFO at a Glance Want a little advice on searching or the steps to get the stuff?

For databases that don't have a way to limit by methodology, some strategies :

1) Look through the results, scan the abstract for clues to recognize it's empirical.

2) Try searching with words that describe types of empirical studies (list not exhaustive):

empirical OR qualitative OR quantitative OR "action research" OR "case study" OR "controlled trial" OR "focus group"

3) Enter other terms you'd expect to see in an abstract.  Some suggestions:

findings OR participant* OR investigat*

• Last Updated: Aug 16, 2024 12:15 PM
• URL: https://guides.library.sc.edu/empirical

Reading Empirical Articles

Before trying this approach, we recommend that you read the Fundamentals of Efficient Reading for an overview of college-level reading strategies. The below strategy is specifically designed for reading science articles that report correlational or experimental research, such those generally assigned in STEM, sociology, and psychology courses.

Triple read the chapter 

• Why this works: By previewing the article a couple of times before diving in, you're building an outline in your mind that will make learning the content easier and more comfortable.
• ​​​​​​​ Page through the article, asking, “How is this organized?” (5 mins): Pay  attention to how the title of the article is expanded on in the abstract. Count the  figures and graphs. See if the Introduction, Method, Results, and Discussion sections have any sub-categories. Pay attention to these structural markers to start creating a framework in your mind.
• Now that you have the structure, determine the main message (5–15 mins): Be able to explain in a few sentences the hypotheses, method, and results—that is, the abstract—in your own words. The point is to grasp the core of the study and activate curiosity. If you self test at this point by writing down your own rough abstract, your grasp on the material will be strong.
• Read and write to meet your reading goal (duration depends on your goal and  available time): Next, estimate what pace you have to read at to meet your goal in the time window you have. Then, read to meet that goal. Write, type, or draw as needed to support your learning. Again, strengthen what you know by self testing in the last 10 minutes of your reading session. 

The triple-read strategy can really help you learn efficiently from articles. But it requires tolerating some discomfort, especially when you are just learning it. So, pat yourself on the back for any bit of it you add to your reading practice! You can keep re-reading these instructions throughout the quarter to really make deep, efficient reading a habit.

Download a pdf version of this page Reading Empirical Articles

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 License . You may reproduce it only for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: Center for Teaching and Learning, Stanford University. 

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Identify Empirical Research Articles

• Interactive Tutorial
• Literature Matrix
• Guide to the Successful Thesis and Dissertation: A Handbook for Students and Faculty
• Practical Guide to the Qualitative Dissertation
• Guide to Writing Empirical Papers, Theses, and Dissertations

What is a Literature Review--YouTube

Literature Review Guides

• How to write a literature review
• The Literature Review:a few steps on conducting it Permission granted from Writing at the University of Toronto
• Six steps for writing a literature review This blog, written by Tanya Golash-Bozal PhD an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of California at Merced, offers a very nice and simple advice on how to write a literature review from the point of view of an experience professional.
• The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Permission granted to use this guide.
• Writing Center University of North Carolina
• Literature Reviews Otago Polytechnic in New Zealand produced this guide and in my opinion, it is one of the best. NOTE: Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. However, all images and Otago Polytechnic videos are copyrighted.

What Are Empirical Articles?

As a student at the University of La Verne, faculty may instruct you to read and analyze empirical articles when writing a research paper, a senior or master's project, or a doctoral dissertation. How can you recognize an empirical article in an academic discipline? An empirical research article is an article which reports research based on actual observations or experiments. The research may use quantitative research methods, which generate numerical data and seek to establish causal relationships between two or more variables.(1) Empirical research articles may use qualitative research methods, which objectively and critically analyze behaviors, beliefs, feelings, or values with few or no numerical data available for analysis.(2)

How can I determine if I have found an empirical article?

When looking at an article or the abstract of an article, here are some guidelines to use to decide if an article is an empirical article.

• Is the article published in an academic, scholarly, or professional journal? Popular magazines such as Business Week or Newsweek do not publish empirical research articles; academic journals such as Business Communication Quarterly or Journal of Psychology may publish empirical articles. Some professional journals, such as JAMA: Journal of the American Medical Association publish empirical research. Other professional journals, such as Coach & Athletic Director publish articles of professional interest, but they do not publish research articles.
• Does the abstract of the article mention a study, an observation, an analysis or a number of participants or subjects? Was data collected, a survey or questionnaire administered, an assessment or measurement used, an interview conducted? All of these terms indicate possible methodologies used in empirical research.
• Introduction -The introduction provides a very brief summary of the research.
• Methodology -The method section describes how the research was conducted, including who the participants were, the design of the study, what the participants did, and what measures were used.
• Results -The results section describes the outcomes of the measures of the study.
• Discussion -The discussion section contains the interpretations and implications of the study.
• Conclusion -
• References -A reference section contains information about the articles and books cited in the report and should be substantial.
• How long is the article? An empirical article is usually substantial; it is normally seven or more pages long.

When in doubt if an article is an empirical research article, share the article citation and abstract with your professor or a librarian so that we can help you become better at recognizing the differences between empirical research and other types of scholarly articles.

How can I search for empirical research articles using the electronic databases available through Wilson Library?

• A quick and somewhat superficial way to look for empirical research is to type your search terms into the database's search boxes, then type STUDY OR STUDIES in the final search box to look for studies on your topic area. Be certain to use the ability to limit your search to scholarly/professional journals if that is available on the database. Evaluate the results of your search using the guidelines above to determine if any of the articles are empirical research articles.
• In EbscoHost databases, such as Education Source , on the Advanced Search page you should see a PUBLICATION TYPE field; highlight the appropriate entry. Empirical research may not be the term used; look for a term that may be a synonym for empirical research. ERIC uses REPORTS-RESEARCH. Also find the field for INTENDED AUDIENCE and highlight RESEARCHER. PsycArticles and Psycinfo include a field for METHODOLOGY where you can highlight EMPIRICAL STUDY. National Criminal Justice Reference Service Abstracts has a field for DOCUMENT TYPE; highlight STUDIES/RESEARCH REPORTS. Then evaluate the articles you find using the guidelines above to determine if an article is empirical.
• In ProQuest databases, such as ProQuest Psychology Journals , on the Advanced Search page look under MORE SEARCH OPTIONS and click on the pull down menu for DOCUMENT TYPE and highlight an appropriate type, such as REPORT or EVIDENCE BASED. Also look for the SOURCE TYPE field and highlight SCHOLARLY JOURNALS. Evaluate the search results using the guidelines to determine if an article is empirical.
• Pub Med Central , Sage Premier , Science Direct , Wiley Interscience , and Wiley Interscience Humanities and Social Sciences consist of scholarly and professional journals which publish primarily empirical articles. After conducting a subject search in these databases, evaluate the items you find by using the guidelines above for deciding if an article is empirical.
• "Quantitative research" A Dictionary of Nursing. Oxford University Press, 2008. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. University of La Verne. 25 August 2009
• "Qualitative analysis" A Dictionary of Public Health. Ed. John M. Last, Oxford University Press, 2007. Oxford Reference Online . Oxford University Press. University of La Verne. 25 August 2009

Empirical Articles:Tips on Database Searching

• Identifying Empirical Articles
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• Last Updated: Jul 29, 2024 7:29 PM
• URL: https://laverne.libguides.com/empirical-articles

Identifying Empirical Research Articles

• Identifying Empirical Articles
• Searching for Empirical Research Articles

Where to find empirical research articles

Finding empirical research.

When searching for empirical research, it can be helpful to use terms that relate to the method used in empirical research in addition to keywords that describe your topic. For example: 

• (generalized anxiety  AND  treatment*)  AND  (randomized clinical trial*  OR  clinical trial*)

You might also try using terms related to the type of instrument used:

• (generalized anxiety  AND  intervention*)  AND  (survey  OR  questionnaire)

You can also narrow your results to peer-review . Usually databases have a peer-review check box that you can select. To learn more about peer review, see our related guide:

• Understand Peer Review

Searching by Methodology

Some databases give you the option to do an advanced search by  methodology, where you can choose "empirical study" as a type. Here's an example from PsycInfo: 

Other filters includes things like document type, age group, population, language, and target audience. You can use these to narrow your search and get more relevant results.

Databasics: How to Filter by Methodology in ProQuest's PsycInfo + PsycArticles

Part of our Databasics YouTube series, this short video shows you how to limit by methodology in ProQuest's PsycInfo + PsycArticles database.

Attribution

Information in this guide adapted from Boston College Libraries' guide to " Finding Empirical Research "; Brandeis Library's " Finding Empirical Studies "; and CSUSM's " How do I know if a research article is empirical? "

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• Last Updated: Nov 16, 2023 8:24 AM

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Psychology Research Guide

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Citation Resources

The most often used citation style for Psychology is:

DOIs and URLs

Follow these instructions from the American Psychological Association to correctly include DOIs and URLs in your list of references.

DOIs & URLs in APA Style

What are empirical articles?

In psychology, empirical research articles are peer-reviewed and report on new research that answers one or more specific questions. Empirical research is based on measurable observation and experimentation. When reading an empirical article, think about what research question is being asked or what experiment is being conducted.

How are they organized?

Empirical research articles in psychology typically follow APA style guidelines. They are organized into the following major sections:

• Abstract (An abstract provides a summary of the study.)
• Introduction (This section includes a literature review.)
• Method (How was the experiment or study conducted?)
• Results (What are the findings?)
• Discussion (What did the researchers conclude? What are the implications of the research?)

How should I read an empirical article?

Because empirical research articles follow a particular format, you can dip into the article at multiple points and move around in a non-linear way. First, think about why you're reading the article. Are you looking for specific information or trying to get research ideas? Are you reading it for a course or for your own knowledge? Next, read the abstract to get an overview of the study. Skim the first and last paragraphs of the introduction and results to deepen your understanding of the article as a whole. Read the methods section to understand how the study was organized and conducted. Review the charts, graphs, and statistics to understand the analyses. Skim the remaining pieces of the article, before going back and reading it more closely from the beginning to the end. Don't forget that the references can be a great source for additional empirical articles.

Don't confuse empirical articles with other types of articles.

Be careful not to confuse an empirical article with other types of articles that you might find when researching a psychology topic. Meta-analyis, systematic reviews, scoping reviews, and other types of literature reviews are not empirical articles. Instead, these articles are designed to analyze and summarize the existing literature on a topic. Similarly, don't confuse book reviews with empirical articles. These types of articles might be helpful in your research, but they are not empirical research articles.

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Introduction to Empirical Research

Databases for finding empirical research, guided search, google scholar, examples of empirical research, sources and further reading.

• Interpretive Research
• Action-Based Research
• Creative & Experimental Approaches

Your Librarian

• Introductory Video This video covers what empirical research is, what kinds of questions and methods empirical researchers use, and some tips for finding empirical research articles in your discipline.

• Guided Search: Finding Empirical Research Articles This is a hands-on tutorial that will allow you to use your own search terms to find resources.

• Study on radiation transfer in human skin for cosmetics
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• Review of design considerations and technological challenges for successful development and deployment of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles
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Finding Empirical Research Articles

• Introduction
• Methods or Methodology
• Results or Findings

The method for finding empirical research articles varies depending upon the database* being used. 

1. The PsycARTICLES and PsycInfo databases (both from the APA) includes a Methodology filter that can be used to identify empirical studies. Look for the filter on the Advanced Search screen. To see a list and description of all of the of methodology filter options in PsycARTICLES and PsycInfo visit the  APA Databases Methodology Field Values page .

2. When using databases that do not provide a methodology filter—including ProQuest Psychology Journals and Academic Search Complete—experiment with using keywords to retrieve articles on your topic that contain empirical research. For example:

• empirical research
• empirical study
• quantitative study
• qualitative study
• longitudinal study
• observation
• questionnaire
• methodology
• participants

Qualitative research can be challenging to find as these methodologies are not always well-indexed in the databases. Here are some suggested keywords for retrieving articles that include qualitative research.

• qualitative
• ethnograph*
• observation*
• "case study”
• "focus group"
• "phenomenological research"
• "conversation analysis"

*Recommended databases are listed on the  Databases: Find Journal Articles page of this guide.

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• Last Updated: Aug 26, 2024 9:22 AM
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2.1 Reading an empirical journal article

Learning objectives.

• Identify the key components of empirical journal articles
• Define the basic elements of the results section in a journal article
• Describe statistical significance and confidence intervals

Reading scholarly articles can be more challenging than reading a book, magazine, news article—or even some textbooks. Theoretical and practical articles are, generally speaking, easier to understand. Because empirical articles add new knowledge, they must go through great detail to demonstrate that the information they offer is based on solid science. Empirical articles can be challenging to read, and this section is designed to make that process easier for you.

Nearly all articles will have an abstract , the short paragraph at the beginning of an article that summarizes the author’s research question, methods used to answer the question, and key findings. The abstract may also give you some idea about the theoretical perspective of the author. So, reading the abstract gives you both a framework for understanding the rest of the article and its punch line–what the author(s) found and whether the article is relevant to your area of inquiry. For this reason, it is helpful to skim abstracts as part of the literature search process.

As you will recall from Chapter 1, theoretical articles have no set structure and will look similar to reading a chapter of a book. Empirical articles contain the following sections (although exact section names vary): introduction, methods, results, and discussion. The introduction contains the literature review for the article and is an excellent source of information as you build your own literature review. The methods section reviews how the author gathered their sample, how they measured their variables, and how the data were analyzed. The results section provides an in-depth discussion of the findings of the study. The discussion section reviews the main findings and addresses how those findings fit in with the existing literature. Of course, there will also be a list of references (which you should read!) and there may be a few tables, figures, or appendices at the end of the article as well.

While you should get into the habit of familiarizing yourself with each part of the articles you wish to cite, there are strategic ways to read journal articles that can make them a little easier to digest. Once you have read the abstract for an article and determined it is one you’d like to read in full, read through the introduction and discussion sections next. Because your own review of literature is likely to emphasize findings from previous literature, you should mine the article you’re reading for what’s important to know about your topic. Reading the introduction helps you see the findings and articles the author considers to be significant in the topic area. Reading an article’s discussion section helps you understand what the author views as their study’s major findings and how the author connects those findings to other research.

In your research methods course, you pick up additional research elements that are important to understand. You learn how to identify qualitative and quantitative methods, the criteria for establishing causality, different types of causality, as well as exploratory, explanatory, and descriptive research. This textbook addresses other elements of journal articles, including choices about measurement, sampling, and design. As you learn about these additional items, you will find that the methods and results sections begin to make more sense and you will understand how the authors reached their conclusions.

As you read a research report, there are several questions you can ask yourself about each section, from abstract to conclusion. Those questions are summarized in Table 2.1. Keep in mind that the questions covered here are designed to help you, the reader, to think critically about the research you come across and to get a general understanding of the strengths, weaknesses, and key takeaways from a given study. By considering how you might respond to the following questions while reading research reports, you can gain confidence in describing the report to others and discussing its meaning and impact with them.

Understanding the results section

As mentioned previously in this chapter, reading the abstract that appears in most reports of scholarly research will provide you with an excellent, easily digestible review of a study’s major findings and of the framework the author is using to position their findings. Abstracts typically contain just a few hundred words, so reading them is a nice way to quickly familiarize yourself with a study. If the study seems relevant to your paper, it’s probably worth reading more. If it’s not, then you have only spent a minute or so reading the abstract. Another way to get a snapshot of the article is to scan the headings, tables, and figures throughout the report (Green & Simon, 2012).

One common mistake is reporting the summarized results from the abstract, rather than the detailed findings in the results section of the article. This is a problem when you are writing a literature review because you need to provide specific and clear facts that support your reading of the literature. The abstract may say something like: “we found that poverty is associated with mental health status.” For your literature review, you want the details, not the summary. In the results section of the article, you may find a sentence that states: “for households in poverty, children are three times more likely to have a mental health diagnosis.” This more detailed information provides a stronger basis on which to build a literature review.

Using the summarized results in an abstract is an understandable mistake to make. The results section often contains diagrams and symbols that are challenging to understand. Often, without having completed more advanced coursework on statistical or qualitative analysis, some of the terminology, symbols, or diagrams may be difficult to comprehend. To that end, the purpose of this section is to improve reading comprehension by providing an introduction to the basic components of a results section.

Journal articles often contain tables, and scanning them is a good way to begin reading an article. A table provides a quick, condensed summary of the report’s key findings. The use of tables is not limited to one form or type of data, though they are used most commonly in quantitative research. Tables are a concise way to report large amounts of data. Some tables present descriptive information about a researcher’s sample, which is often the first table in a results section. These tables will likely contain frequencies ( N or n ) and percentages (%). For example, if gender happened to be an important variable for the researcher’s analysis, a descriptive table would show how many and what percent of all study participants are women, men, or other genders. Frequencies or “how many” will probably be listed as N or n , while the percent symbol (%) might be used to indicate percentages.

In a table presenting a causal relationship, two sets of variables are represented. The independent variable, or cause, and the dependent variable, the effect. The independent variable attributes are typically presented in the table’s columns, while dependent variable attributes are presented in rows. This allows the reader to scan across a table’s rows to see how values on the dependent variable attributes change as the independent variable attribute values change. Tables displaying results of quantitative analysis will also likely include some information about the strength and statistical significance of the relationships presented in the table. These details tell the reader how likely it is that the relationships presented will have occurred simply by chance.

Let’s look at a specific example. Table 2.2 is based on data from a study of older workers conducted by Dr. Blackstone, an original author of this textbook. It presents the causal relationship between gender and experiencing harassing behaviors at work. In this example, gender is the independent variable (the cause) and the harassing behaviors listed are the dependent variables (the effects). [1] Therefore, we place gender in the table’s columns and harassing behaviors in the table’s rows.

Reading across the table’s top row, we see that 2.9% of women in the sample reported experiencing subtle or obvious threats to their safety at work, while 4.7% of men in the sample reported the same. We can read across each of the rows of the table in this way. Reading across the bottom row, we see that 9.4% of women in the sample reported experiencing staring or invasion of their personal space at work while just 2.3% of men in the sample reported having the same experience. We’ll discuss p- value later in this section.

These statistics represent what the researchers found in their sample, and they are using their sample to make conclusions about the true population of all employees in the real world. Because the methods we use in social science are never perfect, there is some amount of error in that value. The researchers in this study estimated the true value we would get if we asked every employee in the world the same questions on our survey. Researchers will often provide a confidence interval , or a range of values in which the true value is likely to be, to provide a more accurate description of their data. For example, at the time Matthew DeCarlo wrote this, his wife was expecting their first child. The doctor told them their due date was August 15th. But the doctor also told them that August 15th was only the best estimate. They were actually 95% sure the baby might be born any time between August 1st and September 1st. Confidence intervals are often listed with a percentage, like 90% or 95%, and a range of values, such as between August 1st and Setptember 1st. You can read that as: we are 95% sure your baby will be born between August 1st and September 1st. So, while they got a due date of August 15th, the uncertainty about the exact date is reflected in the confidence interval provided by their doctor.

Of course, we cannot assume that these patterns didn’t simply occur by chance. How confident can we be that the findings presented in the table did not occur by chance? This is where tests of statistical significance come in handy. Statistical significance tells us the likelihood that the relationships we observe could be caused by something other than chance. While statistics classes give you more specific details on tests of statistical significance and reading quantitative tables, the important thing to be aware of as a non-expert reader of tables is that some of the relationships presented will be statistically significant and others may not be. Tables should provide information about the statistical significance of the relationships presented. When reading a researcher’s conclusions, pay attention to which relationships are statistically significant and which are not.

In Table 2.2, you may have noticed that a p value is noted in the very last column of the table. A p- value is a statistical measure of the probability that there is no relationship between the variables under study. Another way of putting this is that the p- value provides guidance on whether or not we should reject the null hypothesis. The null hypothesis is simply the assumption that no relationship exists between the variables in question. In Table 2.2, we see that for the first behavior listed, the p value is 0.623. This means that there is a 62.3% chance that the null hypothesis is correct in this case. In other words, it seems likely that any relationship between observed gender and experiencing threats to safety at work in this sample is simply due to chance.

In the final row of the table, however, we see that the p- value is 0.039. In other words, there is a 3.9% chance that the null hypothesis is correct. Thus, we can be somewhat more confident than in the preceding example that there may be some relationship between a person’s gender and their experiencing the behavior noted in this row. Statistical significance is reported in reference to a value, usually 0.05 in the social science. This means that the probability that the relationship between gender and experiencing staring or invasion of personal space at work is due to random chance is less than 5 in 100. Social science often uses 0.05, but other values are used. Studies using 0.1 are using a more forgiving standard of significance, and therefore, have a higher likelihood of error (10%). Studies using 0.01 are using a more stringent standard of significance, and therefore, have a lower likelihood of error (1%).

Notice being conservative by using words like somewhat and may be . When testing hypotheses, social scientists generally phrase their findings in terms of rejecting the null hypothesis rather than making bold statements about the relationships observed in their tables. You can learn more about creating tables, reading tables, and tests of statistical significance in a class focused exclusively on statistical analysis. For now,this brief introduction to reading tables may improve your confidence in reading and understanding the quantitative tables you encounter while reading reports of social science research.

A final caveat is worth noting here. The previous discussion applies to quantitative articles. Quantitative articles will contain a lot of numbers and the results of statistical tests demonstrating association between those numbers. As a result, they usually have tables and report statistics.  Qualitative articles, on the other hand, will consist mostly of quotations from participants. For most qualitative articles, the authors want to put their results in the words of their participants, as they are the experts. The results section may be organized by theme, with each paragraph or subsection illustrating through quotes how the authors interpret what people in their study said.

Key Takeaways

• Reading a research article requires reading beyond the abstract.
• In tables presenting causal relationships, the independent variable is typically presented in the table’s columns while the dependent variables are presented in the table’s rows.
• When reading a research report, there are several key questions you should ask yourself for each section of the report.
• Abstract- the short paragraph at the beginning of an article that summarizes the its main point
• Confidence interval- a range of values in which the true value is likely to be
• Null hypothesis- the assumption that no relationship exists between the variables in question
• p -value- a statistical measure of the probability that there is no relationship between the variables under study
• Statistical significance- the likelihood that the relationships that are observed could be caused by something other than chance
• Table- a quick, condensed summary of the report’s key findings

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Csaf releases 2009 reading list by master sgt. steven goetsch public domain.

• It wouldn’t make any sense to say that people’s workplace experiences cause their gender, so in this example, the question of which is the independent variable and which are the dependent variables has a pretty obvious answer. ↵

Guidebook for Social Work Literature Reviews and Research Questions Copyright © 2020 by Rebecca Mauldin and Matthew DeCarlo is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Assignments

• Annotated Bibliography
• Analyzing a Scholarly Journal Article
• Group Presentations
• Dealing with Nervousness
• Using Visual Aids
• Grading Someone Else's Paper
• Types of Structured Group Activities
• Group Project Survival Skills
• Leading a Class Discussion
• Multiple Book Review Essay
• Reviewing Collected Works
• Writing a Case Analysis Paper
• Writing a Case Study
• About Informed Consent
• Writing Field Notes
• Writing a Policy Memo
• Writing a Reflective Paper
• Writing a Research Proposal
• Generative AI and Writing
• Acknowledgments

Definition and Introduction

Journal article analysis assignments require you to summarize and critically assess the quality of an empirical research study published in a scholarly [a.k.a., academic, peer-reviewed] journal. The article may be assigned by the professor, chosen from course readings listed in the syllabus, or you must locate an article on your own, usually with the requirement that you search using a reputable library database, such as, JSTOR or ProQuest . The article chosen is expected to relate to the overall discipline of the course, specific course content, or key concepts discussed in class. In some cases, the purpose of the assignment is to analyze an article that is part of the literature review for a future research project.

Analysis of an article can be assigned to students individually or as part of a small group project. The final product is usually in the form of a short paper [typically 1- 6 double-spaced pages] that addresses key questions the professor uses to guide your analysis or that assesses specific parts of a scholarly research study [e.g., the research problem, methodology, discussion, conclusions or findings]. The analysis paper may be shared on a digital course management platform and/or presented to the class for the purpose of promoting a wider discussion about the topic of the study. Although assigned in any level of undergraduate and graduate coursework in the social and behavioral sciences, professors frequently include this assignment in upper division courses to help students learn how to effectively identify, read, and analyze empirical research within their major.

Franco, Josue. “Introducing the Analysis of Journal Articles.” Prepared for presentation at the American Political Science Association’s 2020 Teaching and Learning Conference, February 7-9, 2020, Albuquerque, New Mexico; Sego, Sandra A. and Anne E. Stuart. "Learning to Read Empirical Articles in General Psychology." Teaching of Psychology 43 (2016): 38-42; Kershaw, Trina C., Jordan P. Lippman, and Jennifer Fugate. "Practice Makes Proficient: Teaching Undergraduate Students to Understand Published Research." Instructional Science 46 (2018): 921-946; Woodward-Kron, Robyn. "Critical Analysis and the Journal Article Review Assignment." Prospect 18 (August 2003): 20-36; MacMillan, Margy and Allison MacKenzie. "Strategies for Integrating Information Literacy and Academic Literacy: Helping Undergraduate Students make the most of Scholarly Articles." Library Management 33 (2012): 525-535.

Benefits of Journal Article Analysis Assignments

Analyzing and synthesizing a scholarly journal article is intended to help students obtain the reading and critical thinking skills needed to develop and write their own research papers. This assignment also supports workplace skills where you could be asked to summarize a report or other type of document and report it, for example, during a staff meeting or for a presentation.

There are two broadly defined ways that analyzing a scholarly journal article supports student learning:

Improve Reading Skills

Conducting research requires an ability to review, evaluate, and synthesize prior research studies. Reading prior research requires an understanding of the academic writing style , the type of epistemological beliefs or practices underpinning the research design, and the specific vocabulary and technical terminology [i.e., jargon] used within a discipline. Reading scholarly articles is important because academic writing is unfamiliar to most students; they have had limited exposure to using peer-reviewed journal articles prior to entering college or students have yet to gain exposure to the specific academic writing style of their disciplinary major. Learning how to read scholarly articles also requires careful and deliberate concentration on how authors use specific language and phrasing to convey their research, the problem it addresses, its relationship to prior research, its significance, its limitations, and how authors connect methods of data gathering to the results so as to develop recommended solutions derived from the overall research process.

Improve Comprehension Skills

In addition to knowing how to read scholarly journals articles, students must learn how to effectively interpret what the scholar(s) are trying to convey. Academic writing can be dense, multi-layered, and non-linear in how information is presented. In addition, scholarly articles contain footnotes or endnotes, references to sources, multiple appendices, and, in some cases, non-textual elements [e.g., graphs, charts] that can break-up the reader’s experience with the narrative flow of the study. Analyzing articles helps students practice comprehending these elements of writing, critiquing the arguments being made, reflecting upon the significance of the research, and how it relates to building new knowledge and understanding or applying new approaches to practice. Comprehending scholarly writing also involves thinking critically about where you fit within the overall dialogue among scholars concerning the research problem, finding possible gaps in the research that require further analysis, or identifying where the author(s) has failed to examine fully any specific elements of the study.

In addition, journal article analysis assignments are used by professors to strengthen discipline-specific information literacy skills, either alone or in relation to other tasks, such as, giving a class presentation or participating in a group project. These benefits can include the ability to:

• Effectively paraphrase text, which leads to a more thorough understanding of the overall study;
• Identify and describe strengths and weaknesses of the study and their implications;
• Relate the article to other course readings and in relation to particular research concepts or ideas discussed during class;
• Think critically about the research and summarize complex ideas contained within;
• Plan, organize, and write an effective inquiry-based paper that investigates a research study, evaluates evidence, expounds on the author’s main ideas, and presents an argument concerning the significance and impact of the research in a clear and concise manner;
• Model the type of source summary and critique you should do for any college-level research paper; and,
• Increase interest and engagement with the research problem of the study as well as with the discipline.

Kershaw, Trina C., Jennifer Fugate, and Aminda J. O'Hare. "Teaching Undergraduates to Understand Published Research through Structured Practice in Identifying Key Research Concepts." Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology . Advance online publication, 2020; Franco, Josue. “Introducing the Analysis of Journal Articles.” Prepared for presentation at the American Political Science Association’s 2020 Teaching and Learning Conference, February 7-9, 2020, Albuquerque, New Mexico; Sego, Sandra A. and Anne E. Stuart. "Learning to Read Empirical Articles in General Psychology." Teaching of Psychology 43 (2016): 38-42; Woodward-Kron, Robyn. "Critical Analysis and the Journal Article Review Assignment." Prospect 18 (August 2003): 20-36; MacMillan, Margy and Allison MacKenzie. "Strategies for Integrating Information Literacy and Academic Literacy: Helping Undergraduate Students make the most of Scholarly Articles." Library Management 33 (2012): 525-535; Kershaw, Trina C., Jordan P. Lippman, and Jennifer Fugate. "Practice Makes Proficient: Teaching Undergraduate Students to Understand Published Research." Instructional Science 46 (2018): 921-946.

Structure and Organization

A journal article analysis paper should be written in paragraph format and include an instruction to the study, your analysis of the research, and a conclusion that provides an overall assessment of the author's work, along with an explanation of what you believe is the study's overall impact and significance. Unless the purpose of the assignment is to examine foundational studies published many years ago, you should select articles that have been published relatively recently [e.g., within the past few years].

Since the research has been completed, reference to the study in your paper should be written in the past tense, with your analysis stated in the present tense [e.g., “The author portrayed access to health care services in rural areas as primarily a problem of having reliable transportation. However, I believe the author is overgeneralizing this issue because...”].

Introduction Section

The first section of a journal analysis paper should describe the topic of the article and highlight the author’s main points. This includes describing the research problem and theoretical framework, the rationale for the research, the methods of data gathering and analysis, the key findings, and the author’s final conclusions and recommendations. The narrative should focus on the act of describing rather than analyzing. Think of the introduction as a more comprehensive and detailed descriptive abstract of the study.

Possible questions to help guide your writing of the introduction section may include:

• Who are the authors and what credentials do they hold that contributes to the validity of the study?
• What was the research problem being investigated?
• What type of research design was used to investigate the research problem?
• What theoretical idea(s) and/or research questions were used to address the problem?
• What was the source of the data or information used as evidence for analysis?
• What methods were applied to investigate this evidence?
• What were the author's overall conclusions and key findings?

Critical Analysis Section

The second section of a journal analysis paper should describe the strengths and weaknesses of the study and analyze its significance and impact. This section is where you shift the narrative from describing to analyzing. Think critically about the research in relation to other course readings, what has been discussed in class, or based on your own life experiences. If you are struggling to identify any weaknesses, explain why you believe this to be true. However, no study is perfect, regardless of how laudable its design may be. Given this, think about the repercussions of the choices made by the author(s) and how you might have conducted the study differently. Examples can include contemplating the choice of what sources were included or excluded in support of examining the research problem, the choice of the method used to analyze the data, or the choice to highlight specific recommended courses of action and/or implications for practice over others. Another strategy is to place yourself within the research study itself by thinking reflectively about what may be missing if you had been a participant in the study or if the recommended courses of action specifically targeted you or your community.

Possible questions to help guide your writing of the analysis section may include:

Introduction

• Did the author clearly state the problem being investigated?
• What was your reaction to and perspective on the research problem?
• Was the study’s objective clearly stated? Did the author clearly explain why the study was necessary?
• How well did the introduction frame the scope of the study?
• Did the introduction conclude with a clear purpose statement?

Literature Review

• Did the literature review lay a foundation for understanding the significance of the research problem?
• Did the literature review provide enough background information to understand the problem in relation to relevant contexts [e.g., historical, economic, social, cultural, etc.].
• Did literature review effectively place the study within the domain of prior research? Is anything missing?
• Was the literature review organized by conceptual categories or did the author simply list and describe sources?
• Did the author accurately explain how the data or information were collected?
• Was the data used sufficient in supporting the study of the research problem?
• Was there another methodological approach that could have been more illuminating?
• Give your overall evaluation of the methods used in this article. How much trust would you put in generating relevant findings?

Results and Discussion

• Were the results clearly presented?
• Did you feel that the results support the theoretical and interpretive claims of the author? Why?
• What did the author(s) do especially well in describing or analyzing their results?
• Was the author's evaluation of the findings clearly stated?
• How well did the discussion of the results relate to what is already known about the research problem?
• Was the discussion of the results free of repetition and redundancies?
• What interpretations did the authors make that you think are in incomplete, unwarranted, or overstated?
• Did the conclusion effectively capture the main points of study?
• Did the conclusion address the research questions posed? Do they seem reasonable?
• Were the author’s conclusions consistent with the evidence and arguments presented?
• Has the author explained how the research added new knowledge or understanding?

Overall Writing Style

• If the article included tables, figures, or other non-textual elements, did they contribute to understanding the study?
• Were ideas developed and related in a logical sequence?
• Were transitions between sections of the article smooth and easy to follow?

Overall Evaluation Section

The final section of a journal analysis paper should bring your thoughts together into a coherent assessment of the value of the research study . This section is where the narrative flow transitions from analyzing specific elements of the article to critically evaluating the overall study. Explain what you view as the significance of the research in relation to the overall course content and any relevant discussions that occurred during class. Think about how the article contributes to understanding the overall research problem, how it fits within existing literature on the topic, how it relates to the course, and what it means to you as a student researcher. In some cases, your professor will also ask you to describe your experiences writing the journal article analysis paper as part of a reflective learning exercise.

Possible questions to help guide your writing of the conclusion and evaluation section may include:

• Was the structure of the article clear and well organized?
• Was the topic of current or enduring interest to you?
• What were the main weaknesses of the article? [this does not refer to limitations stated by the author, but what you believe are potential flaws]
• Was any of the information in the article unclear or ambiguous?
• What did you learn from the research? If nothing stood out to you, explain why.
• Assess the originality of the research. Did you believe it contributed new understanding of the research problem?
• Were you persuaded by the author’s arguments?
• If the author made any final recommendations, will they be impactful if applied to practice?
• In what ways could future research build off of this study?
• What implications does the study have for daily life?
• Was the use of non-textual elements, footnotes or endnotes, and/or appendices helpful in understanding the research?
• What lingering questions do you have after analyzing the article?

NOTE: Avoid using quotes. One of the main purposes of writing an article analysis paper is to learn how to effectively paraphrase and use your own words to summarize a scholarly research study and to explain what the research means to you. Using and citing a direct quote from the article should only be done to help emphasize a key point or to underscore an important concept or idea.

Business: The Article Analysis . Fred Meijer Center for Writing, Grand Valley State University; Bachiochi, Peter et al. "Using Empirical Article Analysis to Assess Research Methods Courses." Teaching of Psychology 38 (2011): 5-9; Brosowsky, Nicholaus P. et al. “Teaching Undergraduate Students to Read Empirical Articles: An Evaluation and Revision of the QALMRI Method.” PsyArXi Preprints , 2020; Holster, Kristin. “Article Evaluation Assignment”. TRAILS: Teaching Resources and Innovations Library for Sociology . Washington DC: American Sociological Association, 2016; Kershaw, Trina C., Jennifer Fugate, and Aminda J. O'Hare. "Teaching Undergraduates to Understand Published Research through Structured Practice in Identifying Key Research Concepts." Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology . Advance online publication, 2020; Franco, Josue. “Introducing the Analysis of Journal Articles.” Prepared for presentation at the American Political Science Association’s 2020 Teaching and Learning Conference, February 7-9, 2020, Albuquerque, New Mexico; Reviewer's Guide . SAGE Reviewer Gateway, SAGE Journals; Sego, Sandra A. and Anne E. Stuart. "Learning to Read Empirical Articles in General Psychology." Teaching of Psychology 43 (2016): 38-42; Kershaw, Trina C., Jordan P. Lippman, and Jennifer Fugate. "Practice Makes Proficient: Teaching Undergraduate Students to Understand Published Research." Instructional Science 46 (2018): 921-946; Gyuris, Emma, and Laura Castell. "To Tell Them or Show Them? How to Improve Science Students’ Skills of Critical Reading." International Journal of Innovation in Science and Mathematics Education 21 (2013): 70-80; Woodward-Kron, Robyn. "Critical Analysis and the Journal Article Review Assignment." Prospect 18 (August 2003): 20-36; MacMillan, Margy and Allison MacKenzie. "Strategies for Integrating Information Literacy and Academic Literacy: Helping Undergraduate Students Make the Most of Scholarly Articles." Library Management 33 (2012): 525-535.

Writing Tip

Not All Scholarly Journal Articles Can Be Critically Analyzed

There are a variety of articles published in scholarly journals that do not fit within the guidelines of an article analysis assignment. This is because the work cannot be empirically examined or it does not generate new knowledge in a way which can be critically analyzed.

If you are required to locate a research study on your own, avoid selecting these types of journal articles:

• Theoretical essays which discuss concepts, assumptions, and propositions, but report no empirical research;
• Statistical or methodological papers that may analyze data, but the bulk of the work is devoted to refining a new measurement, statistical technique, or modeling procedure;
• Articles that review, analyze, critique, and synthesize prior research, but do not report any original research;
• Brief essays devoted to research methods and findings;
• Articles written by scholars in popular magazines or industry trade journals;
• Academic commentary that discusses research trends or emerging concepts and ideas, but does not contain citations to sources; and
• Pre-print articles that have been posted online, but may undergo further editing and revision by the journal's editorial staff before final publication. An indication that an article is a pre-print is that it has no volume, issue, or page numbers assigned to it.

Journal Analysis Assignment - Myers . Writing@CSU, Colorado State University; Franco, Josue. “Introducing the Analysis of Journal Articles.” Prepared for presentation at the American Political Science Association’s 2020 Teaching and Learning Conference, February 7-9, 2020, Albuquerque, New Mexico; Woodward-Kron, Robyn. "Critical Analysis and the Journal Article Review Assignment." Prospect 18 (August 2003): 20-36.

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Writing Empirical Articles: Transparency, Reproducibility, Clarity, and Memorability

Morton Ann Gernsbacher

Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin–Madison

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0397-3329

This article provides recommendations for writing empirical journal articles that enable transparency, reproducibility, clarity, and memorability. Recommendations for transparency include preregistering methods, hypotheses, and analyses; submitting registered reports; distinguishing confirmation from exploration; and showing your warts. Recommendations for reproducibility include documenting methods and results fully and cohesively, by taking advantage of open-−science tools, and citing sources responsibly. Recommendations for clarity include writing short paragraphs, composed of short sentences; writing comprehensive abstracts; and seeking feedback from a naive audience. Recommendations for memorability include writing narratively; embracing the hourglass shape of empirical articles; beginning articles with a hook; and synthesizing, rather than Mad Libbing, previous literature.

They began three and a half centuries ago ( Wells, 1998 ). Since then, they’ve been written and read; cited, abstracted, and extracted; paywalled and unpaywalled; pre-printed and reprinted. They arose as correspondences between pairs of scientists ( Kronick, 1984 ), then morphed into publicly disseminated conference presentations ( Schaffner, 1994 ). By the 20th century, they’ d grown into the format we use today ( Mack, 2015 ). They are empirical journal articles, and their raison d’être was and continues to be communicating science.

Many of us baby boomers honed our empirical-article writing skills by following Bem’s (1987) how-to guide. We applied Bem’s recommendations to our own articles, and we assigned his chapter to our students and postdocs. The 2004 reprint of Bem’s chapter retains a high recommendation from the American Psychological Association (2010) in its “Guide for New Authors”; it appears in scores of graduate and undergraduate course syllabi ( Gernsbacher, 2017a ); and its advice is offered by numerous universities’ writing centers (e.g., Harvard College, 2008 ; Purdue Online Writing Lab, 2012 ; University of Connecticut, n.d. ; University of Minnesota, n.d. ; University of Washington, 2010 ).

However, psychological scientists have recently confronted their questionable research practices ( John, Loewenstein, & Prelec, 2012 ), many of which arise during the writing (or revising) process ( Sacco, Bruton, & Brown, 2018 ). Questionable research practices include

• failing to report all the studies conducted, conditions manipulated, participants tested, data collected, or other “researcher degrees of freedom” ( Simmons, Nelson, & Simonsohn, 2011 , p. 1359);
• fishing through statistical analyses to report only those meeting a certain level of statistical significance, which is a practice known as p -hacking ( Simonsohn, Nelson, & Simmons, 2014 );
• reporting an unpredicted result as though it had been hypothesized all along, which is a practice known as hypothesizing after the results are known (often referred to as HARKing; Kerr, 1998 ); and
• promising that the reported results bear implications beyond the populations sampled or materials and tasks administered ( Simons, Shoda, & Lindsay, 2017 ).

Unfortunately, some of these questionable reporting practices seem to be sanctioned in Bem’s how-to guide ( Devlin, 2017 ; Vazire, 2014 ). For example, Bem’s chapter seems to encourage authors to p -hack their data. Authors are advised to

examine [your data] from every angle. Analyze the sexes separately. Make up new composite indexes. If a datum suggests a new hypothesis, try to find additional evidence for it elsewhere in the data. If you see dim traces of interesting patterns, try to reorganize the data to bring them into bolder relief. If there are participants you don’t like, or trials, observers, or interviewers who gave you anomalous results, drop them (temporarily). Go on a fishing expedition for something — anything — interesting ( Bem, 1987 , p. 172; Bem, 2004 , pp. 186–187).

Bem’s chapter has also been interpreted as encouraging authors to hypothesize after the results are known ( Wagenmakers, Wetzels, Borsboom, & van der Maas, 2011 ). After acknowledging “there are two possible articles you can write: (a) the article you planned to write when you designed your study or (b) the article that makes the most sense now that you have seen the results,” Bem noted the two potential articles “are rarely the same” and directed authors to write the latter article by “recentering your article around the new findings and subordinating or even ignoring your original hypotheses” ( Bem, 1987 , pp. 171—173; Bem, 2004 , pp. 186–187).

This article provides recommendations for writing empirical journal articles that communicate research processes and products transparently with enough detail to allow replication and reproducibility. 1 Like Bem’s chapter, this article also provides recommendations for writing empirical articles that are clear and memorable.

Open materials for this article, which are available at https://osf.io/q3pna/ , include a list of publicly available course syllabi that mention Bem’s (1987 , 2004) “Writing the Empirical Journal Article” chapter and a tally of word and sentence counts, along with citation counts, for Clark and Clark (1939 , 1940 , 1947) , Harlow (1958) , Miller (1956) , and Tolman (1948) .

Recommendations for Transparency

Researchers write empirical journal articles to report and record why they conducted their studies, how they conducted their studies, and what they observed in their studies. The value of these archival records depends on how transparently researchers write their reports. Writing transparently, means, as the vernacular connotes, writing frankly.

Preregister your study

The best way to write transparent empirical articles is through preregistration ( Chambers et al., 2013 ). Preregistering a study involves specifying the study’s motivation, hypothesis, method, materials, sample, and analysis plan—basically everything but the results and discussion of those results—before the study is conducted.

Preregistration is a “time-stamped research plan that you can point to after conducting a study to prove to yourself and others that you really are testing a predicted relationship” (Mellor, as cited in Graf, 2017 , para.3). Indeed, most of our common statistical tests rest on the assumption that we have preregistered, or at the least previously specified, our predictions ( Wagenmakers, Wetzels, Borsboom, van der Maas, & Kievit, 2012 ).

For more than 20 years, medical journals have required preregistration for researchers conducting clinical trials ( Maxwell, Kelley, & Rausch, 2008 ). More recently, sites such as Open Science Framework and AsPredicted.org allow all types of researchers to document their preregistration, and preregistration is considered a best practice by psychologists of many stripes: cognitive ( de Groot, 2014 ), clinical ( Tackett et al., 2017 ), comparative ( Stevens, 2017 ), developmental ( Donnellan, Lucas, Fraley, & Roisman, 2013 ), social ( van 't Veerab & Giner-Sorolla, 2016 ), personality ( Asendorpf et al., 2013 ), relationship ( Campbell, Loving, & Lebelc, 2014 ), neuroscience ( Button et al., 2013 ), and neuroimaging ( Poldrack et al., 2017 ).

The benefits of preregistration are plentiful, both to our sciences and to ourselves. As Mellor noted (cited in Graf, 2017 , para. 8), “Every step that goes into a preregistration: writing the hypotheses, defining the variables, and creating statistical tests, are steps that we all have to take at some point. Making them before data collection can improve the researcher’s study design.” Misconceptions about preregistration are also plentiful. For instance, some researchers mistakenly believe that if a study is preregistered, unpredicted analyses cannot be reported; they can, but they need to be identified as exploratory (see, e.g., Neuroskeptic, 2013 ). Other researchers worry that purely exploratory research cannot be preregistered; it can, but it needs to be identified as exploratory (see, e.g., McIntosh, 2017 ). Preregistration manifests transparency and is, therefore, one of the most important steps in conducting and reporting research transparently.

Submit a registered report

A further step in writing transparent articles is to submit a registered report. Registered reports are journal articles for which both the authors’ preregistrations and their subsequent manuscripts undergo peer review. (Pre-registration outside of submission as a registered- report journal article does not require peer review, only documentation.)

Registered reports epitomize how most of us were trained to do research. For our dissertations and masters’ theses, even our senior theses, we submitted our work to review at two stages: after we designed the study (e.g., at our dissertation proposal meeting) and after we collected and analyzed the data and interpreted our results (e.g., at our final defense). The same two-stage review occurs with registered-report journal articles ( Nosek & Lakens, 2014 ). More and more journals are providing authors with the option to publish registered reports (for a list, see Center for Open Science, n.d. ). The beauty of registered reports is that, as with our dissertations, our success depends not on the shimmer of our results but on the soundness of our ideas and the competence of our execution.

Distinguish confirmation from exploration

Writing transparently means distinguishing confirmation from exploration. To be sure, exploration is a valid and important mode of scientific inquiry. The exploratory analyses Bem wrote about (“examine [your data] from every angle”) are vital for discovery—and should not be discouraged. However, it is also vital to distinguish exploratory from confirmatory analyses.

For example, clarify whether “additional exploratory analysis was conducted” ( Brockhaus, 1980 , p. 517), “data were derived from an exploratory questionnaire” ( Scogin & Bienias, 1988 , p. 335), or “results . . . should be interpreted cautiously because of their exploratory nature” ( Martin & Stelmaczonek, 1988 , p. 387). Entire research projects may be exploratory ( McIntosh, 2017 ), but they must be identified as such (e.g., “Prediction of Improvement in Group Therapy: An Exploratory Study,” Yalom, Houts, Zimerberg, & Rand, 1967 ; and “Personality and Probabilistic Thinking: An Exploratory Study,” Wright & Phillips, 1979 ).

Show your warts

Scientific reporting demands showing your work ( Vazire, 2017 ); transparent scientific reporting demands showing your warts. If participants were excluded, explain why and how many: for example, “Two of these subjects were excluded because of their inability to comply with the imagery instructions at least 75% of the time” ( Sadalla, Burroughs, & Staplin, 1980 , p. 521).

Similarly, if data were lost, explain why and how many: for example, “Ratings for two subjects were lost to equipment error” ( Vrana, Spence, & Lang, 1988 , p. 488) or “Because of experimenter error, processing times were not available for 11 subjects” ( McDaniel & Einstein, 1986 , p. 56).

If one or more pilot studies were conducted, state that. If experiments were conducted in an order different from the reported order, state that. If participants participated in more than one study, state that. If measures were recalculated, stimuli were refashioned, procedures were reconfigured, variables were dropped, items were modified—if anything transgressed the pre- specified plan and approach—state that.

Writing transparently also requires acknowledging when results are unpredicted: for example, “An unexpected result of Experiment 1 was the lack of an age . . . effect . . . due to different presentation rates” ( Kliegl, Smith, & Bakes, 1989 , p. 251) or “Unexpectedly, the female preponderance in depressive symptoms is strongly demonstrated in every age group in this high school sample” ( Allgood-Merten, Lewinsohn, & Hops, 1990 , p. 59). Concede when hypotheses lack support: for example, “we were unable to demonstrate that free care benefited people with a high income” ( Brook et al., 1983 , p. 1431) or “we cannot reject the null hypothesis with any confidence” ( Tannenbaum & Smith, 1964 , p. 407).

Consider placing a Statement of Transparency in either your manuscript or your supplementary materials: for example, “Statement of Transparency: The data used in the present study were initially collected as part of a larger exploratory study” ( Werner & Milyavskaya, 2017 , p. 3) or “As described in the Statement of Transparency in our online supplemental materials, we also collected additional variables and conducted further analyses that we treat as exploratory” ( Gehlbach et al., 2016 , p. 344).

Consider ending your manuscript with a Constraints on Generality statement ( Simons et al., 2017 ), which “defines the scope of the conclusions that are justified by your data” and “clarifies which aspects of your sample of participants, materials, and procedures should be preserved in a direct replication” (p. 1125; see Simons et al., 2017 , for examples).

Recommendations for Reproducibility

The soul of science is that its results are reproducible. Reproducible results are repeatable, reliable, and replicable. But reproducing a result, or simply trying to reproduce it, requires knowing in detail how that previous result was obtained. Therefore, writing for reproducibility means providing enough detail so readers will know how each result was obtained.

Document your research fully

Many researchers appreciate that empirical studies need to be reported accurately and completely—in fact, fully enough to allow other researchers to reproduce them— but they encounter a barrier: Many journals enforce word limits; some even limit the number of tables and figures that can accompany each article or the number of sources that can be cited. Journals’ limits can stymie authors’ efforts to write for reproducibility.

After using the maximum number of words allowed for methods and results, turn to open-science tools. Repositories, such as Open Science Framework (osf.io), Pub-Med Central (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/), and Mendeley Data (mendeley.com/datasets), allow researchers to make their materials and data publicly available, which is a best practice quickly becoming mandatory ( Lindsay, 2017 ; Munafò et al., 2017 ; Nosek et al., 2015 ). These repositories also allow researchers to make detailed documentation of their methods and results publicly available.

For example, I recently analyzed 5 million books, 25 million abstracts, and 150 million journal articles to examine scholars’ use of person-first (e.g., person with a disability ) versus identity-first (e.g., disabled person ) language ( Gernsbacher, 2017b ). Because the journal that published my article limited me to 2,000 words, eight citations, and zero tables or figures, I created and posted on Open Science Framework an accompanying technical report ( Gernsbacher, 2016 ), which served as my open notebook. For the current article, I also created a technical report ( Gernsbacher, 2017a ) to document the course syllabi that assign Bem’s chapter (mentioned earlier) and the word counts that illustrate classic articles’ concision (mentioned later).

By taking advantage of open-science repositories, authors can document

• why they qualify for the 21-Word Solution, which is a statement authors can place in their Method section to verify they have “report[ed] how [they] determined [their] sample size, all data exclusions (if any), all manipulations, and all measures in the study” ( Simmons, Nelson, & Simonsohn, 2012 , p. 4);
• how they fulfilled the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses check-list ( PRISMA, 2015 ); and
• that they have met other methodological or statistical criteria (e.g., they have provided their data, materials, and code; Lindsay, 2017 ).

An accompanying technical report can serve as a publicly accessible lab notebook, which also comes in handy for selfish reasons ( Markowetz, 2015 ; McKiernan et al., 2016 ). A tidy, publicly accessible lab notebook can be, like tidy computer documentation, “a love letter you write to your future self” ( Conway, 2005 , p. 143).

Document your research cohesively

Documentation should also be cohesive. For instance, rather than posting a slew of separate supplementary files, consider combining all the supporting text, summary data, and supplementary tables and figures into one composite file. More helpfully, annotate the composite file with a table of contents or a set of in-file bookmarks.

A well-indexed composite file can reduce the frustration readers (and reviewers) incur when required to open multiple supplementary files (often generically named Supp. Fig.1, Supp. Fig. 2, etc.). Posting a well-indexed composite file on an open-science platform can also ensure that valuable information is available outside of journals’ paywalls, with guaranteed access beyond the life of an individual researcher’s or journal’s Web site (e.g., Open Science Framework guarantees their repository for 50 years).

Cite sources responsibly

As Simkin and Roychowdhury (2003) advised in the title of their study demonstrating high rates of erroneous citations, “read before you cite.” Avoid “drive by citations” ( Perrin, 2009 ), which reference a study so generically as to appear pro forma. Ensure that a specific connection exists between your claim and the source you cite to support that claim. Is the citation the original statement of the idea, a comprehensive review, an example of a similar study, or a counterclaim? If so, make that connection clear, rather than simply grabbing and citing the first article that pops up in a Google Scholar search.

Interrogate a reference before citing it, rather than citing it simply because other articles do. For example, I tallied hundreds of articles that mistakenly cited Rizzolatti et al. (1996) as providing empirical evidence for mirror neurons in humans—despite neither Rizzolatti et al.’s data nor their text supporting that claim ( Gallese, Gernsbacher, Heyes, Hickok, & Iacoboni, 2011 ).

Try to include a linked DOI (digital object identifier) for every reference you cite. Clicking on a linked DOI takes your readers directly to the original source, without having to search for it by its title, authors, journal, or the like. 2 Moreover, a DOI, like an ISBN, provides a permanent link to a published work; therefore, DOIs obviate link rot and guarantee greater longevity than standard URLs, even journal publishers’ URLs.

Recommendations for Clarity

Empirical articles are becoming more difficult to read, as an analysis of nearly three-quarter million articles in more than 100 high-impact journals recently demonstrated ( Plavén-Sigray, Matheson, Schiffler, & Thompson, 2017 ). Sentences in empirical articles have grown longer, and vocabulary has grown more abstruse. Therefore, the primary recommendation for achieving clarity in empirical articles is simple: Write concisely using plain language ( Box 1 provides additional suggestions and resources for clear writing).

Additional Recommendations for Clear Writing

Use precise terms.

Concision requires precision. Rather than writing that a dependent variable is related to, influenced by, or affected by the independent variable, state the exact relation between the two variables or the precise effect one variable has on another. Did manipulating the independent variable increase, decrease, improve, worsen, augment, diminish, negate, strengthen, weaken, delay, or accelerate the dependent variable?

Most important, use precise terms in your title. Follow the example of Parker, Garry, Engle, Harper, and Clfasefi (2008) , who titled their article “Psychotropic Placebos Reduce the Misinformation Effect by Increasing Monitoring at Test” rather than “The Effects of Psychotropic Placebos on Memory.”

Omit Needless Words

Numerous wordy expressions can be replaced by one word. For example, replace due to the fact that, for the reason that, or owing to the fact that with because; replace for the purpose of with for; have the capability of with can; in the event that with if; during the course of with during; fewer in number with fewer; in order to with to; and whether or not with whether . And replace the well-worn and wordy expression that appears in numerous acknowledgements, we wish to thank , with simply we thank .

Build Parallel Structures

Parallel structure aids comprehension ( Fraizer, Taft, Roeper, Clifton, & Ehrlich, 1984 ), whereas disjointed structure (e.g., Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana ) impedes comprehension ( Gernsbacher, 1997 ). Simons (2012) demonstrated how to build parallel structure with the example sentence Active reconstruction of a past experience differs from passively hearing a story about it. That sentence lacks parallel structure because the first half uses a noun phrase ( Active reconstruction ), whereas the second half uses a gerundive nominal ( passively hearing ). But the sentence can easily be made parallel: Actively reconstructing a past experience differs from passively hearing a story about it.

Listen to Your Writing

Try reading aloud what you have written (or use text-to-speech software). Listening to your writing is a great way to catch errors and get a feel for whether your writing is too stilted (and your sentences are too long).

Read About Writing

Read about how to write clearly in Pinker’s (2015) book, Zinsser’s (2016) book, Wagenmakers’s (2009) article, Simons’s (2012) guide, and Gernsbacher’s (2013) graduate-level open-access course. Try testing the clarity of your writing with online readability indices (e.g., https://readable.io/text or https://wordcounttools.com )

Write short sentences

Every writing guide, from Strunk and White’s (1959) venerable Elements of Style to the prestigious journal Nature ’s (2014) guide, admonishes writers to use shorter, rather than longer, sentences. Shorter sentences are not only easier to understand, but also better at conveying complex information ( Flesch, 1948 ).

The trick to writing short sentences is to restrict each sentence to one and only one idea. Resist the temptation to embed multiple clauses or parentheticals, which challenge comprehension. Instead, break long, rambling sentences into crisp, more concise ones. For example, write the previous three short sentences rather than the following long sentence: The trick to writing short sentences is to restrict each sentence to one and only one idea by breaking long, rambling sentences into crisp, more concise ones while resisting the temptation to embed multiple clauses or parentheticals, which challenge comprehension.

How short is short enough? The Oxford Guide to Plain English ( Cutts, 2013 ) recommends averaging no more than 15 to 20 words per sentence. Such short, crisp sentences have been the mainstay of many great psychological scientists, including Kenneth and Mamie Clark. Their 1939, 1940, and 1947 articles reporting young Black children’s racial identification and self-esteem have garnered more than 2,500 citations. These articles figured persuasively in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) . And these articles’ sentences averaged 16 words.

Write short paragraphs

Combine short sentences into short paragraphs. Aim for around five sentences per paragraph. Harlow’s “The Nature of Love” (1958) , Tolman’s “Cognitive Maps in Rats and Men” (1948) , and Miller’s “The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two” (1956) , which have been cited more than 2,000, 5,000, and 25,000 times, respectively, average five sentences per paragraph.

The prototypical five-sentence paragraph comprises a topic sentence, three supporting sentences, and a conclusion sentence. For example, a paragraph in Parker, Garry, Engle, Harper, and Clifasefi’s (2008 , p. 410) article begins with the following topic sentence: “One of the puzzles of human behaviour is how taking a substance that does nothing can cause something.” The paragraph continues with three (in this case, conjoined) supporting sentences: “Phoney painkillers can lessen our pain or make it worse; phoney alcohol can lead us to do things we might otherwise resist, and phoney feedback can even cause us to shed body fat.” The paragraph then concludes with the sentence “Perhaps Kirsch (2004, p. 341) said it best: ‘Placebos are amazing.’”

Write comprehensive abstracts

Compiling a technical report and placing it on an open-source platform can circumvent a journal’s word limit for a manuscript. However, a journal’s word limit for an abstract is more difficult to circumvent. That limit is firm, and an abstract can often be the sole content that is read, particularly if the rest of the article lies behind a paywall. Therefore, authors need to make the most of their 150 or 250 words so that an abstract can inform on its own ( Mensh & Kording, 2017 ).

A clear abstract states the study’s primary hypothesis; its major methodology, including its sample size and sampled population; its main findings, along with their summary statistics; and its key implications. A clear abstract is explicit, concrete, and comprehensive, which was advice offered by Bem (1987 , 2004) .

Seek naive feedback

One of the best ways to ensure that a message is clear is to assess its clarity according to a naive audience ( Traxler & Gernsbacher, 1995 ). Indeed, the more naive the audience, the more informative the feedback ( Traxler & Gernsbacher, 1992 , 1993 ).

Unfortunately, some researchers seek feedback on their manuscripts from only their coauthors or fellow lab members. But coauthors and fellow lab members are hardly naive. Better feedback can be obtained from readers who are unfamiliar with the research—and unfamiliar with even the research area. If those readers say the writing is unclear (or a figure or table is confusing), it is, by definition, unclear (or confusing); it is best to revise for clarity.

Recommendations for Memorability

Most researchers want their articles not only to be read but also to be remembered. The goal in writing a memorable article is not necessarily to pen a flashy article; rather, the goal is to compose an article that enables readers to remember what they have read days or months later, as well as paragraphs or pages later ( Gernsbacher, 1990 ).

Write narratively

The primary tool for increasing memorability is writing narratively ( Bruner, 1991 ). An empirical article should tell a story, not in the sense of a tall tale but in the spirit of a coherent and logical narrative.

Even authors who bristle at the notion of scholarly articles as stories must surely recognize that empirical articles resemble Aristotelian narratives: Introduction sections begin with a premise (the previous literature) that leads to an inciting incident (however, ...) and conclude with a therefore (the methods used to combat the inciting incident).

Thus, Introduction sections and Method sections are empirical articles’ Act One, their setups. Results sections are empirical articles’ Act Two, their confrontations. And Discussion sections are empirical articles’ Act Three, their resolutions.

Writing Act One (introduction and methods) prior to collecting data, as we would do if submitting a registered report, helps us adhere to Feynman’s (1974) warning not to fool ourselves (e.g., not to misremember what we did vs. did not predict and, consequently, which analyses are vs. are not confirmatory).

Writing all sections narratively, as setup, confrontation, and then resolution, should increase their short- and long-term memorability. Similarly, writing methods and results as sequences of events should increase their memorability.

For methods, Bem (1987 , 2004) recommended leading readers through the procedure as if they were research participants, which is an excellent idea. For results, readers can be led through the analytic pipeline in the sequence in which it occurred.

Embrace the hourglass

Bem advised that an article should be written “in the shape of an hourglass. It begins with broad general statements, progressively narrows down to the specifics of your study, and then broadens out again to more general considerations” ( Bem, 1987 , p. 175; Bem, 2004 , p. 189). That advice should also not be jettisoned ( Devlin, 2017 ).

Call it the hourglass or call it the “broad- narrow-broad” structure ( Mensh & Kording, 2017 , p. 4), the notion is that well-written empirical articles begin broadly (theories and questions), narrow to specifics (methods and results), and end broadly (implications). Authors who embrace the hourglass shape aid their readers, particularly readers who skim ( Weinstein, 2016 ).

Begin with a hook

Journal editors advise that articles “should offer a clear, direct, and compelling story that first hooks the reader” (Rains, 2012, p. 497). For example, Oyserman et al. (2017) began their article with the following hook, which led directly to a statement articulating what their article was about (illustrated here in italics):

Will you be going to that networking lunch? Will you be tempted by a donut at 4 pm? Will you be doing homework at 9 pm? If, like many people, your responses are based on your gut sense of who you are—shy or outgoing, a treat lover or a dieter, studious or a procrastinator—you made three assumptions about identity: that motivation and behavior are identity based, that identities are chronically on the mind, and that identities are stable. (p. 139)

As another example, Newman et al. (2014) began their article with the following hook:

In its classic piece, “Clinton Deploys Vowels to Bosnia,” the satirical newspaper The Onion quoted Trszg Grzdnjkln, 44. “I have six children and none of them has a name that is understandable to me or to anyone else. Mr. Clinton, please send my poor, wretched family just one ‘E.’ Please.” The Onion was onto something when it suggested that people with hard to pronounce names suffer while their more pronounceable counter parts benefit. (p. 1, italics added)

As a third example, Jakimik and Glenberg (1990) began their article with the following hook:

You’re zipping through an article in your favorite journal when your reading stops with a thud. The author has just laid out two alternative hypotheses and then referred to one of them as “the former approach.” But now you are confused about which was first, which was second. You curse the author and your own lack of concentration, reread the setup rehearsing the order of the two hypotheses, and finally figure out which alternative the author was referring to. We have experienced this problem, too, and we do not think that it is simply a matter of lack of concentration. The subject of this article is the reason for difficulty with referring devices such as “the former approach.” (p. 582, italics added)

Synthesize previous literature (rather than Mad Lib it)

In the game of Mad Libs, one player generates a list of words from specified categories, for instance, a proper name, an activity, and a number. Then, the other player fills a template sentence with that list of generated terms.

In a similar way, some authors review the literature by Mad Libbing terms into sentence templates, for example, “_____ [author’s name] investigated _____ [research topic] with _____ [number] of participants and found a statistically significant effect of _____ [variable] on _____ [variable].”

A more memorable, albeit more difficult, way to review the literature is to synthesize it, as Aronson (1969) illustrated in his synthesis of previous studies on cognitive dissonance:

The research [on cognitive dissonance] has been as diverse as it has been plentiful; its range extends from maze running in rats (Lawrence and Festinger, 1962) to the development of values in children (Aronson and Carlsmith, 1963); from the hunger of college sophomores (Brehm et al., 1964) to the proselytizing behavior of religious zealots (Festinger et al., 1956). The proliferation of research testing and extending dissonance theory results from the generality and simplicity of the theory. (p. 1)

Notice that Aronson wrote a coherent narrative in which phenomena, not researchers, are the topics. That is what is meant by synthesizing, not Mad Libbing, previous literature.

Even technical literature can be synthesized rather than Mad Libbed, as Guillem et al. (2011) demonstrated:

Cortical acetylcholine (ACh) release from the basal forebrain is essential for proper sensory processing and cognition (1–3) and tunes neuronal and synaptic activity in the underlying cortical networks (4,5). Loss of cholinergic function during aging and Alzheimer’s disease results in cognitive decline, notably a loss of memory and the ability to sustain attention (6,7). Interfering with the cholinergic system strongly affects cognition (3,8–13). Rapid changes in prefrontal cortical ACh levels at the scale of seconds are correlated with attending and detecting cues (14,15). Various types of nicotinic ACh receptor (nAChR) subunits are expressed in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) (16–18) ... However, the causal relation between nAChR β2 subunits (henceforth β2-nAChRs) expressed in the medial PFC (mPFC) and attention performance has not yet been demonstrated. (p. 888)

Guillem et al. began with a premise (“Cortical acetyl- choline (ACh) release from the basal forebrain is essential”), which they then supported with the literature. They further developed their premise (“Loss of cholinergic function during aging and Alzheimer’s disease results in cognitive decline,” “Interfering with the cholinergic system strongly affects cognition,” and “Rapid changes in prefrontal cortical ACh levels ... are correlated with attending and detecting cues”), and they concluded with their “However.” They synthesized the literature to tell a story.

Writing clearly and memorably need not be orthogonal to writing transparently and enabling reproducibility. For example, in their seminal article on false memories for words presented in lists, Roediger and McDermott (1995)

• documented their experimental procedure fully enough to allow replication, including most recently a preregistered replication ( Zwaan et al., 2017 );
• provided their research materials openly (in an appendix);
• told their story in short paragraphs (average length of 5.1 sentences) and short sentences (average length of 18 words);
• embraced an hourglass shape (e.g., their discussion began by relating their study to prior work, continued by contrasting experiments that measured false recall vs. false recognition, extended to discussing phenomenological experience, and broadened to articulating implications); and
• transparently acknowledged parallel efforts by another research team (“While working on this article, we learned that Don Read was conducting similar research, which is described briefly in Lindsay & Read, 1994,” p. 804).

A well-written empirical article that enables reproducibility and transparency can also be clear and memorable.

Barring extraordinary disruption, empirical journal articles are likely to survive at least a couple more decades. Authors will continue to write empirical articles to communicate why they did their studies, how they did their studies, what they observed, and what those observations mean. And readers will continue to read empirical articles to receive this communication. The most successful articles will continue to embody Grice’s (1975) maxims for communication: They will be informative, truthful, relevant, clear, and memorable.

1 Some researchers distinguish between replication, which they define as corroborating previous results by collecting new data, and reproduction, which they define as corroborating previous results by analyzing previous data ( Peng, 2011 ). Other researchers consider the two terms to be synonymous ( Shuttleworth, 2009 ), or they propose that the two terms should be used synonymously ( Goodman, Fanelli, & Ioannidis, 2016 ).

2 To make a linked, or clickable, DOI, simply add the preface https://doi.org to the alphanumeric string.

Author Contributions

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no conflicts of interest with respect to the authorship or the publication of this article.

Data and materials are available via Open Science Framework and can be accessed at https://osf.io/uxych . The Open Practices Disclosure for this article can be found at http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/suppl/10.1177/2515245918754485 . This article has received badges for Open Data and Open Materials. More information about the Open Practices badges can be found at http://www.psychologicalscience.org/publications/badges .

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