example of scientific method research paper

Sample Paper in Scientific Format

Biology 151/152.

The sample paper below has been compressed into the left-hand column on the pages below. In the right-hand column we have included notes explaining how and why the paper is written as it is.

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• How to Write Your Methods

Ensure understanding, reproducibility and replicability

What should you include in your methods section, and how much detail is appropriate?

Why Methods Matter

The methods section was once the most likely part of a paper to be unfairly abbreviated, overly summarized, or even relegated to hard-to-find sections of a publisher’s website. While some journals may responsibly include more detailed elements of methods in supplementary sections, the movement for increased reproducibility and rigor in science has reinstated the importance of the methods section. Methods are now viewed as a key element in establishing the credibility of the research being reported, alongside the open availability of data and results.

A clear methods section impacts editorial evaluation and readers’ understanding, and is also the backbone of transparency and replicability.

For example, the Reproducibility Project: Cancer Biology project set out in 2013 to replicate experiments from 50 high profile cancer papers, but revised their target to 18 papers once they understood how much methodological detail was not contained in the original papers.

What to include in your methods section

What you include in your methods sections depends on what field you are in and what experiments you are performing. However, the general principle in place at the majority of journals is summarized well by the guidelines at PLOS ONE : “The Materials and Methods section should provide enough detail to allow suitably skilled investigators to fully replicate your study. ” The emphases here are deliberate: the methods should enable readers to understand your paper, and replicate your study. However, there is no need to go into the level of detail that a lay-person would require—the focus is on the reader who is also trained in your field, with the suitable skills and knowledge to attempt a replication.

A constant principle of rigorous science

A methods section that enables other researchers to understand and replicate your results is a constant principle of rigorous, transparent, and Open Science. Aim to be thorough, even if a particular journal doesn’t require the same level of detail . Reproducibility is all of our responsibility. You cannot create any problems by exceeding a minimum standard of information. If a journal still has word-limits—either for the overall article or specific sections—and requires some methodological details to be in a supplemental section, that is OK as long as the extra details are searchable and findable .

Imagine replicating your own work, years in the future

As part of PLOS’ presentation on Reproducibility and Open Publishing (part of UCSF’s Reproducibility Series ) we recommend planning the level of detail in your methods section by imagining you are writing for your future self, replicating your own work. When you consider that you might be at a different institution, with different account logins, applications, resources, and access levels—you can help yourself imagine the level of specificity that you yourself would require to redo the exact experiment. Consider:

• Which details would you need to be reminded of? 
• Which cell line, or antibody, or software, or reagent did you use, and does it have a Research Resource ID (RRID) that you can cite?
• Which version of a questionnaire did you use in your survey? 
• Exactly which visual stimulus did you show participants, and is it publicly available? 
• What participants did you decide to exclude? 
• What process did you adjust, during your work? 

Tip: Be sure to capture any changes to your protocols

You yourself would want to know about any adjustments, if you ever replicate the work, so you can surmise that anyone else would want to as well. Even if a necessary adjustment you made was not ideal, transparency is the key to ensuring this is not regarded as an issue in the future. It is far better to transparently convey any non-optimal methods, or methodological constraints, than to conceal them, which could result in reproducibility or ethical issues downstream.

Visual aids for methods help when reading the whole paper

Consider whether a visual representation of your methods could be appropriate or aid understanding your process. A visual reference readers can easily return to, like a flow-diagram, decision-tree, or checklist, can help readers to better understand the complete article, not just the methods section.

Ethical Considerations

In addition to describing what you did, it is just as important to assure readers that you also followed all relevant ethical guidelines when conducting your research. While ethical standards and reporting guidelines are often presented in a separate section of a paper, ensure that your methods and protocols actually follow these guidelines. Read more about ethics .

Existing standards, checklists, guidelines, partners

While the level of detail contained in a methods section should be guided by the universal principles of rigorous science outlined above, various disciplines, fields, and projects have worked hard to design and develop consistent standards, guidelines, and tools to help with reporting all types of experiment. Below, you’ll find some of the key initiatives. Ensure you read the submission guidelines for the specific journal you are submitting to, in order to discover any further journal- or field-specific policies to follow, or initiatives/tools to utilize.

Tip: Keep your paper moving forward by providing the proper paperwork up front

Be sure to check the journal guidelines and provide the necessary documents with your manuscript submission. Collecting the necessary documentation can greatly slow the first round of peer review, or cause delays when you submit your revision.

Randomized Controlled Trials – CONSORT The Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) project covers various initiatives intended to prevent the problems of  inadequate reporting of randomized controlled trials. The primary initiative is an evidence-based minimum set of recommendations for reporting randomized trials known as the CONSORT Statement . 

Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses – PRISMA The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses ( PRISMA ) is an evidence-based minimum set of items focusing  on the reporting of  reviews evaluating randomized trials and other types of research.

Research using Animals – ARRIVE The Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments ( ARRIVE ) guidelines encourage maximizing the information reported in research using animals thereby minimizing unnecessary studies. (Original study and proposal , and updated guidelines , in PLOS Biology .) 

Laboratory Protocols Protocols.io has developed a platform specifically for the sharing and updating of laboratory protocols , which are assigned their own DOI and can be linked from methods sections of papers to enhance reproducibility. Contextualize your protocol and improve discovery with an accompanying Lab Protocol article in PLOS ONE .

Consistent reporting of Materials, Design, and Analysis – the MDAR checklist A cross-publisher group of editors and experts have developed, tested, and rolled out a checklist to help establish and harmonize reporting standards in the Life Sciences . The checklist , which is available for use by authors to compile their methods, and editors/reviewers to check methods, establishes a minimum set of requirements in transparent reporting and is adaptable to any discipline within the Life Sciences, by covering a breadth of potentially relevant methodological items and considerations. If you are in the Life Sciences and writing up your methods section, try working through the MDAR checklist and see whether it helps you include all relevant details into your methods, and whether it reminded you of anything you might have missed otherwise.

Summary Writing tips

The main challenge you may find when writing your methods is keeping it readable AND covering all the details needed for reproducibility and replicability. While this is difficult, do not compromise on rigorous standards for credibility!

• Keep in mind future replicability, alongside understanding and readability.
• Follow checklists, and field- and journal-specific guidelines.
• Consider a commitment to rigorous and transparent science a personal responsibility, and not just adhering to journal guidelines.
• Establish whether there are persistent identifiers for any research resources you use that can be specifically cited in your methods section.
• Deposit your laboratory protocols in Protocols.io, establishing a permanent link to them. You can update your protocols later if you improve on them, as can future scientists who follow your protocols.
• Consider visual aids like flow-diagrams, lists, to help with reading other sections of the paper.
• Be specific about all decisions made during the experiments that someone reproducing your work would need to know.

Don’t

• Summarize or abbreviate methods without giving full details in a discoverable supplemental section.
• Presume you will always be able to remember how you performed the experiments, or have access to private or institutional notebooks and resources.
• Attempt to hide constraints or non-optimal decisions you had to make–transparency is the key to ensuring the credibility of your research.
• How to Write a Great Title
• How to Write an Abstract
• How to Report Statistics
• How to Write Discussions and Conclusions
• How to Edit Your Work

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Writing a scientific paper.

• Writing a lab report
• INTRODUCTION

Writing a "good" methods section

"methods checklist" from: how to write a good scientific paper. chris a. mack. spie. 2018..

• LITERATURE CITED
• Bibliography of guides to scientific writing and presenting
• Peer Review
• Presentations
• Lab Report Writing Guides on the Web

The purpose is to provide enough detail that a competent worker could repeat the experiment. Many of your readers will skip this section because they already know from the Introduction the general methods you used. However careful writing of this section is important because for your results to be of scientific merit they must be reproducible. Otherwise your paper does not represent good science.

• Exact technical specifications and quantities and source or method of preparation
• Describe equipment used and provide illustrations where relevant.
• Chronological presentation (but related methods described together)
• Questions about "how" and "how much" are answered for the reader and not left for them to puzzle over
• Discuss statistical methods only if unusual or advanced
• When a large number of components are used prepare tables for the benefit of the reader
• Do not state the action without stating the agent of the action
• Describe how the results were generated with sufficient detail so that an independent researcher (working in the same field) could reproduce the results sufficiently to allow validation of the conclusions.
• Can the reader assess internal validity (conclusions are supported by the results presented)?
• Can the reader assess external validity (conclusions are properly generalized beyond these specific results)?
• Has the chosen method been justified?
• Are data analysis and statistical approaches justified, with assumptions and biases considered?
• Avoid: including results in the Method section; including extraneous details (unnecessary to enable reproducibility or judge validity); treating the method as a chronological history of events; unneeded references to commercial products; references to “proprietary” products or processes unavailable to the reader. 
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15 Scientific Method Examples

The scientific method is a structured and systematic approach to investigating natural phenomena using empirical evidence . 

The scientific method has been a lynchpin for rapid improvements in human development. It has been an invaluable procedure for testing and improving upon human ingenuity. It’s led to amazing scientific, technological, and medical breakthroughs.

Some common steps in a scientific approach would include:

• Observation
• Question formulation
• Hypothesis development
• Experimentation and collecting data
• Analyzing results
• Drawing conclusions

Definition of Scientific Method

The scientific method is a structured and systematic approach to investigating natural phenomena or events through empirical evidence. 

Empirical evidence can be gathered from experimentation, observation, analysis, and interpretation of data that allows one to create generalizations about probable reasons behind those happenings. 

As mentioned in the article published in the journal  Nature,

“ As schoolchildren, we are taught that the scientific method involves a question and suggested explanation (hypothesis) based on observation, followed by the careful design and execution of controlled experiments, and finally validation, refinement or rejection of this hypothesis” (p. 237).

The use of scientific methods permits replication and validation of other people’s scientific analyses, leading toward improvement upon previous results, and solid empirical conclusions. 

Voit (2019) adds that:

“…it not only prescribes the order and types of activities that give a scientific study validity and a stamp of approval but also has substantially shaped how we collectively think about the endeavor of investigating nature” (p. 1).

This method aims to minimize subjective biases while maximizing objectivity helping researchers gather factual data. 

It follows set procedures and guidelines for testing hypotheses using controlled conditions, assuring optimum accuracy and relevance in concluding by assessing a range of aspects (Blystone & Blodgett, 2006).

Overall, the scientific method provides researchers with a structured way of inquiry that seeks insightful explanations regarding evidence-based investigation grounded in facts acquired from an array of fields.

15 Examples of Scientific Method

• Medicine Delivery : Scientists use scientific method to determine the most effective way of delivering a medicine to its target location in the body. They perform experiments and gather data on the different methods of medicine delivery, monitoring factors such as dosage and time release.
• Agricultural Research : Scientific method is frequently used in agricultural research to determine the most effective way to grow crops or raise livestock. This may involve testing different fertilizers, irrigation methods, or animal feed, measuring yield, and analyzing data.
• Food Science and Nutrition : Nutritionists and food scientists use the scientific method to study the effects of different food types and diet on health. They design experiments to understand the impact of dietary changes on weight, disease risk, and overall health outcomes.
• Environmental Studies : Researchers use scientific method to study natural ecosystems and how human activities impact them. They collect data on things like biodiversity, water quality, and pollution levels, analyzing changes over time.
• Psychological Studies : Psychologists use the scientific method to understand human behavior and cognition. They conduct experiments under controlled conditions to test theories about learning, memory, social interaction, and more.
• Climate Change Research : Climate scientists use the scientific method to study the Earth’s changing climate. They collect and analyze data on temperature, CO2 levels, and ice coverage to understand trends and make predictions about future changes.
• Geology Exploration : Geologists use scientific method to analyze rock samples from deep in the earth’s crust and gather information about geological processes over millions of years. They evaluate data by studying patterns left behind by these processes.
• Space Exploration : Scientists use scientific methods in designing space missions so that they can explore other planets or learn more about our solar system. They employ experiments like landing craft exploration missions as well as remote sensing techniques that allow them to examine far-off planets without having physically land on their surfaces.
• Archaeology : Archaeologists use the scientific method to understand past human cultures. They formulate hypotheses about a site or artifact, conduct excavations or analyses, and then interpret the data to test their hypotheses.
• Clinical Trials : Medical researchers use scientific method to test new treatments and therapies for various diseases. They design controlled studies that track patients’ outcomes while varying variables like dosage or treatment frequency.
• Industrial Research & Development : Many companies use scientific methods in their R&D departments. For example, automakers may assess the effectiveness of anti-lock brakes before releasing them into the marketplace through tests with dummy targets.
• Material Science Experiments : Engineers have extensively used scientific method experimentation efforts when designing new materials and testing which options could be flexible enough for certain applications. These experiments might include casting molten material into molds and then subjecting it to high heat to expose vulnerabilities
• Chemical Engineering Investigations : Chemical engineers also abide by scientific method principles to create new chemical compounds & technologies designed to be valuable in the industry. They may experiment with different substances, changing materials’ concentration and heating conditions to ensure the final end-product safety and reliability of the material.
• Biotechnology : Biotechnologists use the scientific method to develop new products or processes. For instance, they may experiment with genetic modification techniques to enhance crop resistance to pests or disease.
• Physics Research : Scientists use scientific method in their work to study fundamental principles of the universe. They seek answers for how atoms and molecules are breaking down and related events that unfold naturally by running many simulations using computer models or designing sophisticated experiments to test hypotheses.

Origins of the Scientific Method

The scientific method can be traced back to ancient times when philosophers like Aristotle used observation and logic to understand the natural world. 

These early philosophers were focused on understanding the world around them and sought explanations for natural phenomena through direct observation (Betz, 2010).

In the Middle Ages, Muslim scholars played a key role in developing scientific inquiry by emphasizing empirical observations. 

Alhazen (a.k.a Ibn al-Haytham), for example, introduced experimental methods that helped establish optics as a modern science. He emphasized investigation through experimentation with controlled conditions (De Brouwer, 2021).

During the Scientific Revolution of the 17th century in Europe, scientists such as Francis Bacon and René Descartes began to develop what we now know as the scientific method observation (Betz, 2010).

Bacon argued that knowledge must be based on empirical evidence obtained through observation and experimentation rather than relying solely upon tradition or authority. 

Descartes emphasized mathematical methods as tools in experimentation and rigorous thinking processes (Fukuyama, 2021).

These ideas later developed into systematic research designs , including hypothesis testing, controlled experiments, and statistical analysis – all of which are still fundamental aspects of modern-day scientific research.

Since then, technological advancements have allowed for more sophisticated instruments and measurements, yielding far more precise data sets scientists use today in fields ranging from Medicine & Chemistry to Astrophysics or Genetics.

So, while early Greek philosophers laid much groundwork toward an observational-based approach to explaining nature, Islam scholars furthered our understanding of logical reasoning techniques and gave rise to a more formalized methodology.

Steps in the Scientific Method

While there may be variations in the specific steps scientists follow, the general process has six key steps (Blystone & Blodgett, 2006).

Here is a brief overview of each of these steps:

1. Observation

The first step in the scientific method is to identify and observe a phenomenon that requires explanation. 

This can involve asking open-ended questions, making detailed observations using our senses or tools, or exploring natural patterns, which are sources to develop hypotheses. 

2. Formulation of a Hypothesis

A hypothesis is an educated guess or proposed explanation for the observed phenomenon based on previous observations & experiences or working assumptions derived from a valid literature review . 

The hypothesis should be testable and falsifiable through experimentation and subsequent analysis.

3. Testing of the Hypothesis

In this step, scientists perform experiments to test their hypothesis while ensuring that all variables are controlled besides the one being observed.

The data collected in these experiments must be measurable, repeatable, and consistent.

4. Data Analysis

Researchers carefully scrutinize data gathered from experiments – typically using inferential statistics techniques to analyze whether results support their hypotheses or not.

This helps them gain important insights into what previously unknown mechanisms might exist based on statistical evidence gained about their system.

See: 15 Examples of Data Analysis

5. Drawing Conclusions 

Based on their data analyses, scientists reach conclusions about whether their original hypotheses were supported by evidence obtained from testing.

If there is insufficient supporting evidence for their ideas – trying again with modified iterations of the initial idea sometimes happens.

6. Communicating Results

Once results have been analyzed and interpreted under accepted principles within the scientific community, scientists publish findings in respected peer-reviewed journals.

These publications help knowledge-driven communities establish trends within respective fields while indirectly subjecting papers reviews requests boosting research quality across the scientific discipline.

Importance of the Scientific Method

The scientific method is important because it helps us to collect reliable data and develop testable hypotheses that can be used to explain natural phenomena (Haig, 2018).

Here are some reasons why the scientific method is so essential:

• Objectivity : The scientific method requires researchers to conduct unbiased experiments and analyses, which leads to more impartial conclusions. In this way, replication of findings by peers also ensures results can be relied upon as founded on sound principles allowing others confidence in building further knowledge on top of existing research.
• Precision & Predictive Power : Scientific methods usually include techniques for obtaining highly precise measurements, ensuring that data collected is more meaningful with fewer uncertainties caused by limited measuring errors leading to statistically significant results having firm logical foundations. If predictions develop scientifically tested generalized defined conditions factored into the analysis, it helps in delivering realistic expectations
• Validation : By following established scientific principles defined within the community – independent scholars can replicate observation data without being influenced by subjective biases or prejudices. It assures general acceptance among scientific communities who follow similar protocols when researching within respective fields.
• Application & Innovation : Scientific concept advancements that occur based on correct hypothesis testing commonly lead scientists toward new discoveries, identifying potential breakthroughs in research. They pave the way for technological innovations often seen as game changers, like mapping human genome DNA onto creating novel therapies against genetic diseases or unlocking secrets of today’s universe through discoveries at LHC.
• Impactful Decision-Making : Policymakers can draw from these scientific findings investing resources into informed decisions leading us toward a sustainable future. For example, research gathered about carbon pollution’s impact on climate change informs debate making policy action decisions about our planet’s environment, providing valuable knowledge-useful information benefiting societies (Haig, 2018).

The scientific method is an essential tool that has revolutionized our understanding of the natural world.

By emphasizing rigorous experimentation, objective measurement, and logical analysis- scientists can obtain more unbiased evidence with empirical validity . 

Utilizing this methodology has led to groundbreaking discoveries & knowledge expansion that have shaped our modern world from medicine to technology. 

The scientific method plays a crucial role in advancing research and our overall societal consensus on reliable information by providing reliable results, ensuring we can make more informed decisions toward a sustainable future. 

As scientific advancements continue rapidly, ensuring we’re applying core principles of this process enables objectives to progress, paving new ways for interdisciplinary research across all fields, thereby fuelling ever-driving human curiosity.

Betz, F. (2010). Origin of scientific method.  Managing Science , 21–41. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-7488-4_2

Blystone, R. V., & Blodgett, K. (2006). WWW: The scientific method.  CBE—Life Sciences Education ,  5 (1), 7–11. https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.05-12-0134

De Brouwer , P. J. S. (2021).  The big r-book: From data science to learning machines and big data . John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Defining the scientific method. (2009).  Nature Methods ,  6 (4), 237–237. https://doi.org/10.1038/nmeth0409-237

Fukuyama, F. (2012).  The end of history and the last man . New York: Penguin.

Haig, B. D. (2018). The importance of scientific method for psychological science.  Psychology, Crime & Law ,  25 (6), 527–541. https://doi.org/10.1080/1068316x.2018.1557181

Voit, E. O. (2019). Perspective: Dimensions of the scientific method.  PLOS Computational Biology ,  15 (9), e1007279. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1007279

Viktoriya Sus (MA)

Viktoriya Sus is an academic writer specializing mainly in economics and business from Ukraine. She holds a Master’s degree in International Business from Lviv National University and has more than 6 years of experience writing for different clients. Viktoriya is passionate about researching the latest trends in economics and business. However, she also loves to explore different topics such as psychology, philosophy, and more.

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How to Write the Methods Section of a Scientific Article

What Is the Methods Section of a Research Paper?

The Methods section of a research article includes an explanation of the procedures used to conduct the experiment. For authors of scientific research papers, the objective is to present their findings clearly and concisely and to provide enough information so that the experiment can be duplicated.

Research articles contain very specific sections, usually dictated by either the target journal or specific style guides. For example, in the social and behavioral sciences, the American Psychological Association (APA) style guide is used to gather information on how the manuscript should be arranged . As with most styles, APA’s objectives are to ensure that manuscripts are written with minimum distractions to the reader. Every research article should include a detailed Methods section after the Introduction.

Why is the Methods Section Important?

The Methods section (also referred to as “Materials and Methods”) is important because it provides the reader enough information to judge whether the study is valid and reproducible.

Structure of the Methods Section in a Research Paper

While designing a research study, authors typically decide on the key points that they’re trying to prove or the “ cause-and-effect relationship ” between objects of the study. Very simply, the study is designed to meet the objective. According to APA, a Methods section comprises of the following three subsections: participants, apparatus, and procedure.

How do You Write a Method Section in Biology?

In biological sciences, the Methods section might be more detailed, but the objectives are the same—to present the study clearly and concisely so that it is understandable and can be duplicated.

If animals (including human subjects) were used in the study, authors should ensure to include statements that they were treated according to the protocols outlined to ensure that treatment is as humane as possible.

• The Declaration of Helsinki is a set of ethical principles developed by The World Medical Association to provide guidance to scientists and physicians in medical research involving human subjects.

Research conducted at an institution using human participants is overseen by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) with which it is affiliated. IRB is an administrative body whose purpose is to protect the rights and welfare of human subjects during their participation in the study.

Literature Search

Literature searches are performed to gather as much information as relevant from previous studies. They are important for providing evidence on the topic and help validate the research. Most are accomplished using keywords or phrases to search relevant databases. For example, both MEDLINE and PubMed provide information on biomedical literature. Google Scholar, according to APA, is “one of the best sources available to an individual beginning a literature search.” APA also suggests using PsycINFO and refers to it as “the premier database for locating articles in psychological science and related literature.”

Authors must make sure to have a set of keywords (usually taken from the objective statement) to stay focused and to avoid having the search move far from the original objective. Authors will benefit by setting limiting parameters, such as date ranges, and avoiding getting pulled into the trap of using non-valid resources, such as social media, conversations with people in the same discipline, or similar non-valid sources, as references.

Related: Ready with your methods section and looking forward to manuscript submission ? Check these journal selection guidelines now!

What Should be Included in the Methods Section of a Research Paper?

One commonly misused term in research papers is “methodology.” Methodology refers to a branch of the Philosophy of Science which deals with scientific methods, not to the methods themselves, so authors should avoid using it. Here is the list of main subsections that should be included in the Methods section of a research paper ; authors might use subheadings more clearly to describe their research.

• Literature search : Authors should cite any sources that helped with their choice of methods. Authors should indicate timeframes of past studies and their particular parameters.
• Study participants : Authors should cite the source from where they received any non-human subjects. The number of animals used, the ages, sex, their initial conditions, and how they were housed and cared for, should be listed. In case of human subjects, authors should provide the characteristics, such as geographical location; their age ranges, sex, and medical history (if relevant); and the number of subjects. In case hospital records were used, authors should include the subjects’ basic health information and vital statistics at the beginning of the study. Authors should also state that written informed consent was provided by each subject.
• Inclusion/exclusion criteria : Authors should describe their inclusion and exclusion criteria, how they were determined, and how many subjects were eliminated.
• Group characteristics (could be combined with “Study participants”) : Authors should describe how the chosen group was divided into subgroups and their characteristics, including the control. Authors should also describe any specific equipment used, such as housing needs and feed (usually for animal studies). If patient records are reviewed and assessed, authors should mention whether the reviewers were blinded to them.
• Procedures : Authors should describe their study design. Any necessary preparations (e.g., tissue samples, drugs) and instruments must be explained. Authors should describe how the subjects were “ manipulated to answer the experimental question .” Timeframes should be included to ensure that the procedures are clear (e.g., “Rats were given XX drug for 14 d”). For animals sacrificed, the methods used and the protocols followed should be outlined.
• Statistical analyses: The type of data, how they were measured, and which statistical tests were performed, should be described. (Note: This is not the “results” section; any relevant tables and figures should be referenced later.) Specific software used must be cited.

What Should not be Included in Your Methods Section?

Common pitfalls can make the manuscript cumbersome to read or might make the readers question the validity of the research. The University of Southern California provides some guidelines .

• Background information that is not helpful must be avoided.
• Authors must avoid providing a lot of detail.
• Authors should focus more on how their method was used to meet their objective and less on mechanics .
• Any obstacles faced and how they were overcome should be described (often in your “Study Limitations”). This will help validate the results.

According to the University of Richmond , authors must avoid including extensive details or an exhaustive list of equipment that have been used as readers could quickly lose attention. These unnecessary details add nothing to validate the research and do not help the reader understand how the objective was satisfied. A well-thought-out Methods section is one of the most important parts of the manuscript. Authors must make a note to always prepare a draft that lists all parts, allow others to review it, and revise it to remove any superfluous information.

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Scientific Reports

What this handout is about.

This handout provides a general guide to writing reports about scientific research you’ve performed. In addition to describing the conventional rules about the format and content of a lab report, we’ll also attempt to convey why these rules exist, so you’ll get a clearer, more dependable idea of how to approach this writing situation. Readers of this handout may also find our handout on writing in the sciences useful.

Background and pre-writing

Why do we write research reports.

You did an experiment or study for your science class, and now you have to write it up for your teacher to review. You feel that you understood the background sufficiently, designed and completed the study effectively, obtained useful data, and can use those data to draw conclusions about a scientific process or principle. But how exactly do you write all that? What is your teacher expecting to see?

To take some of the guesswork out of answering these questions, try to think beyond the classroom setting. In fact, you and your teacher are both part of a scientific community, and the people who participate in this community tend to share the same values. As long as you understand and respect these values, your writing will likely meet the expectations of your audience—including your teacher.

So why are you writing this research report? The practical answer is “Because the teacher assigned it,” but that’s classroom thinking. Generally speaking, people investigating some scientific hypothesis have a responsibility to the rest of the scientific world to report their findings, particularly if these findings add to or contradict previous ideas. The people reading such reports have two primary goals:

• They want to gather the information presented.
• They want to know that the findings are legitimate.

Your job as a writer, then, is to fulfill these two goals.

How do I do that?

Good question. Here is the basic format scientists have designed for research reports:

• Introduction

Methods and Materials

This format, sometimes called “IMRAD,” may take slightly different shapes depending on the discipline or audience; some ask you to include an abstract or separate section for the hypothesis, or call the Discussion section “Conclusions,” or change the order of the sections (some professional and academic journals require the Methods section to appear last). Overall, however, the IMRAD format was devised to represent a textual version of the scientific method.

The scientific method, you’ll probably recall, involves developing a hypothesis, testing it, and deciding whether your findings support the hypothesis. In essence, the format for a research report in the sciences mirrors the scientific method but fleshes out the process a little. Below, you’ll find a table that shows how each written section fits into the scientific method and what additional information it offers the reader.

Thinking of your research report as based on the scientific method, but elaborated in the ways described above, may help you to meet your audience’s expectations successfully. We’re going to proceed by explicitly connecting each section of the lab report to the scientific method, then explaining why and how you need to elaborate that section.

Although this handout takes each section in the order in which it should be presented in the final report, you may for practical reasons decide to compose sections in another order. For example, many writers find that composing their Methods and Results before the other sections helps to clarify their idea of the experiment or study as a whole. You might consider using each assignment to practice different approaches to drafting the report, to find the order that works best for you.

What should I do before drafting the lab report?

The best way to prepare to write the lab report is to make sure that you fully understand everything you need to about the experiment. Obviously, if you don’t quite know what went on during the lab, you’re going to find it difficult to explain the lab satisfactorily to someone else. To make sure you know enough to write the report, complete the following steps:

• What are we going to do in this lab? (That is, what’s the procedure?)
• Why are we going to do it that way?
• What are we hoping to learn from this experiment?
• Why would we benefit from this knowledge?
• Consult your lab supervisor as you perform the lab. If you don’t know how to answer one of the questions above, for example, your lab supervisor will probably be able to explain it to you (or, at least, help you figure it out).
• Plan the steps of the experiment carefully with your lab partners. The less you rush, the more likely it is that you’ll perform the experiment correctly and record your findings accurately. Also, take some time to think about the best way to organize the data before you have to start putting numbers down. If you can design a table to account for the data, that will tend to work much better than jotting results down hurriedly on a scrap piece of paper.
• Record the data carefully so you get them right. You won’t be able to trust your conclusions if you have the wrong data, and your readers will know you messed up if the other three people in your group have “97 degrees” and you have “87.”
• Consult with your lab partners about everything you do. Lab groups often make one of two mistakes: two people do all the work while two have a nice chat, or everybody works together until the group finishes gathering the raw data, then scrams outta there. Collaborate with your partners, even when the experiment is “over.” What trends did you observe? Was the hypothesis supported? Did you all get the same results? What kind of figure should you use to represent your findings? The whole group can work together to answer these questions.
• Consider your audience. You may believe that audience is a non-issue: it’s your lab TA, right? Well, yes—but again, think beyond the classroom. If you write with only your lab instructor in mind, you may omit material that is crucial to a complete understanding of your experiment, because you assume the instructor knows all that stuff already. As a result, you may receive a lower grade, since your TA won’t be sure that you understand all the principles at work. Try to write towards a student in the same course but a different lab section. That student will have a fair degree of scientific expertise but won’t know much about your experiment particularly. Alternatively, you could envision yourself five years from now, after the reading and lectures for this course have faded a bit. What would you remember, and what would you need explained more clearly (as a refresher)?

Once you’ve completed these steps as you perform the experiment, you’ll be in a good position to draft an effective lab report.

Introductions

How do i write a strong introduction.

For the purposes of this handout, we’ll consider the Introduction to contain four basic elements: the purpose, the scientific literature relevant to the subject, the hypothesis, and the reasons you believed your hypothesis viable. Let’s start by going through each element of the Introduction to clarify what it covers and why it’s important. Then we can formulate a logical organizational strategy for the section.

The inclusion of the purpose (sometimes called the objective) of the experiment often confuses writers. The biggest misconception is that the purpose is the same as the hypothesis. Not quite. We’ll get to hypotheses in a minute, but basically they provide some indication of what you expect the experiment to show. The purpose is broader, and deals more with what you expect to gain through the experiment. In a professional setting, the hypothesis might have something to do with how cells react to a certain kind of genetic manipulation, but the purpose of the experiment is to learn more about potential cancer treatments. Undergraduate reports don’t often have this wide-ranging a goal, but you should still try to maintain the distinction between your hypothesis and your purpose. In a solubility experiment, for example, your hypothesis might talk about the relationship between temperature and the rate of solubility, but the purpose is probably to learn more about some specific scientific principle underlying the process of solubility.

For starters, most people say that you should write out your working hypothesis before you perform the experiment or study. Many beginning science students neglect to do so and find themselves struggling to remember precisely which variables were involved in the process or in what way the researchers felt that they were related. Write your hypothesis down as you develop it—you’ll be glad you did.

As for the form a hypothesis should take, it’s best not to be too fancy or complicated; an inventive style isn’t nearly so important as clarity here. There’s nothing wrong with beginning your hypothesis with the phrase, “It was hypothesized that . . .” Be as specific as you can about the relationship between the different objects of your study. In other words, explain that when term A changes, term B changes in this particular way. Readers of scientific writing are rarely content with the idea that a relationship between two terms exists—they want to know what that relationship entails.

Not a hypothesis:

“It was hypothesized that there is a significant relationship between the temperature of a solvent and the rate at which a solute dissolves.”

Hypothesis:

“It was hypothesized that as the temperature of a solvent increases, the rate at which a solute will dissolve in that solvent increases.”

Put more technically, most hypotheses contain both an independent and a dependent variable. The independent variable is what you manipulate to test the reaction; the dependent variable is what changes as a result of your manipulation. In the example above, the independent variable is the temperature of the solvent, and the dependent variable is the rate of solubility. Be sure that your hypothesis includes both variables.

Justify your hypothesis

You need to do more than tell your readers what your hypothesis is; you also need to assure them that this hypothesis was reasonable, given the circumstances. In other words, use the Introduction to explain that you didn’t just pluck your hypothesis out of thin air. (If you did pluck it out of thin air, your problems with your report will probably extend beyond using the appropriate format.) If you posit that a particular relationship exists between the independent and the dependent variable, what led you to believe your “guess” might be supported by evidence?

Scientists often refer to this type of justification as “motivating” the hypothesis, in the sense that something propelled them to make that prediction. Often, motivation includes what we already know—or rather, what scientists generally accept as true (see “Background/previous research” below). But you can also motivate your hypothesis by relying on logic or on your own observations. If you’re trying to decide which solutes will dissolve more rapidly in a solvent at increased temperatures, you might remember that some solids are meant to dissolve in hot water (e.g., bouillon cubes) and some are used for a function precisely because they withstand higher temperatures (they make saucepans out of something). Or you can think about whether you’ve noticed sugar dissolving more rapidly in your glass of iced tea or in your cup of coffee. Even such basic, outside-the-lab observations can help you justify your hypothesis as reasonable.

Background/previous research

This part of the Introduction demonstrates to the reader your awareness of how you’re building on other scientists’ work. If you think of the scientific community as engaging in a series of conversations about various topics, then you’ll recognize that the relevant background material will alert the reader to which conversation you want to enter.

Generally speaking, authors writing journal articles use the background for slightly different purposes than do students completing assignments. Because readers of academic journals tend to be professionals in the field, authors explain the background in order to permit readers to evaluate the study’s pertinence for their own work. You, on the other hand, write toward a much narrower audience—your peers in the course or your lab instructor—and so you must demonstrate that you understand the context for the (presumably assigned) experiment or study you’ve completed. For example, if your professor has been talking about polarity during lectures, and you’re doing a solubility experiment, you might try to connect the polarity of a solid to its relative solubility in certain solvents. In any event, both professional researchers and undergraduates need to connect the background material overtly to their own work.

Organization of this section

Most of the time, writers begin by stating the purpose or objectives of their own work, which establishes for the reader’s benefit the “nature and scope of the problem investigated” (Day 1994). Once you have expressed your purpose, you should then find it easier to move from the general purpose, to relevant material on the subject, to your hypothesis. In abbreviated form, an Introduction section might look like this:

“The purpose of the experiment was to test conventional ideas about solubility in the laboratory [purpose] . . . According to Whitecoat and Labrat (1999), at higher temperatures the molecules of solvents move more quickly . . . We know from the class lecture that molecules moving at higher rates of speed collide with one another more often and thus break down more easily [background material/motivation] . . . Thus, it was hypothesized that as the temperature of a solvent increases, the rate at which a solute will dissolve in that solvent increases [hypothesis].”

Again—these are guidelines, not commandments. Some writers and readers prefer different structures for the Introduction. The one above merely illustrates a common approach to organizing material.

How do I write a strong Materials and Methods section?

As with any piece of writing, your Methods section will succeed only if it fulfills its readers’ expectations, so you need to be clear in your own mind about the purpose of this section. Let’s review the purpose as we described it above: in this section, you want to describe in detail how you tested the hypothesis you developed and also to clarify the rationale for your procedure. In science, it’s not sufficient merely to design and carry out an experiment. Ultimately, others must be able to verify your findings, so your experiment must be reproducible, to the extent that other researchers can follow the same procedure and obtain the same (or similar) results.

Here’s a real-world example of the importance of reproducibility. In 1989, physicists Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischman announced that they had discovered “cold fusion,” a way of producing excess heat and power without the nuclear radiation that accompanies “hot fusion.” Such a discovery could have great ramifications for the industrial production of energy, so these findings created a great deal of interest. When other scientists tried to duplicate the experiment, however, they didn’t achieve the same results, and as a result many wrote off the conclusions as unjustified (or worse, a hoax). To this day, the viability of cold fusion is debated within the scientific community, even though an increasing number of researchers believe it possible. So when you write your Methods section, keep in mind that you need to describe your experiment well enough to allow others to replicate it exactly.

With these goals in mind, let’s consider how to write an effective Methods section in terms of content, structure, and style.

Sometimes the hardest thing about writing this section isn’t what you should talk about, but what you shouldn’t talk about. Writers often want to include the results of their experiment, because they measured and recorded the results during the course of the experiment. But such data should be reserved for the Results section. In the Methods section, you can write that you recorded the results, or how you recorded the results (e.g., in a table), but you shouldn’t write what the results were—not yet. Here, you’re merely stating exactly how you went about testing your hypothesis. As you draft your Methods section, ask yourself the following questions:

• How much detail? Be precise in providing details, but stay relevant. Ask yourself, “Would it make any difference if this piece were a different size or made from a different material?” If not, you probably don’t need to get too specific. If so, you should give as many details as necessary to prevent this experiment from going awry if someone else tries to carry it out. Probably the most crucial detail is measurement; you should always quantify anything you can, such as time elapsed, temperature, mass, volume, etc.
• Rationale: Be sure that as you’re relating your actions during the experiment, you explain your rationale for the protocol you developed. If you capped a test tube immediately after adding a solute to a solvent, why did you do that? (That’s really two questions: why did you cap it, and why did you cap it immediately?) In a professional setting, writers provide their rationale as a way to explain their thinking to potential critics. On one hand, of course, that’s your motivation for talking about protocol, too. On the other hand, since in practical terms you’re also writing to your teacher (who’s seeking to evaluate how well you comprehend the principles of the experiment), explaining the rationale indicates that you understand the reasons for conducting the experiment in that way, and that you’re not just following orders. Critical thinking is crucial—robots don’t make good scientists.
• Control: Most experiments will include a control, which is a means of comparing experimental results. (Sometimes you’ll need to have more than one control, depending on the number of hypotheses you want to test.) The control is exactly the same as the other items you’re testing, except that you don’t manipulate the independent variable-the condition you’re altering to check the effect on the dependent variable. For example, if you’re testing solubility rates at increased temperatures, your control would be a solution that you didn’t heat at all; that way, you’ll see how quickly the solute dissolves “naturally” (i.e., without manipulation), and you’ll have a point of reference against which to compare the solutions you did heat.

Describe the control in the Methods section. Two things are especially important in writing about the control: identify the control as a control, and explain what you’re controlling for. Here is an example:

“As a control for the temperature change, we placed the same amount of solute in the same amount of solvent, and let the solution stand for five minutes without heating it.”

Structure and style

Organization is especially important in the Methods section of a lab report because readers must understand your experimental procedure completely. Many writers are surprised by the difficulty of conveying what they did during the experiment, since after all they’re only reporting an event, but it’s often tricky to present this information in a coherent way. There’s a fairly standard structure you can use to guide you, and following the conventions for style can help clarify your points.

• Subsections: Occasionally, researchers use subsections to report their procedure when the following circumstances apply: 1) if they’ve used a great many materials; 2) if the procedure is unusually complicated; 3) if they’ve developed a procedure that won’t be familiar to many of their readers. Because these conditions rarely apply to the experiments you’ll perform in class, most undergraduate lab reports won’t require you to use subsections. In fact, many guides to writing lab reports suggest that you try to limit your Methods section to a single paragraph.
• Narrative structure: Think of this section as telling a story about a group of people and the experiment they performed. Describe what you did in the order in which you did it. You may have heard the old joke centered on the line, “Disconnect the red wire, but only after disconnecting the green wire,” where the person reading the directions blows everything to kingdom come because the directions weren’t in order. We’re used to reading about events chronologically, and so your readers will generally understand what you did if you present that information in the same way. Also, since the Methods section does generally appear as a narrative (story), you want to avoid the “recipe” approach: “First, take a clean, dry 100 ml test tube from the rack. Next, add 50 ml of distilled water.” You should be reporting what did happen, not telling the reader how to perform the experiment: “50 ml of distilled water was poured into a clean, dry 100 ml test tube.” Hint: most of the time, the recipe approach comes from copying down the steps of the procedure from your lab manual, so you may want to draft the Methods section initially without consulting your manual. Later, of course, you can go back and fill in any part of the procedure you inadvertently overlooked.
• Past tense: Remember that you’re describing what happened, so you should use past tense to refer to everything you did during the experiment. Writers are often tempted to use the imperative (“Add 5 g of the solid to the solution”) because that’s how their lab manuals are worded; less frequently, they use present tense (“5 g of the solid are added to the solution”). Instead, remember that you’re talking about an event which happened at a particular time in the past, and which has already ended by the time you start writing, so simple past tense will be appropriate in this section (“5 g of the solid were added to the solution” or “We added 5 g of the solid to the solution”).
• Active: We heated the solution to 80°C. (The subject, “we,” performs the action, heating.)
• Passive: The solution was heated to 80°C. (The subject, “solution,” doesn’t do the heating–it is acted upon, not acting.)

Increasingly, especially in the social sciences, using first person and active voice is acceptable in scientific reports. Most readers find that this style of writing conveys information more clearly and concisely. This rhetorical choice thus brings two scientific values into conflict: objectivity versus clarity. Since the scientific community hasn’t reached a consensus about which style it prefers, you may want to ask your lab instructor.

How do I write a strong Results section?

Here’s a paradox for you. The Results section is often both the shortest (yay!) and most important (uh-oh!) part of your report. Your Materials and Methods section shows how you obtained the results, and your Discussion section explores the significance of the results, so clearly the Results section forms the backbone of the lab report. This section provides the most critical information about your experiment: the data that allow you to discuss how your hypothesis was or wasn’t supported. But it doesn’t provide anything else, which explains why this section is generally shorter than the others.

Before you write this section, look at all the data you collected to figure out what relates significantly to your hypothesis. You’ll want to highlight this material in your Results section. Resist the urge to include every bit of data you collected, since perhaps not all are relevant. Also, don’t try to draw conclusions about the results—save them for the Discussion section. In this section, you’re reporting facts. Nothing your readers can dispute should appear in the Results section.

Most Results sections feature three distinct parts: text, tables, and figures. Let’s consider each part one at a time.

This should be a short paragraph, generally just a few lines, that describes the results you obtained from your experiment. In a relatively simple experiment, one that doesn’t produce a lot of data for you to repeat, the text can represent the entire Results section. Don’t feel that you need to include lots of extraneous detail to compensate for a short (but effective) text; your readers appreciate discrimination more than your ability to recite facts. In a more complex experiment, you may want to use tables and/or figures to help guide your readers toward the most important information you gathered. In that event, you’ll need to refer to each table or figure directly, where appropriate:

“Table 1 lists the rates of solubility for each substance”

“Solubility increased as the temperature of the solution increased (see Figure 1).”

If you do use tables or figures, make sure that you don’t present the same material in both the text and the tables/figures, since in essence you’ll just repeat yourself, probably annoying your readers with the redundancy of your statements.

Feel free to describe trends that emerge as you examine the data. Although identifying trends requires some judgment on your part and so may not feel like factual reporting, no one can deny that these trends do exist, and so they properly belong in the Results section. Example:

“Heating the solution increased the rate of solubility of polar solids by 45% but had no effect on the rate of solubility in solutions containing non-polar solids.”

This point isn’t debatable—you’re just pointing out what the data show.

As in the Materials and Methods section, you want to refer to your data in the past tense, because the events you recorded have already occurred and have finished occurring. In the example above, note the use of “increased” and “had,” rather than “increases” and “has.” (You don’t know from your experiment that heating always increases the solubility of polar solids, but it did that time.)

You shouldn’t put information in the table that also appears in the text. You also shouldn’t use a table to present irrelevant data, just to show you did collect these data during the experiment. Tables are good for some purposes and situations, but not others, so whether and how you’ll use tables depends upon what you need them to accomplish.

Tables are useful ways to show variation in data, but not to present a great deal of unchanging measurements. If you’re dealing with a scientific phenomenon that occurs only within a certain range of temperatures, for example, you don’t need to use a table to show that the phenomenon didn’t occur at any of the other temperatures. How useful is this table?

As you can probably see, no solubility was observed until the trial temperature reached 50°C, a fact that the text part of the Results section could easily convey. The table could then be limited to what happened at 50°C and higher, thus better illustrating the differences in solubility rates when solubility did occur.

As a rule, try not to use a table to describe any experimental event you can cover in one sentence of text. Here’s an example of an unnecessary table from How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper , by Robert A. Day:

As Day notes, all the information in this table can be summarized in one sentence: “S. griseus, S. coelicolor, S. everycolor, and S. rainbowenski grew under aerobic conditions, whereas S. nocolor and S. greenicus required anaerobic conditions.” Most readers won’t find the table clearer than that one sentence.

When you do have reason to tabulate material, pay attention to the clarity and readability of the format you use. Here are a few tips:

• Number your table. Then, when you refer to the table in the text, use that number to tell your readers which table they can review to clarify the material.
• Give your table a title. This title should be descriptive enough to communicate the contents of the table, but not so long that it becomes difficult to follow. The titles in the sample tables above are acceptable.
• Arrange your table so that readers read vertically, not horizontally. For the most part, this rule means that you should construct your table so that like elements read down, not across. Think about what you want your readers to compare, and put that information in the column (up and down) rather than in the row (across). Usually, the point of comparison will be the numerical data you collect, so especially make sure you have columns of numbers, not rows.Here’s an example of how drastically this decision affects the readability of your table (from A Short Guide to Writing about Chemistry , by Herbert Beall and John Trimbur). Look at this table, which presents the relevant data in horizontal rows:

It’s a little tough to see the trends that the author presumably wants to present in this table. Compare this table, in which the data appear vertically:

The second table shows how putting like elements in a vertical column makes for easier reading. In this case, the like elements are the measurements of length and height, over five trials–not, as in the first table, the length and height measurements for each trial.

• Make sure to include units of measurement in the tables. Readers might be able to guess that you measured something in millimeters, but don’t make them try.
• Don’t use vertical lines as part of the format for your table. This convention exists because journals prefer not to have to reproduce these lines because the tables then become more expensive to print. Even though it’s fairly unlikely that you’ll be sending your Biology 11 lab report to Science for publication, your readers still have this expectation. Consequently, if you use the table-drawing option in your word-processing software, choose the option that doesn’t rely on a “grid” format (which includes vertical lines).

How do I include figures in my report?

Although tables can be useful ways of showing trends in the results you obtained, figures (i.e., illustrations) can do an even better job of emphasizing such trends. Lab report writers often use graphic representations of the data they collected to provide their readers with a literal picture of how the experiment went.

When should you use a figure?

Remember the circumstances under which you don’t need a table: when you don’t have a great deal of data or when the data you have don’t vary a lot. Under the same conditions, you would probably forgo the figure as well, since the figure would be unlikely to provide your readers with an additional perspective. Scientists really don’t like their time wasted, so they tend not to respond favorably to redundancy.

If you’re trying to decide between using a table and creating a figure to present your material, consider the following a rule of thumb. The strength of a table lies in its ability to supply large amounts of exact data, whereas the strength of a figure is its dramatic illustration of important trends within the experiment. If you feel that your readers won’t get the full impact of the results you obtained just by looking at the numbers, then a figure might be appropriate.

Of course, an undergraduate class may expect you to create a figure for your lab experiment, if only to make sure that you can do so effectively. If this is the case, then don’t worry about whether to use figures or not—concentrate instead on how best to accomplish your task.

Figures can include maps, photographs, pen-and-ink drawings, flow charts, bar graphs, and section graphs (“pie charts”). But the most common figure by far, especially for undergraduates, is the line graph, so we’ll focus on that type in this handout.

At the undergraduate level, you can often draw and label your graphs by hand, provided that the result is clear, legible, and drawn to scale. Computer technology has, however, made creating line graphs a lot easier. Most word-processing software has a number of functions for transferring data into graph form; many scientists have found Microsoft Excel, for example, a helpful tool in graphing results. If you plan on pursuing a career in the sciences, it may be well worth your while to learn to use a similar program.

Computers can’t, however, decide for you how your graph really works; you have to know how to design your graph to meet your readers’ expectations. Here are some of these expectations:

• Keep it as simple as possible. You may be tempted to signal the complexity of the information you gathered by trying to design a graph that accounts for that complexity. But remember the purpose of your graph: to dramatize your results in a manner that’s easy to see and grasp. Try not to make the reader stare at the graph for a half hour to find the important line among the mass of other lines. For maximum effectiveness, limit yourself to three to five lines per graph; if you have more data to demonstrate, use a set of graphs to account for it, rather than trying to cram it all into a single figure.
• Plot the independent variable on the horizontal (x) axis and the dependent variable on the vertical (y) axis. Remember that the independent variable is the condition that you manipulated during the experiment and the dependent variable is the condition that you measured to see if it changed along with the independent variable. Placing the variables along their respective axes is mostly just a convention, but since your readers are accustomed to viewing graphs in this way, you’re better off not challenging the convention in your report.
• Label each axis carefully, and be especially careful to include units of measure. You need to make sure that your readers understand perfectly well what your graph indicates.
• Number and title your graphs. As with tables, the title of the graph should be informative but concise, and you should refer to your graph by number in the text (e.g., “Figure 1 shows the increase in the solubility rate as a function of temperature”).
• Many editors of professional scientific journals prefer that writers distinguish the lines in their graphs by attaching a symbol to them, usually a geometric shape (triangle, square, etc.), and using that symbol throughout the curve of the line. Generally, readers have a hard time distinguishing dotted lines from dot-dash lines from straight lines, so you should consider staying away from this system. Editors don’t usually like different-colored lines within a graph because colors are difficult and expensive to reproduce; colors may, however, be great for your purposes, as long as you’re not planning to submit your paper to Nature. Use your discretion—try to employ whichever technique dramatizes the results most effectively.
• Try to gather data at regular intervals, so the plot points on your graph aren’t too far apart. You can’t be sure of the arc you should draw between the plot points if the points are located at the far corners of the graph; over a fifteen-minute interval, perhaps the change occurred in the first or last thirty seconds of that period (in which case your straight-line connection between the points is misleading).
• If you’re worried that you didn’t collect data at sufficiently regular intervals during your experiment, go ahead and connect the points with a straight line, but you may want to examine this problem as part of your Discussion section.
• Make your graph large enough so that everything is legible and clearly demarcated, but not so large that it either overwhelms the rest of the Results section or provides a far greater range than you need to illustrate your point. If, for example, the seedlings of your plant grew only 15 mm during the trial, you don’t need to construct a graph that accounts for 100 mm of growth. The lines in your graph should more or less fill the space created by the axes; if you see that your data is confined to the lower left portion of the graph, you should probably re-adjust your scale.
• If you create a set of graphs, make them the same size and format, including all the verbal and visual codes (captions, symbols, scale, etc.). You want to be as consistent as possible in your illustrations, so that your readers can easily make the comparisons you’re trying to get them to see.

How do I write a strong Discussion section?

The discussion section is probably the least formalized part of the report, in that you can’t really apply the same structure to every type of experiment. In simple terms, here you tell your readers what to make of the Results you obtained. If you have done the Results part well, your readers should already recognize the trends in the data and have a fairly clear idea of whether your hypothesis was supported. Because the Results can seem so self-explanatory, many students find it difficult to know what material to add in this last section.

Basically, the Discussion contains several parts, in no particular order, but roughly moving from specific (i.e., related to your experiment only) to general (how your findings fit in the larger scientific community). In this section, you will, as a rule, need to:

Explain whether the data support your hypothesis

• Acknowledge any anomalous data or deviations from what you expected

Derive conclusions, based on your findings, about the process you’re studying

• Relate your findings to earlier work in the same area (if you can)

Explore the theoretical and/or practical implications of your findings

Let’s look at some dos and don’ts for each of these objectives.

This statement is usually a good way to begin the Discussion, since you can’t effectively speak about the larger scientific value of your study until you’ve figured out the particulars of this experiment. You might begin this part of the Discussion by explicitly stating the relationships or correlations your data indicate between the independent and dependent variables. Then you can show more clearly why you believe your hypothesis was or was not supported. For example, if you tested solubility at various temperatures, you could start this section by noting that the rates of solubility increased as the temperature increased. If your initial hypothesis surmised that temperature change would not affect solubility, you would then say something like,

“The hypothesis that temperature change would not affect solubility was not supported by the data.”

Note: Students tend to view labs as practical tests of undeniable scientific truths. As a result, you may want to say that the hypothesis was “proved” or “disproved” or that it was “correct” or “incorrect.” These terms, however, reflect a degree of certainty that you as a scientist aren’t supposed to have. Remember, you’re testing a theory with a procedure that lasts only a few hours and relies on only a few trials, which severely compromises your ability to be sure about the “truth” you see. Words like “supported,” “indicated,” and “suggested” are more acceptable ways to evaluate your hypothesis.

Also, recognize that saying whether the data supported your hypothesis or not involves making a claim to be defended. As such, you need to show the readers that this claim is warranted by the evidence. Make sure that you’re very explicit about the relationship between the evidence and the conclusions you draw from it. This process is difficult for many writers because we don’t often justify conclusions in our regular lives. For example, you might nudge your friend at a party and whisper, “That guy’s drunk,” and once your friend lays eyes on the person in question, she might readily agree. In a scientific paper, by contrast, you would need to defend your claim more thoroughly by pointing to data such as slurred words, unsteady gait, and the lampshade-as-hat. In addition to pointing out these details, you would also need to show how (according to previous studies) these signs are consistent with inebriation, especially if they occur in conjunction with one another. To put it another way, tell your readers exactly how you got from point A (was the hypothesis supported?) to point B (yes/no).

Acknowledge any anomalous data, or deviations from what you expected

You need to take these exceptions and divergences into account, so that you qualify your conclusions sufficiently. For obvious reasons, your readers will doubt your authority if you (deliberately or inadvertently) overlook a key piece of data that doesn’t square with your perspective on what occurred. In a more philosophical sense, once you’ve ignored evidence that contradicts your claims, you’ve departed from the scientific method. The urge to “tidy up” the experiment is often strong, but if you give in to it you’re no longer performing good science.

Sometimes after you’ve performed a study or experiment, you realize that some part of the methods you used to test your hypothesis was flawed. In that case, it’s OK to suggest that if you had the chance to conduct your test again, you might change the design in this or that specific way in order to avoid such and such a problem. The key to making this approach work, though, is to be very precise about the weakness in your experiment, why and how you think that weakness might have affected your data, and how you would alter your protocol to eliminate—or limit the effects of—that weakness. Often, inexperienced researchers and writers feel the need to account for “wrong” data (remember, there’s no such animal), and so they speculate wildly about what might have screwed things up. These speculations include such factors as the unusually hot temperature in the room, or the possibility that their lab partners read the meters wrong, or the potentially defective equipment. These explanations are what scientists call “cop-outs,” or “lame”; don’t indicate that the experiment had a weakness unless you’re fairly certain that a) it really occurred and b) you can explain reasonably well how that weakness affected your results.

If, for example, your hypothesis dealt with the changes in solubility at different temperatures, then try to figure out what you can rationally say about the process of solubility more generally. If you’re doing an undergraduate lab, chances are that the lab will connect in some way to the material you’ve been covering either in lecture or in your reading, so you might choose to return to these resources as a way to help you think clearly about the process as a whole.

This part of the Discussion section is another place where you need to make sure that you’re not overreaching. Again, nothing you’ve found in one study would remotely allow you to claim that you now “know” something, or that something isn’t “true,” or that your experiment “confirmed” some principle or other. Hesitate before you go out on a limb—it’s dangerous! Use less absolutely conclusive language, including such words as “suggest,” “indicate,” “correspond,” “possibly,” “challenge,” etc.

Relate your findings to previous work in the field (if possible)

We’ve been talking about how to show that you belong in a particular community (such as biologists or anthropologists) by writing within conventions that they recognize and accept. Another is to try to identify a conversation going on among members of that community, and use your work to contribute to that conversation. In a larger philosophical sense, scientists can’t fully understand the value of their research unless they have some sense of the context that provoked and nourished it. That is, you have to recognize what’s new about your project (potentially, anyway) and how it benefits the wider body of scientific knowledge. On a more pragmatic level, especially for undergraduates, connecting your lab work to previous research will demonstrate to the TA that you see the big picture. You have an opportunity, in the Discussion section, to distinguish yourself from the students in your class who aren’t thinking beyond the barest facts of the study. Capitalize on this opportunity by putting your own work in context.

If you’re just beginning to work in the natural sciences (as a first-year biology or chemistry student, say), most likely the work you’ll be doing has already been performed and re-performed to a satisfactory degree. Hence, you could probably point to a similar experiment or study and compare/contrast your results and conclusions. More advanced work may deal with an issue that is somewhat less “resolved,” and so previous research may take the form of an ongoing debate, and you can use your own work to weigh in on that debate. If, for example, researchers are hotly disputing the value of herbal remedies for the common cold, and the results of your study suggest that Echinacea diminishes the symptoms but not the actual presence of the cold, then you might want to take some time in the Discussion section to recapitulate the specifics of the dispute as it relates to Echinacea as an herbal remedy. (Consider that you have probably already written in the Introduction about this debate as background research.)

This information is often the best way to end your Discussion (and, for all intents and purposes, the report). In argumentative writing generally, you want to use your closing words to convey the main point of your writing. This main point can be primarily theoretical (“Now that you understand this information, you’re in a better position to understand this larger issue”) or primarily practical (“You can use this information to take such and such an action”). In either case, the concluding statements help the reader to comprehend the significance of your project and your decision to write about it.

Since a lab report is argumentative—after all, you’re investigating a claim, and judging the legitimacy of that claim by generating and collecting evidence—it’s often a good idea to end your report with the same technique for establishing your main point. If you want to go the theoretical route, you might talk about the consequences your study has for the field or phenomenon you’re investigating. To return to the examples regarding solubility, you could end by reflecting on what your work on solubility as a function of temperature tells us (potentially) about solubility in general. (Some folks consider this type of exploration “pure” as opposed to “applied” science, although these labels can be problematic.) If you want to go the practical route, you could end by speculating about the medical, institutional, or commercial implications of your findings—in other words, answer the question, “What can this study help people to do?” In either case, you’re going to make your readers’ experience more satisfying, by helping them see why they spent their time learning what you had to teach them.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

American Psychological Association. 2010. Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association . 6th ed. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Beall, Herbert, and John Trimbur. 2001. A Short Guide to Writing About Chemistry , 2nd ed. New York: Longman.

Blum, Deborah, and Mary Knudson. 1997. A Field Guide for Science Writers: The Official Guide of the National Association of Science Writers . New York: Oxford University Press.

Booth, Wayne C., Gregory G. Colomb, Joseph M. Williams, Joseph Bizup, and William T. FitzGerald. 2016. The Craft of Research , 4th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Briscoe, Mary Helen. 1996. Preparing Scientific Illustrations: A Guide to Better Posters, Presentations, and Publications , 2nd ed. New York: Springer-Verlag.

Council of Science Editors. 2014. Scientific Style and Format: The CSE Manual for Authors, Editors, and Publishers , 8th ed. Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press.

Davis, Martha. 2012. Scientific Papers and Presentations , 3rd ed. London: Academic Press.

Day, Robert A. 1994. How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper , 4th ed. Phoenix: Oryx Press.

Porush, David. 1995. A Short Guide to Writing About Science . New York: Longman.

Williams, Joseph, and Joseph Bizup. 2017. Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace , 12th ed. Boston: Pearson.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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Home » Research Methodology – Types, Examples and writing Guide

Research Methodology – Types, Examples and writing Guide

Table of Contents

Research Methodology

Definition:

Research Methodology refers to the systematic and scientific approach used to conduct research, investigate problems, and gather data and information for a specific purpose. It involves the techniques and procedures used to identify, collect , analyze , and interpret data to answer research questions or solve research problems . Moreover, They are philosophical and theoretical frameworks that guide the research process.

Structure of Research Methodology

Research methodology formats can vary depending on the specific requirements of the research project, but the following is a basic example of a structure for a research methodology section:

I. Introduction

• Provide an overview of the research problem and the need for a research methodology section
• Outline the main research questions and objectives

II. Research Design

• Explain the research design chosen and why it is appropriate for the research question(s) and objectives
• Discuss any alternative research designs considered and why they were not chosen
• Describe the research setting and participants (if applicable)

III. Data Collection Methods

• Describe the methods used to collect data (e.g., surveys, interviews, observations)
• Explain how the data collection methods were chosen and why they are appropriate for the research question(s) and objectives
• Detail any procedures or instruments used for data collection

IV. Data Analysis Methods

• Describe the methods used to analyze the data (e.g., statistical analysis, content analysis )
• Explain how the data analysis methods were chosen and why they are appropriate for the research question(s) and objectives
• Detail any procedures or software used for data analysis

V. Ethical Considerations

• Discuss any ethical issues that may arise from the research and how they were addressed
• Explain how informed consent was obtained (if applicable)
• Detail any measures taken to ensure confidentiality and anonymity

VI. Limitations

• Identify any potential limitations of the research methodology and how they may impact the results and conclusions

VII. Conclusion

• Summarize the key aspects of the research methodology section
• Explain how the research methodology addresses the research question(s) and objectives

Research Methodology Types

Types of Research Methodology are as follows:

Quantitative Research Methodology

This is a research methodology that involves the collection and analysis of numerical data using statistical methods. This type of research is often used to study cause-and-effect relationships and to make predictions.

Qualitative Research Methodology

This is a research methodology that involves the collection and analysis of non-numerical data such as words, images, and observations. This type of research is often used to explore complex phenomena, to gain an in-depth understanding of a particular topic, and to generate hypotheses.

Mixed-Methods Research Methodology

This is a research methodology that combines elements of both quantitative and qualitative research. This approach can be particularly useful for studies that aim to explore complex phenomena and to provide a more comprehensive understanding of a particular topic.

Case Study Research Methodology

This is a research methodology that involves in-depth examination of a single case or a small number of cases. Case studies are often used in psychology, sociology, and anthropology to gain a detailed understanding of a particular individual or group.

Action Research Methodology

This is a research methodology that involves a collaborative process between researchers and practitioners to identify and solve real-world problems. Action research is often used in education, healthcare, and social work.

Experimental Research Methodology

This is a research methodology that involves the manipulation of one or more independent variables to observe their effects on a dependent variable. Experimental research is often used to study cause-and-effect relationships and to make predictions.

Survey Research Methodology

This is a research methodology that involves the collection of data from a sample of individuals using questionnaires or interviews. Survey research is often used to study attitudes, opinions, and behaviors.

Grounded Theory Research Methodology

This is a research methodology that involves the development of theories based on the data collected during the research process. Grounded theory is often used in sociology and anthropology to generate theories about social phenomena.

Research Methodology Example

An Example of Research Methodology could be the following:

Research Methodology for Investigating the Effectiveness of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in Reducing Symptoms of Depression in Adults

Introduction:

The aim of this research is to investigate the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) in reducing symptoms of depression in adults. To achieve this objective, a randomized controlled trial (RCT) will be conducted using a mixed-methods approach.

Research Design:

The study will follow a pre-test and post-test design with two groups: an experimental group receiving CBT and a control group receiving no intervention. The study will also include a qualitative component, in which semi-structured interviews will be conducted with a subset of participants to explore their experiences of receiving CBT.

Participants:

Participants will be recruited from community mental health clinics in the local area. The sample will consist of 100 adults aged 18-65 years old who meet the diagnostic criteria for major depressive disorder. Participants will be randomly assigned to either the experimental group or the control group.

Intervention :

The experimental group will receive 12 weekly sessions of CBT, each lasting 60 minutes. The intervention will be delivered by licensed mental health professionals who have been trained in CBT. The control group will receive no intervention during the study period.

Data Collection:

Quantitative data will be collected through the use of standardized measures such as the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II) and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7). Data will be collected at baseline, immediately after the intervention, and at a 3-month follow-up. Qualitative data will be collected through semi-structured interviews with a subset of participants from the experimental group. The interviews will be conducted at the end of the intervention period, and will explore participants’ experiences of receiving CBT.

Data Analysis:

Quantitative data will be analyzed using descriptive statistics, t-tests, and mixed-model analyses of variance (ANOVA) to assess the effectiveness of the intervention. Qualitative data will be analyzed using thematic analysis to identify common themes and patterns in participants’ experiences of receiving CBT.

Ethical Considerations:

This study will comply with ethical guidelines for research involving human subjects. Participants will provide informed consent before participating in the study, and their privacy and confidentiality will be protected throughout the study. Any adverse events or reactions will be reported and managed appropriately.

Data Management:

All data collected will be kept confidential and stored securely using password-protected databases. Identifying information will be removed from qualitative data transcripts to ensure participants’ anonymity.

Limitations:

One potential limitation of this study is that it only focuses on one type of psychotherapy, CBT, and may not generalize to other types of therapy or interventions. Another limitation is that the study will only include participants from community mental health clinics, which may not be representative of the general population.

Conclusion:

This research aims to investigate the effectiveness of CBT in reducing symptoms of depression in adults. By using a randomized controlled trial and a mixed-methods approach, the study will provide valuable insights into the mechanisms underlying the relationship between CBT and depression. The results of this study will have important implications for the development of effective treatments for depression in clinical settings.

How to Write Research Methodology

Writing a research methodology involves explaining the methods and techniques you used to conduct research, collect data, and analyze results. It’s an essential section of any research paper or thesis, as it helps readers understand the validity and reliability of your findings. Here are the steps to write a research methodology:

• Start by explaining your research question: Begin the methodology section by restating your research question and explaining why it’s important. This helps readers understand the purpose of your research and the rationale behind your methods.
• Describe your research design: Explain the overall approach you used to conduct research. This could be a qualitative or quantitative research design, experimental or non-experimental, case study or survey, etc. Discuss the advantages and limitations of the chosen design.
• Discuss your sample: Describe the participants or subjects you included in your study. Include details such as their demographics, sampling method, sample size, and any exclusion criteria used.
• Describe your data collection methods : Explain how you collected data from your participants. This could include surveys, interviews, observations, questionnaires, or experiments. Include details on how you obtained informed consent, how you administered the tools, and how you minimized the risk of bias.
• Explain your data analysis techniques: Describe the methods you used to analyze the data you collected. This could include statistical analysis, content analysis, thematic analysis, or discourse analysis. Explain how you dealt with missing data, outliers, and any other issues that arose during the analysis.
• Discuss the validity and reliability of your research : Explain how you ensured the validity and reliability of your study. This could include measures such as triangulation, member checking, peer review, or inter-coder reliability.
• Acknowledge any limitations of your research: Discuss any limitations of your study, including any potential threats to validity or generalizability. This helps readers understand the scope of your findings and how they might apply to other contexts.
• Provide a summary: End the methodology section by summarizing the methods and techniques you used to conduct your research. This provides a clear overview of your research methodology and helps readers understand the process you followed to arrive at your findings.

When to Write Research Methodology

Research methodology is typically written after the research proposal has been approved and before the actual research is conducted. It should be written prior to data collection and analysis, as it provides a clear roadmap for the research project.

The research methodology is an important section of any research paper or thesis, as it describes the methods and procedures that will be used to conduct the research. It should include details about the research design, data collection methods, data analysis techniques, and any ethical considerations.

The methodology should be written in a clear and concise manner, and it should be based on established research practices and standards. It is important to provide enough detail so that the reader can understand how the research was conducted and evaluate the validity of the results.

Applications of Research Methodology

Here are some of the applications of research methodology:

• To identify the research problem: Research methodology is used to identify the research problem, which is the first step in conducting any research.
• To design the research: Research methodology helps in designing the research by selecting the appropriate research method, research design, and sampling technique.
• To collect data: Research methodology provides a systematic approach to collect data from primary and secondary sources.
• To analyze data: Research methodology helps in analyzing the collected data using various statistical and non-statistical techniques.
• To test hypotheses: Research methodology provides a framework for testing hypotheses and drawing conclusions based on the analysis of data.
• To generalize findings: Research methodology helps in generalizing the findings of the research to the target population.
• To develop theories : Research methodology is used to develop new theories and modify existing theories based on the findings of the research.
• To evaluate programs and policies : Research methodology is used to evaluate the effectiveness of programs and policies by collecting data and analyzing it.
• To improve decision-making: Research methodology helps in making informed decisions by providing reliable and valid data.

Purpose of Research Methodology

Research methodology serves several important purposes, including:

• To guide the research process: Research methodology provides a systematic framework for conducting research. It helps researchers to plan their research, define their research questions, and select appropriate methods and techniques for collecting and analyzing data.
• To ensure research quality: Research methodology helps researchers to ensure that their research is rigorous, reliable, and valid. It provides guidelines for minimizing bias and error in data collection and analysis, and for ensuring that research findings are accurate and trustworthy.
• To replicate research: Research methodology provides a clear and detailed account of the research process, making it possible for other researchers to replicate the study and verify its findings.
• To advance knowledge: Research methodology enables researchers to generate new knowledge and to contribute to the body of knowledge in their field. It provides a means for testing hypotheses, exploring new ideas, and discovering new insights.
• To inform decision-making: Research methodology provides evidence-based information that can inform policy and decision-making in a variety of fields, including medicine, public health, education, and business.

Advantages of Research Methodology

Research methodology has several advantages that make it a valuable tool for conducting research in various fields. Here are some of the key advantages of research methodology:

• Systematic and structured approach : Research methodology provides a systematic and structured approach to conducting research, which ensures that the research is conducted in a rigorous and comprehensive manner.
• Objectivity : Research methodology aims to ensure objectivity in the research process, which means that the research findings are based on evidence and not influenced by personal bias or subjective opinions.
• Replicability : Research methodology ensures that research can be replicated by other researchers, which is essential for validating research findings and ensuring their accuracy.
• Reliability : Research methodology aims to ensure that the research findings are reliable, which means that they are consistent and can be depended upon.
• Validity : Research methodology ensures that the research findings are valid, which means that they accurately reflect the research question or hypothesis being tested.
• Efficiency : Research methodology provides a structured and efficient way of conducting research, which helps to save time and resources.
• Flexibility : Research methodology allows researchers to choose the most appropriate research methods and techniques based on the research question, data availability, and other relevant factors.
• Scope for innovation: Research methodology provides scope for innovation and creativity in designing research studies and developing new research techniques.

Research Methodology Vs Research Methods

About the author.

Muhammad Hassan

Researcher, Academic Writer, Web developer

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Scientific Papers

Scientific papers are for sharing your own original research work with other scientists or for reviewing the research conducted by others. As such, they are critical to the evolution of modern science, in which the work of one scientist builds upon that of others. To reach their goal, papers must aim to inform, not impress. They must be highly readable — that is, clear, accurate, and concise. They are more likely to be cited by other scientists if they are helpful rather than cryptic or self-centered.

Scientific papers typically have two audiences: first, the referees, who help the journal editor decide whether a paper is suitable for publication; and second, the journal readers themselves, who may be more or less knowledgeable about the topic addressed in the paper. To be accepted by referees and cited by readers, papers must do more than simply present a chronological account of the research work. Rather, they must convince their audience that the research presented is important, valid, and relevant to other scientists in the same field. To this end, they must emphasize both the motivation for the work and the outcome of it, and they must include just enough evidence to establish the validity of this outcome.

Papers that report experimental work are often structured chronologically in five sections: first, Introduction ; then Materials and Methods , Results , and Discussion (together, these three sections make up the paper's body); and finally, Conclusion .

• The Introduction section clarifies the motivation for the work presented and prepares readers for the structure of the paper.
• The Materials and Methods section provides sufficient detail for other scientists to reproduce the experiments presented in the paper. In some journals, this information is placed in an appendix, because it is not what most readers want to know first.
• The Results and Discussion sections present and discuss the research results, respectively. They are often usefully combined into one section, however, because readers can seldom make sense of results alone without accompanying interpretation — they need to be told what the results mean.
• The Conclusion section presents the outcome of the work by interpreting the findings at a higher level of abstraction than the Discussion and by relating these findings to the motivation stated in the Introduction .

(Papers reporting something other than experiments, such as a new method or technology, typically have different sections in their body, but they include the same Introduction and Conclusion sections as described above.)

Although the above structure reflects the progression of most research projects, effective papers typically break the chronology in at least three ways to present their content in the order in which the audience will most likely want to read it. First and foremost, they summarize the motivation for, and the outcome of, the work in an abstract, located before the Introduction . In a sense, they reveal the beginning and end of the story — briefly — before providing the full story. Second, they move the more detailed, less important parts of the body to the end of the paper in one or more appendices so that these parts do not stand in the readers' way. Finally, they structure the content in the body in theorem-proof fashion, stating first what readers must remember (for example, as the first sentence of a paragraph) and then presenting evidence to support this statement.

The introduction

• First, provide some context to orient those readers who are less familiar with your topic and to establish the importance of your work.
• Second, state the need for your work, as an opposition between what the scientific community currently has and what it wants.
• Third, indicate what you have done in an effort to address the need (this is the task).
• Finally, preview the remainder of the paper to mentally prepare readers for its structure, in the object of the document.

Context and need

At the beginning of the Introduction section, the context and need work together as a funnel: They start broad and progressively narrow down to the issue addressed in the paper. To spark interest among your audience — referees and journal readers alike — provide a compelling motivation for the work presented in your paper: The fact that a phenomenon has never been studied before is not, in and of itself, a reason to study that phenomenon.

Write the context in a way that appeals to a broad range of readers and leads into the need. Do not include context for the sake of including context: Rather, provide only what will help readers better understand the need and, especially, its importance. Consider anchoring the context in time, using phrases such as recently , in the past 10 years , or since the early 1990s . You may also want to anchor your context in space (either geographically or within a given research field).

Convey the need for the work as an opposition between actual and desired situations. Start by stating the actual situation (what we have) as a direct continuation of the context. If you feel you must explain recent achievements in much detail — say, in more than one or two paragraphs — consider moving the details to a section titled State of the art (or something similar) after the Introduction , but do provide a brief idea of the actual situation in the Introduction . Next, state the desired situation (what we want). Emphasize the contrast between the actual and desired situations with such words as but , however, or unfortunately .

One elegant way to express the desired part of the need is to combine it with the task in a single sentence. This sentence expresses first the objective, then the action undertaken to reach this objective, thus creating a strong and elegant connection between need and task. Here are three examples of such a combination:

To confirm this assumption , we studied the effects of a range of inhibitors of connexin channels . . . on . . .

To assess whether such multiple-coil sensors perform better than single-signal ones , we tested two of them — the DuoPXK and the GEMM3 — in a field where . . . To form a better view of the global distribution and infectiousness of this pathogen , we examined 1645 postmetamorphic and adult amphibians collected from 27 countries between 1984 and 2006 for the presence of . . .

Task and object

An Introduction is usually clearer and more logical when it separates what the authors have done (the task) from what the paper itself attempts or covers (the object of the document). In other words, the task clarifies your contribution as a scientist, whereas the object of the document prepares readers for the structure of the paper, thus allowing focused or selective reading.

For the task,

• use whoever did the work (normally, you and your colleagues) as the subject of the sentence: we or perhaps the authors;
• use a verb expressing a research action: measured , calculated , etc.;
• set that verb in the past tense.

The three examples below are well-formed tasks.

To confirm this assumption, we studied the effects of a range of inhibitors of connexin channels, such as the connexin mimetic peptides Gap26 and Gap27 and anti-peptide antibodies, on calcium signaling in cardiac cells and HeLa cells expressing connexins.

During controlled experiments, we investigated the influence of the HMP boundary conditions on liver flows.

To tackle this problem, we developed a new software verification technique called oblivious hashing, which calculates the hash values based on the actual execution of the program.

The list below provides examples of verbs that express research actions:

For the object of the document,

• use the document itself as the subject of the sentence: this paper , this letter , etc.;
• use a verb expressing a communication action: presents , summarizes , etc.;
• set the verb in the present tense.

The three examples below are suitable objects of the document for the three tasks shown above, respectively.

This paper clarifies the role of CxHc on calcium oscillations in neonatal cardiac myocytes and calcium transients induced by ATP in HL-cells originated from cardiac atrium and in HeLa cells expressing connexin 43 or 26. This paper presents the flow effects induced by increasing the hepatic-artery pressure and by obstructing the vena cava inferior. This paper discusses the theory behind oblivious hashing and shows how this approach can be applied for local software tamper resistance and remote code authentication.

The list below provides examples of verbs that express communication actions:

Even the most logical structure is of little use if readers do not see and understand it as they progress through a paper. Thus, as you organize the body of your paper into sections and perhaps subsections, remember to prepare your readers for the structure ahead at all levels. You already do so for the overall structure of the body (the sections) in the object of the document at the end of the Introduction . You can similarly prepare your readers for an upcoming division into subsections by introducing a global paragraph between the heading of a section and the heading of its first subsection. This paragraph can contain any information relating to the section as a whole rather than particular subsections, but it should at least announce the subsections, whether explicitly or implicitly. An explicit preview would be phrased much like the object of the document: "This section first . . . , then . . . , and finally . . . "

Although papers can be organized into sections in many ways, those reporting experimental work typically include Materials and Methods , Results , and Discussion in their body. In any case, the paragraphs in these sections should begin with a topic sentence to prepare readers for their contents, allow selective reading, and — ideally — get a message across.

Materials and methods

Results and discussion.

When reporting and discussing your results, do not force your readers to go through everything you went through in chronological order. Instead, state the message of each paragraph upfront: Convey in the first sentence what you want readers to remember from the paragraph as a whole. Focus on what happened, not on the fact that you observed it. Then develop your message in the remainder of the paragraph, including only that information you think you need to convince your audience.

The conclusion

At the end of your Conclusion , consider including perspectives — that is, an idea of what could or should still be done in relation to the issue addressed in the paper. If you include perspectives, clarify whether you are referring to firm plans for yourself and your colleagues ("In the coming months, we will . . . ") or to an invitation to readers ("One remaining question is . . . ").

If your paper includes a well-structured Introduction and an effective abstract, you need not repeat any of the Introduction in the Conclusion . In particular, do not restate what you have done or what the paper does. Instead, focus on what you have found and, especially, on what your findings mean. Do not be afraid to write a short Conclusion section: If you can conclude in just a few sentences given the rich discussion in the body of the paper, then do so. (In other words, resist the temptation to repeat material from the Introduction just to make the Conclusio n longer under the false belief that a longer Conclusion will seem more impressive.)

The abstract

Typically, readers are primarily interested in the information presented in a paper's Introduction and Conclusion sections. Primarily, they want to know the motivation for the work presented and the outcome of this work. Then (and only then) the most specialized among them might want to know the details of the work. Thus, an effective abstract focuses on motivation and outcome; in doing so, it parallels the paper's Introduction and Conclusion .

Accordingly, you can think of an abstract as having two distinct parts — motivation and outcome — even if it is typeset as a single paragraph. For the first part, follow the same structure as the Introduction section of the paper: State the context, the need, the task, and the object of the document. For the second part, mention your findings (the what ) and, especially, your conclusion (the so what — that is, the interpretation of your findings); if appropriate, end with perspectives, as in the Conclusion section of your paper.

Although the structure of the abstract parallels the Introduction and Conclusion sections, it differs from these sections in the audience it addresses. The abstract is read by many different readers, from the most specialized to the least specialized among the target audience. In a sense, it should be the least specialized part of the paper. Any scientist reading it should be able to understand why the work was carried out and why it is important (context and need), what the authors did (task) and what the paper reports about this work (object of the document), what the authors found (findings), what these findings mean (the conclusion), and possibly what the next steps are (perspectives). In contrast, the full paper is typically read by specialists only; its Introduction and Conclusion are more detailed (that is, longer and more specialized) than the abstract.

An effective abstract stands on its own — it can be understood fully even when made available without the full paper. To this end, avoid referring to figures or the bibliography in the abstract. Also, introduce any acronyms the first time you use them in the abstract (if needed), and do so again in the full paper (see Mechanics: Using abbreviations ).

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Scientific Method

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The scientific method is a series of steps followed by scientific investigators to answer specific questions about the natural world. It involves making observations, formulating a hypothesis , and conducting scientific experiments . Scientific inquiry starts with an observation followed by the formulation of a question about what has been observed. The steps of the scientific method are as follows:

Observation

The first step of the scientific method involves making an observation about something that interests you. This is very important if you are doing a science project because you want your project to be focused on something that will hold your attention. Your observation can be on anything from plant movement to animal behavior, as long as it is something you really want to know more about.​ This is where you come up with the idea for your science project.

Once you've made your observation, you must formulate a question about what you have observed. Your question should tell what it is that you are trying to discover or accomplish in your experiment. When stating your question you should be as specific as possible.​ For example, if you are doing a project on plants , you may want to know how plants interact with microbes. Your question may be: Do plant spices inhibit bacterial growth ?

The hypothesis is a key component of the scientific process. A hypothesis is an idea that is suggested as an explanation for a natural event, a particular experience, or a specific condition that can be tested through definable experimentation. It states the purpose of your experiment, the variables used, and the predicted outcome of your experiment. It is important to note that a hypothesis must be testable. That means that you should be able to test your hypothesis through experimentation .​ Your hypothesis must either be supported or falsified by your experiment. An example of a good hypothesis is: If there is a relation between listening to music and heart rate, then listening to music will cause a person's resting heart rate to either increase or decrease.

Once you've developed a hypothesis, you must design and conduct an experiment that will test it. You should develop a procedure that states very clearly how you plan to conduct your experiment. It is important that you include and identify a controlled variable or dependent variable in your procedure. Controls allow us to test a single variable in an experiment because they are unchanged. We can then make observations and comparisons between our controls and our independent variables (things that change in the experiment) to develop an accurate conclusion.​

The results are where you report what happened in the experiment. That includes detailing all observations and data made during your experiment. Most people find it easier to visualize the data by charting or graphing the information.​

The final step of the scientific method is developing a conclusion. This is where all of the results from the experiment are analyzed and a determination is reached about the hypothesis. Did the experiment support or reject your hypothesis? If your hypothesis was supported, great. If not, repeat the experiment or think of ways to improve your procedure.

• Null Hypothesis Examples
• Examples of Independent and Dependent Variables
• The 10 Most Important Lab Safety Rules
• Difference Between Independent and Dependent Variables
• Six Steps of the Scientific Method
• Scientific Method Flow Chart
• What Is an Experiment? Definition and Design
• Scientific Method Lesson Plan
• How To Design a Science Fair Experiment
• Science Projects for Every Subject
• How to Do a Science Fair Project
• What Are the Elements of a Good Hypothesis?
• How to Write a Lab Report
• What Is a Hypothesis? (Science)
• Understanding Simple vs Controlled Experiments
• Biology Science Fair Project Ideas

Structure of a Research Paper

Structure of a Research Paper: IMRaD Format

I. The Title Page

• Title: Tells the reader what to expect in the paper.
• Author(s): Most papers are written by one or two primary authors. The remaining authors have reviewed the work and/or aided in study design or data analysis (International Committee of Medical Editors, 1997). Check the Instructions to Authors for the target journal for specifics about authorship.
• Keywords [according to the journal]
• Corresponding Author: Full name and affiliation for the primary contact author for persons who have questions about the research.
• Financial & Equipment Support [if needed]: Specific information about organizations, agencies, or companies that supported the research.
• Conflicts of Interest [if needed]: List and explain any conflicts of interest.

II. Abstract: “Structured abstract” has become the standard for research papers (introduction, objective, methods, results and conclusions), while reviews, case reports and other articles have non-structured abstracts. The abstract should be a summary/synopsis of the paper.

III. Introduction: The “why did you do the study”; setting the scene or laying the foundation or background for the paper.

IV. Methods: The “how did you do the study.” Describe the --

• Context and setting of the study
• Specify the study design
• Population (patients, etc. if applicable)
• Sampling strategy
• Intervention (if applicable)
• Identify the main study variables
• Data collection instruments and procedures
• Outline analysis methods

V. Results: The “what did you find” --

• Report on data collection and/or recruitment
• Participants (demographic, clinical condition, etc.)
• Present key findings with respect to the central research question
• Secondary findings (secondary outcomes, subgroup analyses, etc.)

VI. Discussion: Place for interpreting the results

• Main findings of the study
• Discuss the main results with reference to previous research
• Policy and practice implications of the results
• Strengths and limitations of the study

VII. Conclusions: [occasionally optional or not required]. Do not reiterate the data or discussion. Can state hunches, inferences or speculations. Offer perspectives for future work.

VIII. Acknowledgements: Names people who contributed to the work, but did not contribute sufficiently to earn authorship. You must have permission from any individuals mentioned in the acknowledgements sections. 

IX. References:  Complete citations for any articles or other materials referenced in the text of the article.

• IMRD Cheatsheet (Carnegie Mellon) pdf.
• Adewasi, D. (2021 June 14).  What Is IMRaD? IMRaD Format in Simple Terms! . Scientific-editing.info. 
• Nair, P.K.R., Nair, V.D. (2014). Organization of a Research Paper: The IMRAD Format. In: Scientific Writing and Communication in Agriculture and Natural Resources. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-03101-9_2
• Sollaci, L. B., & Pereira, M. G. (2004). The introduction, methods, results, and discussion (IMRAD) structure: a fifty-year survey.   Journal of the Medical Library Association : JMLA ,  92 (3), 364–367.
• Cuschieri, S., Grech, V., & Savona-Ventura, C. (2019). WASP (Write a Scientific Paper): Structuring a scientific paper.   Early human development ,  128 , 114–117. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earlhumdev.2018.09.011

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How to write a materials and methods section of a scientific article?

In contrast to past centuries, scientific researchers have been currently conducted systematically in all countries as part of an education strategy. As a consequence, scientists have published thousands of reports. Writing an effective article is generally a significant problem for researchers. All parts of an article, specifically the abstract, material and methods, results, discussion and references sections should contain certain features that should always be considered before sending a manuscript to a journal for publication. It is generally known that the material and methods section is a relatively easy section of an article to write. Therefore, it is often a good idea to begin by writing the materials and methods section, which is also a crucial part of an article. Because “reproducible results” are very important in science, a detailed account of the study should be given in this section. If the authors provide sufficient detail, other scientists can repeat their experiments to verify their findings. It is generally recommended that the materials and methods should be written in the past tense, either in active or passive voice. In this section, ethical approval, study dates, number of subjects, groups, evaluation criteria, exclusion criteria and statistical methods should be described sequentially. It should be noted that a well-written materials and methods section markedly enhances the chances of an article being published.

How to Write a Materials and Methods Section of a Scientific Article?

Up to the 18 th Century scientific researches were performed on a voluntary basis by certain scientists. However from the second half of the 19 th century, scientific development has gained momentum with the contributions of numerous scientists including Edison, Fleming, and Koch. In parallel with these developments, apparently each scientific field, and even their branches made, and still making magnificent progressions from the end of the 18 th century. Secondary to these developments, scientific researches have been implemented systematically by universities, and various institutions in every part of the world as an integral component of national strategies. Naturally, the number of researchers who performed scientific investigations or sponsored by various institutions increased considerably. Also, as is known very well, all over the world scientists, and researchers move from one place to another to disseminate scientific knowledge. All of these scientific efforts, and activities reflect on clinical practice, and hundreds of thousands, and millions scientific articles which we can currently gain access into all of them online. As indicated by the investigator Gerard Piel, “Without publication, science is dead” which explains the importance of publication. In other words, if you don’t share your investigation and knowledge, they don’t mean anything by themselves. Although sharing the knowledge is essential for writing a scientific paper, nowadays writing a scientific article is mostly learnt as a master-apprentice relationship, and therefore certain standards have not been established. This phenomenon creates serious stress especially for young investigators in their early stage of writing scientific papers. Indeed investigators receiving their residency training confront this reality finally during writing of their dissertations. Though sharing knowledge is known as a fundamental principle in writing a scientific paper, it creates difficulties in the whole world. Relevant to this issue, in the whole world investigations have been performed, and books have been written on the subject of how to write a scientific paper. Accordingly, in our country mostly local meetings, and courses have been organized. These organizations, and investigations should be performed. Indeed, nowadays, in the first assessments, the rejection rate of the journals by internationally acknowledged scientific indexes as “Science Citation İndex (SCI)” and “Science Citation İndex Expanded (SCI-extended” which have certain scientific standards, increases to 62 percent. As a matter of fact only 25% of Class A journals have been included in the lists of SCI, and SCI-extended.

As we all know very well, scientific articles consist of sections of summary, introduction, material, and methods, discussion, and references. Among them, conventionally Materials and Methods section has been reported as the most easily written or will be written section. Although it is known as the most easily written section, nearly 30% of the reasons for rejection are related to this section per se. Therefore due care, and attention should be given to the writing of this section. In the writing process of the ‘Material and Methods’ section, all achievements performed throughout the study period should be dealt with in consideration of certain criteria in a specific sequence. Since as a globally anticipated viewpoint, ‘Materials and Methods’ section can be written quite easily, it has been indicated that if difficulties are encountered in writing a manuscript, then one should start writing from this section. In writing this section, study design describing the type of the article, study subjects to be investigated, methods, and procedures of measurements should be provided under four main headings. [ 1 , 2 ] Accordingly, in brief, we can emphasize the importance of providing clear-cut, adequate, and detailed information in the ‘Materials and Methods’ section to the scientists who will read this scientific article. Meeting these criteria carries great importance with respect to the evaluation of reliability of the investigation by the readers, and reviewers, and also informing them about procedural method, design, data collection, and assessment methods of the investigation, Priorly, as is the case in all scientific investigations, one should be reminded about the importance, and indispensability of compliance with certain standard writing rules. Accordingly, rules of grammar should be obeyed, and if possible passive voice of simple past tense should be used. Related to these rules, use of verbs ‘investigated’, ‘evaluated’ or ‘performed’ will be appropriate. Recently, expressions showing the ownership of the investigation as ‘we performed’, ‘we evaluated’, ‘we implemented’ have taken priority. Since the important point is communication of the message contained in the scientific study, the message should be clearly comprehensible. While ensuring clarity of the message, use of flourishing, and irrelevant sentences should be avoided. [ 1 , 3 ] According to another approach, since our article will be read by professionals of other disciplines, it is important to comply with certain rules of writing. To that end, standard units of measurements, and international abbreviations should be used. Abbreviations should be explained within parentheses at their first mention in the manuscript. For instance let’s analyze the following sentence” The patients were evaluated with detailed medical history, physical examination, complete urinalysis, PSA, and urinary system ultrasound” The abbreviation PSA is very well known by the urologist. However we shouldn’t forget that this article will be read by the professionals in other medical disciplines. Similarly this sentence should not be written as: “The patients were evaluated with detailed medical history, physical examination, complete urinalysis PSA (prostate-specific antigen), and urinary system ultrasound.” Indeed the abbreviation should follow the explanation of this abbreviation. Then the appropriate expression of the sentence should be. “The patients were evaluated with detailed medical history, physical examination, complete urinalysis, prostate-specific antigen (PSA), and urinary system ultrasound.”

In addition to the abovementioned information, in the beginning paragraphs of ‘Materials and Methods’ section of a clinical study the answers to the following questions should be absolutely provided:

• The beginning, and termination dates of the study period.
• Number of subjects/patients/experimental animals etc. enrolled in the study,
• Has the approval of the ethics committee been obtained?
• Study design (prospective, retrospective or other). [ 1 , 2 , 4 – 7 ]

Still additional features of the study design (cross-sectional) should be indicated. Apart from this, other types of study designs (randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled or double-blind, parallel control etc.) should be revealed.

The heading of the section “Materials and Methods” can be changed to “Patients and the Method” in accordance with writing rules of the journal in question. Indication of starting, and termination dates of a clinical study will facilitate scientific interpretation of the article. Accordingly, outcomes obtained during development phase of a newly implemented method might be considered differently from those acquired during conventional use of this method. Besides, incidence of the diseases, and number of affected people might vary under the impact of social fluctuations, and environmental factors. Therefore with this justification study period should be specified. Number of cases included in the study should be absolutely indicated in the ‘Materials and Methods’ section. It will be appropriate to determine study population after consultation to a statistician-and if required-following “power analysis” Accordingly, the need for a control group will be indicated based on the study design. Nowadays, as a requirement of patient rights, obtainment of approval from ethics committee should be indicated with its registration number. In addition, acquirement of informed consent forms from patients should be indicated. Ethics Committee approval should be obtained in prospective studies performed with study drugs. Otherwise in case of occurrence of adverse effects, it should be acknowledged that in compliance with Article #90 of the Turkish Criminal Law, a 3-year prison sentence is given to the guilty parties. [ 8 ] Since issues related to the Ethics Committee are the subject of another manuscript, they won’t be handled herein.

The following paragraph exemplifies clearly the aforementioned arguments: “After approval of the local ethics committee (BADK-22), informed consent forms from the patients were obtained, and a total of 176 cases with lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) were retrospectively evaluated between January 2011, and December 2012.” In a prospectively designed study, methods used to communicate with the cases including face-to-face interviews, phone calls and/or e-mail should be indicated. [ 1 , 2 ] Each paragraph or subheading in the ‘Materials and Methods’ section should be in accordance with the related ones in the ‘Results’ section. In other words, the sequence of paragraphs, and subheadings in the ‘Results’ section should be the same in the ‘Materials and Methods’ section.

As a next step, names of the groups, and distribution of the cases in these groups should be indicated. For instance: the statement “Cases were divided into 3 groups based on their LUTS scores as. Groups 1 (0–9; n=91), 2 (10–18; n=66), and 3 (≥19; n=20)” clearly delineates the scope of the study at baseline.. In the ‘Materials and Methods’ section the number of study subjects should be absolutely documented. Herein, after assignment of names to groups, in the rest of the manuscript, these names should be used. For example instead of saying: “Mean ages of the cases with LUTS scores between 0–9, 10–18, and ≥19 were determined to be 63.2±2.1, 62.8±4.5, and 65.7±3.9 years, respectively” it will be more comprehensible to use the expression: “Mean ages of the Groups 1, 2, and 3 were specified as 63.2±2.1, 62.8±4.5, and 65.7±3.9 years.” (p=0.478). Expressions indicated in the ‘Materials and Methods’ section should not be repeated in the “Results” section. Thus, errors of repetition will be precluded. Following the abovementioned information, the evaluation method of the cases enrolled in the study should be indicated. Hence, results of medical history, physical examination, and if performed laboratory or radiological evaluations-in that order-should be indicated. The application of survey study-if any-should be investigated, and documented. Therefore, the following sentences encompass all the information stated above: “The cases were evaluated with detailed medical history, physical examination, measurements of serum follicle stimulating hormone (FSH), luteinizing hormone (LH), testosterone (T) levels, complete urinalysis, urinary flow rate, direct urinary system roentgenograms, urinary system ultrasound, and if required cyctoscopy. Lower urinary system complaints, and erectile dysfunction were evaluated using International Prostate Symptom Score (IPSS), and International Erectile Function Scale (IIEF), respectively.” Apparently, questionnaire forms were used in the above-cited study. However, methods used for the evaluation of questionnaire forms, and significance of the results obtained, and if possible, the first performer of this survey should be written with accompanying references. In relation to the abovementioned questionnaires the following statements constitute standard expressions for the ‘Materials and Methods’ section: “International Prostate Symptom Score (IPPS) was used in the determination of the severity of prostatic symptoms. IPSS used to determine the severity of the disease, evaluate treatment response, and ascertain the symptomatic progression, is the most optimal scoring system recommended by European Association of Urology (EAU) which classifies the severity of the disease based on IPSS scores as mild (0–7), moderate (8–19), and severe symptomatic (20–35) disease. In the evaluation of sexual function International Erectile Function Scale (IIEF) was used. IIEF is one of the most prevalently used form for the patients who consulted for the complaints of sexual dysfunction Based on IIEF scores, the severity of the disease was classified as severe (1–10), moderate (11–16), mild to moderate (17–21), mild (22–25), and no ED (26–30).”

Whether the institutions of the authors working for should be written in the ‘Materials and Methods’ section can be a subject of debate, generally viewpoints favour provision of this information. However, in compliance with their writing rules, some journals do not favour open-label studies where name of the study site is indicated, and this principle is communicated to the author during editorial evaluation Besides, in the ‘Materials and Methods’ section, the brand of the study object, and its country of origin should be indicated. (ie. if radiological methods are used, then the brand of radiological equipment, and its manufacturing country should be specified. In a study entitled ‘The Impact of Computed Tomography in the Prediction of Post-Radical Nephrectomy Stage in Renal Tumours’ since the main topic of the study is computed tomography, the specifications of the equipment used should be explicitely indicated. On the other hand, the details of the medical method which can effect the outcomes of the study should be also recorded. Accordingly, the methods applied for percutaneous nephrolithotomy, ureterorenoscopy, varicocelectomy, transurethral prostatectomy, radical prostatectomy (perineal, open, laparoscopic or robotic should be absolutely indicated. Then inclusion, and exclusion criteria, and if used control group, and its characteristics should be documented. Thus the following paragraph about exclusion criteria will be appropriate: Patients with a history of neurogenic bladder, prostatic or abdominal operation, and transrectal ultrasound guided prostate biopsy (within the previous 6 months), those aged <40 or >70 years, individuals with a peak urine flow rate below 10 ml/sec, and residual urine more than 150 cc were not included in the study.” [ 1 – 3 , 9 ]

Some diseases mentioned in the “Materials and Methods” section require special monitorization procedures. In these cases the procedure of monitorization should be documented for the sake of the validity of the study in question. Accordingly, in conditions such as “nephrectomy, prostatectomy, orchidectomy, pyeloplasty, varicocelectomy, drug therapies, penile prosthesis, and urethral stricture” clinical follow-up protocols should be provided.

The abovementioned rules, and recommendations are most frequently valid for a clinical study, and some points indicated in experimental studies should be also considered. Types, weights, gender, and number of the animals used in animal studies should be absolutely specified. Besides condition of evaluation of experimental animals should be noted. Then as is the case with clinical studies, approval of the ethics committee should be obtained, and documented. Accordingly, the beginning paragraphs of the ‘Materials and Methods’ can be expressed as follows:

“In the study, 40 Wistar-Albino 6-month-old rats each weighing 350–400 g were used. After approval of the ethics committee (HADYEK-41) the study was performed within the frame of rules specified by the National Institute for animal experiments. The rats were divided into 3 groups. Hence, Group 1 (n=7) was accepted as the control group. The rats subjected to partial ureteral obstruction with or without oral carvedilol therapy at daily doses of 2 mg/kg maintained for 7 days constituted Groups 3 (n=8), and 2 (n=8), respectively. Each group of 4 rats was housed in standard cages with an area of 40×60 cm. The animals were fed with standard 8 mm food pellets, and fresh daily tap water. The rats were kept in the cages under 12 hours of light, and 12 hours of dark. Ambient temperature, and humidity were set at 22±2°C, and 50±10%, respectively.”

Herein, the method, and agent of anesthesia used (local or general anesthesia) in surgical procedures, and then the experimental method applied should be clearly indicated. For example the following sentences explain our abovementioned arguments; “All surgical procedures were performed under xylazine-ketamine anesthesia. In all groups, ureters were approached through midline abdominal incision. In Group 1, ureters were manipulated without causing obstruction. Results of biochemical, and pathological evaluations performed in Group 1 were considered as baseline values.”

“Through a midline abdominal incision partial ureteral obstruction was achieved by embedding two-thirds of the distal part of the left ureter into psoas muscle using 4/0 silk sutures as described formerly by Wen et al. [ 10 ] ( Figure 1 ). [ 11 ] All rats were subjected to left nephrectomies at the end of the experimental study.” As formulated by the above paragraph, if the method used is not widely utilized, then the first researcher who describes the method should be indicated with relevant references. One or more than one figures with a good resolution, and easily comprehensible legends should be also included in the explanation of the experimental model. For very prevalently used experimental models as torsion models cited in the “Materials and Methods” section, there is no need to include figures in the manuscript.

Partial ureteral obstruction model [ 11 ]

Appropriate signs, and marks placed on the figure will facilitate comprehension of the legends ( Figure 2 ).

Ureteral segments (black arrows) seen in a rat partial ureteral obstruction model [ 11 ]

The signs used will also improve intelligibility of the target. The figures should be indicated within parentheses in their first mention in the “Materials and Methods” section. Headings and as a prevalent convention legends of the figures should be indicated at the end of the manuscript.

If a different method is used in the study, this should be explained in detail. For instance, in a study where the effect of smoking on testes was investigated, the method, and the applicator used to expose rats to cigarette smoke should be indicated in the ‘Methods’ section following classical description. Relevant to the study in question, the following paragraph explaining the study method should be written: “A glass chamber with dimensions of 75 × 50 × 50 cm was prepared, and divided into 4 compartments with wire fences. The rats in the 2., and 4. cages were placed in these compartments. Each compartment contained 4 rats. Cigarette smoke was produced using one cigarette per hour, and smoke coming from the tip, and the filter of the lighted cigarette was pumped into the gas chamber with a pneumatic motor. The rats were exposed to smoke of 6 cigarettes for 6 hours. The compartments of the rats were changed every day so as to achieve balanced exposure of the rats to cigarette smoke.” [ 12 ]

Meanwhile, chemical names, doses, and routes of administration of the substances used in experimental studies should be indicated. If the substance used is a solution or an antibody, then manufacturing firm, and its country should be indicated in parenthesis. This approach can be exemplified as “Animals used in experiments were randomized into 4 groups of 8 animals. Each group was housed in 2 cages each containing 4 animals. The first group did not undergo any additional procedure (Group 1). The second group was exposed to cigarette smoke (Group 2). The third (Group 3), and the fourth (Group 4) groups received daily intraperitoneal injectable doses of 10 mg/kg resveratrol (Sigma-Aldrich, St. Louis, MO, USA). The Group 4 was also exposed to cigarette smoke. [ 12 ]

After all of these procedures, method, and analytical procedure of histopathological examination used should be described-if possible-by a pathologist Similarly, biochemical method used should be referenced, and written by the department of clinical chemistry. It can be inferred that each division should describe its own method. In other words, histopathological, microbiological, and pharmacological method should be described in detail by respective divisions.

If we summarize all the information stated above, understandably sharing of the scientific knowledge is essential.. Since reproducibility of a study demonstrates the robustness of a study, with the detailed approaches indicated above, reproducibility of our study is provided, and the relevant questions of “How?”, and “How much?” are answered. Besides, since ‘Materials, and Methods’, and ‘Results’ sections will constitute a meaningful whole, explanations of all information related to the data mentioned in the ‘Results’ section should be provided. As an important point not to be forgotten, evaluation or measurement method used for each parameter indicated in the ‘Results’ section should be expounded in the “Materials and Methods” section. For example if you used an expression in the” Results” section like “median body mass index (BMI) of the patients was 27.42 kg/m 2 ”, then you should beforehand indicate that comparative evaluation of BMIs will be done in the “Materials and Methods” section. In addition, the description, and significance of the values expressed in the “Results” section should be indicated in the “Materials and Methods” section. In other words, it should be stated that the patients were evaluated based on their BMIs as normal (18–24.9 kg/m 2 ), overweight (25 kg/m 2 –40 kg/m 2 ), and morbid obesity (>40 kg/m 2 ). If you encounter difficulties in writing “Materials and Methods” section, also a valid approach for other sections, firstly simple headings can be written, then you can go into details. In brief, for every parameter, the reader should get clear-cut answers to the questions such as “How did they evaluate this parameter, and which criteria were used?”. [ 1 , 3 , 13 – 15 ]

The last paragraph of the ‘Materials, and Methods’ section should naturally involve statistical evaluations. This section should be written by statisticians. Accordingly, the preferred statistical method, and the justifications for this preference should be indicated. In conventional statistical evaluations, provision of details is not required. In information indicated above, the statement “For statistical analysis, ANOVA test, chi-square test, T test, Kruskal-Wallis test have been used.” is not required very much. Instead, more appropriate expression will be a statement indicating that recommendations of a knowledgeable, and an experienced statistician were taken into consideration or advanced statistical information was reflected on the statistical evaluations as follows: “Chi-square tests were used in intergroup comparisons of categorical variables, and categorical variables were expressed as numbers, and percentages. In comparisons between LUTS, and ED as for age, independent two samples t-test was used. In the evaluation of the factors effective on erectile dysfunction multivariate logistic regresssion test was used. P values lower than 0.05 were considered as statistically significant The calculations were performed using a statistical package program (PASW v18, SPSS Inc, Chicago, IL).” Herein, the type of statistical package used for statistical methods should be emphasized.

Research funding in the Middle East and North Africa: analyses of acknowledgments in scientific publications indexed in the Web of Science (2008–2021)

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• Published: 28 May 2024

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• Jamal El-Ouahi   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-3458-7503 1 , 2  

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Funding acknowledgments are important objects of study in the context of science funding. This study uses a mixed-methods approach to analyze the funding acknowledgments found in 2.3 million scientific publications published between 2008 and 2021 by authors affiliated with research institutions in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The aim is to identify the major funders, assess their contribution to national scientific publications, and gain insights into the funding mechanism in relation to collaboration and publication. Publication data from the Web of Science is examined to provide key insights about funding activities. Saudi Arabia and Qatar lead the region, as about half of their publications include acknowledgments to funding sources. Most MENA countries exhibit strong linkages with foreign agencies, mainly due to a high level of international collaboration. The distinction between domestic and international publications reveals some differences in terms of funding structures. For instance, Turkey and Iran are dominated by one or two major funders whereas a few other countries like Saudi Arabia showcase multiple funders. Iran and Kuwait are examples of countries where research is mainly funded by domestic funders. The government and academic sectors mainly fund scientific research in MENA whereas the industry sector plays little or no role in terms of research funding. Lastly, the qualitative analyses provide more context into the complex funding mechanism. The findings of this study contribute to a better understanding of the funding structure in MENA countries and provide insights to funders and research managers to evaluate the funding landscape.

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Introduction

Funding organizations play a significant role in the advancement of science (Braun, 1998 ). In addition to funding provided to public universities and research institutions, they also fund researchers on specific and selective programs. Latour and Woolgar ( 1986 ) argue that scientific facts are not simply “discovered” but actively constructed through social processes in the laboratory. Funding acknowledgments in scientific papers are part of these processes. They give credit to individuals and organizations that contributed to the research. They are also used for self-promotion by researchers to show their connections to prestigious organizations, influential colleagues and well-funded projects (Latour & Woolgar, 1986 ). Analyzing funding acknowledgments can reveal hidden networks of scientific collaborations, social dynamics within and between research teams but also the social context and the dynamics that shaped the research reported in scientific publications (Cronin & Weaver, 1995 ). Since 2008, funding acknowledgments found in scientific publications have been captured in the Web of Science (Clarivate, 2022 ). Such data enables researchers to conduct analyses on funding sources (Alvarez-Bornstein & Montesi, 2021 ; Giles & Councill, 2004 ; Paul-Hus et al., 2016 ). Early research on funding acknowledgments analyzed the coverage by country, disciplines, and document types as well as methods to unify funding organizations (Álvarez-Bornstein et al., 2017 ; Costas & van Leeuwen, 2012 ; Sirtes & Riechert, 2014 ). Later, research analyzing funding acknowledgments focused on funding mechanisms. Möller ( 2019 ) identified the major funders and their contribution to the nationwide performance in five European countries. Wang et al. ( 2012 ) compared the research funding systems in ten countries and found that China is dominated by a single funder whereas the United Kingdom has more funding sources. Other studies focused on specific groups of countries such as the G9 countries (Huang & Huang, 2018 ), the Global South (Chankseliani, 2023 ), the BRICS (Shueb & Gul, 2023 ), or specific countries (Alvarez & Caregnato, 2018 , 2021 ; Álvarez-Bornstein et al., 2018 ; Costas & Yegros-Yegros, 2013 ; Díaz-Faes & Bordons, 2014 ; Gao et al., 2019 ; Gök et al., 2016 ). More recently, Chataway et al. ( 2019 ) analyzed the trends in science funding support in Sub-Saharan Africa and found that the levels of funding and cross-country engagement were low and that there was a need for capacity building. They also noted that there was a growing interest towards science funding in Sub-Saharan Africa at the national, regional, and international levels.

Traditionally, economies in MENA have been dependent and centralized around natural resources (World Bank, 2019 ). In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), nations have been looking to become knowledge-based economies (OECD, 1996 ). For example, oil-exporting countries established research funds and new universities as part of their transition to knowledge economies (Currie-Alder, 2019 ). A report from UNESCO ( 2015 ) provides some insights into the funding of science in MENA. At that time, the investment in Research and Development reported by UNESCO was reported as low in the region. However, some changes were already taking place in terms of funding allocation, priority setting and promotion of collaboration to address large-scale societal challenges (Currie-Alder, 2019 ). Considerable investments in science and technology capacity have been made recently in MENA countries to promote research and innovation (Schmoch et al., 2016 ; Shin et al., 2012 ; Siddiqi et al., 2016 ). These investments resulted in the expansion of research funds over the past two decades in several Arabic-speaking countries (Currie-Alder, 2015 ; Currie-Alder et al., 2018 ) with research assessments privileging “collaboration with distant, scientifically proficient partners abroad, in order to connect with global networks and rise in international rankings of academic quality”.

To the best of my knowledge, no analysis of funding acknowledgments found in scientific publications has been conducted to better understand the structure and the trends of scientific funding for this specific region. This study aligns with a larger framework of scholarly communication where acknowledgments are used along authorship and citations as the “reward triangle” (Cronin & Weaver, 1995 ). This framework allows “a more nuanced understanding of scholarly communication and interaction” (Cronin, 1995 ). Analyses of funding acknowledgments reveal the broader research science ecosystem that sustains research activities. In this broader ecosystem, Cronin’s concept of “subauthors” encompasses the significant contributions and roles played by people and organizations in both the development of research and the writing of scientific papers (Cronin et al., 2003 ). Acknowledgments have also been frequently considered as “super citations” (Cronin et al., 1993 ). Acknowledgments and citations show a high level of cultural consensus, and both describe networks of interactions and influence (Cronin & Weaver, 1995 ). Since funding acknowledgments “provide a revealing window onto trends in collaboration beyond co-authorship” (Cronin & Weaver, 1995 ), their study may also inform research managers and policy makers by guiding funding strategies or by unveiling hidden synergies and influence that cannot be identified through regular co-authorship or citation analyses.

In the context of recent investments made in science and technology in MENA countries, this study compares the contribution of their research funders from the research publications perspective. This article explores the structure and the recent trends in science funding in MENA with reflections at the regional and national levels. This study also aims to better understand the funding mechanism in science with regard to collaboration and publishing.

More specifically, in this study, I address the following research questions:

To what extent has the funding structure evolved over the past few years in MENA?

What are the characteristics of the major funders in MENA, in terms of type and location?

These aspects provide insights into the landscape of funders in MENA. These insights are also particularly helpful for policymakers to better understand the funding structures in various national science systems.

This paper is organized as follows. “Data and methods” Section  describes the data and the methods used to analyze the funding acknowledgments in the MENA region. Then, the results of the analyses are presented in “Findings” Section Finally, the findings of this study are briefly discussed in “Discussion and conclusions” Section .

Data and methods

Geographic coverage.

According to the World Bank ( 2019 ), MENA consists of the following countries: Algeria, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia (KSA), Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Yemen. Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Turkey are also considered in this study as they are commonly included in the MENA region (MENAP and MENAT).

Data source

This analysis is based on the scientific publications indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection (WoS) which contains greater coverage of funding acknowledgments than other data sources such as Scopus or PubMed (Kokol & Vošner, 2018 ; Liu, 2020 ; Mugabushaka et al., 2022 ; Sterligov et al., 2020 ). All document types published between 2008 and 2021 with at least one author affiliated with an institution in MENA and indexed in one of the citation indexes of WoS are considered in this study. 2.3 M publications satisfy these criteria as of 31 October 2022.

Table 1 lists the number of publications (P) indexed in WoS for all the countries in MENA between 2008 and 2021 along with the proportion of international co-authorship (%Int). Countries with similar output levels in terms of scientific publications are shaded in Table  1 with the same color.

As also shown in Table  1 , it is worth reminding that these countries have different sizes in terms of population, Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Research and Development Expenditure (RDE as % of GDP) (World Bank, 2023 ), and funding structures that we aim to better understand in this study.

Data unification

WoS contains four fields with funding information (Clarivate, 2023 ):

Funding Text (FT): funding acknowledgments of the authors.

Funding Details (FD): descriptive grant data acquired from external grant repositories.

Grant Number (FG)

Funder (FO): name of the funding organization.

This study is based on the Funder names found in the Funding Text. Out of the 2.3 M publications in the dataset under study, close to 1.6 M (68%) do not contain funding data. A semi-automated process with human and manual quality checks was used to unify the non-unified FO names found in the remaining publications. This process is represented in Fig.  1 .

Semi-automated process of the standardization of funders names

There are many different variant names for each funding organization with many linked to only one or two publications. During this unification process, the objective was to identify and unify all the funders for each MENA country which contribute to at least 1% of the publications at the national level.

The first step of this unification process consists of extracting the FO variant names from the publications of the dataset under study. The frequency of occurrence is calculated for each variant. Next, the FO variant names are preprocessed by removing duplicates resulting in 41,182 unique variant names. A key step in the unification process is to create a controlled vocabulary of variant names by considering the most frequently used ones as proposed by Wang and Shapira ( 2011 ) and Sirtes ( 2013 ). The most frequent variants are then clustered by using fuzzy matching techniques provided by the Dataiku platform (Dataiku, 2023 ). 5,242 initial clusters are obtained as a result. These clusters are manually verified, and the incorrectly matched variant names are excluded from their initial clusters. The fuzzy matching algorithm is then reapplied on the labels of the obtained clusters, until no more clusters are created. The clustering is manually checked after each iteration.

The full names of the funders, found by searching the labels of the clusters on the web, were preferred as the unified names over their acronyms to avoid confusion between funders sharing the same acronyms across different countries. For example: “Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research” was preferred over “MOHESR”. When possible, based on the funding text, the country of origin of the funder is added for clarity to such ambiguous names. Also, in many cases, authors only mention the names of the funding programs in their acknowledgments. In such instances, the program names were searched on the Internet and linked to the preferred name of the corresponding FO in the controlled vocabulary.

For each unified name a country was assigned. The country of the funder is not always mentioned in the acknowledgments. Based on the funder’s name, a search on the internet allowed to find the relevant country of the funder. This information is used in the analyses to classify a funder as either domestic or foreign , from the perspective of the country of the related publications, but also as a funder located in or outside the MENA region. It is worth noting that some funders or programs are international. In such case, the relevant region or group of countries’ names were assigned (e.g. Europe, Arabia, South Asia…).

Then, a type was assigned to each funder by using the existing classification of funders defined by Clarivate and available in WoS and InCites (Clarivate, 2023 ): Academic, Academic System, Corporate, Global Corporate, Government, Health, National Academy, Nonprofit, Partnership, Research Council, and Research Institute. In most cases, applying this typology to funders was done as follows. For instance, if the name of a funder contained the string “Universi”, then the Academic type was assigned to this agency. Similarly, when “Minist” was found, the Government type was assigned. If “Hospital” or “hopit” was found in the agency name, the funder was classified as Health . Similarly, “council”, “conseil”, “conselho”, “consejo” were searched to assign the relevant type. Names of funders containing “Assoc” or “Foundation” or “Fondation” were classified as Nonprofit unless related to the government. Other strings such as “Inc”, “Corp”, “GMBH”, “LLC”, “Co Ltd” were evidence of a Corporate type, with the Global Corporate type defined as a company that operates in two or more countries. For the rest, similarly to the location assignment, web searches were used to assign the relevant type to the remaining funders.

As a simple example, “University Mohammed VI Polytechnic” is the official name of a university located in Morocco acknowledged as a funder and the preferred name of the following variant names:

Mohammed VI Polytechnic University

Mohammed VI Polytechnic University at Ben Guerir Morocco

Mohammed VI Polytechnic University de Benguerir Morocco

Mohammed VI Polytechnic University Morocco

Mohammed VI Polytechnic University of Benguerir

Mohammed VI Polytechnic University of Benguerir Morocco

Mohammed VI Polytechnic University UM6P of Ben Guerir Morocco

Mohammed VI Polytechnic University UM6P of Benguerir Morocco

University of Mohammed VI Polytechnic

University of Mohammed VI Polytechnic Ben Guerir Morocco

Welcome Grant From The Mohammed VI Polytechnic University UM6P of Ben Guerir Morocco

Welcome Grant of The Mohammed VI Polytechnic University UM6P

Mohammed VI Polytechnic University UM6P

University Mohammed VI Polytechnic

The following variant names could not be unified nor assigned to a single funder and a single country as there are multiple entities with the same name located in different countries around the world:

Deanship of the Scientific Research

Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology

Department of Scientific Research

Ministry of Public Health

Ministry of Science and Education

University of Technology

These variants were not included in the dataset under study.

Unified funders in MENA

Table 2 lists the number of unified funders in MENA before and after the unification process along with the share they represent across the region. 1,254 names of funders from 69 countries were already unified in WoS as of 31 October 2022, with 236 of them located in 8 MENA countries, mainly in Turkey and to a lesser extent in Egypt. After the unification, the dataset under study contains 1,039 unified names of funders from the 22 MENA countries as of 16 March 2023. The list of unified funders with their type and country is available in a data repository (El-Ouahi, 2023 ).

After the unification process, the unified names of the funders cover now all the MENA countries with Iran and Turkey dominating the region in terms of number of funders, followed by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. The number of funders varies between countries, reflecting differences in the size of countries in terms of funding capacity or publication level (as shown in Table  1 ) and also in funding structures.

Counting method and proportion of papers with funding acknowledgments

Various analyses were conducted using WoS data. A full counting method was used in this study, i.e., co-authored publications at the country level are fully counted as a publication of each country. Similarly, publications with acknowledgments of multiple funders at the country level were fully counted for each funder.

The number of funders and their contribution to each country’s publications depends also on the presence of foreign funding organizations which have provided funds to international co-authors. The foreign funding agencies acknowledged in scientific publications of MENA countries might have been acknowledged by international co-authors who collaborated with researchers based in MENA. Hence, in this study, an important distinction is made between the contribution of funders to international publications (IP, i.e., a country publication with at least one international co-author) and the contribution the funders have when considering only domestic publications (DP, i.e., a country publication without international co-authors).

The proportion of papers with funding acknowledgments (PWFAs) for a given country is defined as the number of papers from this country with funding acknowledgments divided by the total number of papers counted for that same country. The proportion of papers with funding acknowledgments is calculated for domestic publications (%DPWFA) and for international publications (%IPWFA).

Limitations

The analysis of funding acknowledgments is a complex task because such data is usually included in a separate section of a scientific paper in a non-structured way along with other types of acknowledgments (Cronin, 1995 ). Thus, analyzing funding acknowledgments from raw data and unifying the names of funders with a proper typology is not a straightforward task. Such analysis comes with certain limitations that one needs to be aware of when analyzing funding acknowledgments (Aagaard et al., 2021 ; Paul-Hus et al., 2016 ; Sirtes & Riechert, 2014 ; Tang et al., 2017 ; Wang & Shapira, 2015 ). There might be a certain impact of cultural factors on what authors acknowledge in their papers (Rigby, 2011 ); funding acknowledgments may focus on external funding bodies and may tend to significantly ignore internal resources received from the researchers’ own institutions. It has been shown that authors do not always acknowledge their funders (Costas & Yegros-Yegros, 2013 ) and that acknowledgment practices vary depending on research areas (Grassano et al., 2017 ). Hence, the analysis of funding acknowledgments may offer only a partial view on the landscape of funding organizations. Last, this study is limited to scientific papers published only in journals indexed in Web of Science. Álvarez-Bornstein et al. ( 2017 ) explored the completeness and accuracy of funding acknowledgments in the Web of Science and found that some funding information was lost in 12% of the articles of their dataset. Figure  2 shows the proportion of publications with funding acknowledgments that present complete funding information (FO, FT and FG) in the current study’s dataset.

Percentage of PWFAs with complete funding information (FO, FT and FG) in MENA countries and the World (2008–2021)

About 60% of the PWFAs from MENA published between 2008 and 2021 present complete funding information, i.e., the publications contain the FO, FT and FG information in their related records. This proportion varies by country. Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia lead the region with more than 70% of their PWFAs containing complete funding information. By contrast, PWFAs from Djibouti, Syria and Iran show a proportion of about 40% of records with complete funding information.

All these caveats must be kept in mind when analyzing and interpreting funding data. Also, the specific funding level or the project types supported by the funders are not considered in this study. Despite all these limitations, the funding acknowledgments available in WoS provide an important information resource to answer questions related to research funding. More specifically, this data offers some opportunities to explore the source of the funding received by researchers in terms of location and type of funder. Also, the large scale of data availability allows for country comparisons.

Proportion of PWFAs by country

Before analyzing the unified funders, the proportion of papers with funding acknowledgments (PWFAs) is examined for each country in MENA. These proportions are shown in Fig.  3 , which also includes the share of PWFAs at the MENA and World levels as benchmarks. Here a distinction is made between the international publications of a country and its domestic publications, i.e., publications without international co-authors.

When looking at the international publications, the proportion of PWFAs is 61% for the World and 49% for the MENA region. Figure  3 shows that Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Pakistan and Djibouti lead the region in terms of proportion of IPWFAs. It is worth reminding that the countries in MENA have different levels of scientific output. For example, Yemen, Palestine, Libya, Syria, Bahrain, Afghanistan and Djibouti are countries with fewer than 7,500 WoS-indexed papers published between 2008 and 2021 and with a relatively high level of international co-authorship, as shown in Table  1 . Djibouti counts the lowest output with only 256 publications during the same period and has an international co-authorship rate of 92%. These countries show a much lower proportion of PWFAs for their domestic publications than for all their international publications. This suggests that a relatively high share of funders found in PWFAs of such countries might have been acknowledged by international co-authors who collaborated with researchers from these specific countries. In contrast, some other countries such as Iran, Kuwait show small differences in terms of proportions of PWFAs when comparing their publications with and without international co-authors.

Percentage of PWFAs for international (%IPWFA) and domestic publications (%DPWFA) in MENA countries and the World (2008–2021)

The trend of the proportion of the PWFAs for each MENA country over the study period is shown in Fig.  4 , with a distinction between the international publications of a country (%IPWFA) and its domestic publications (%DPWFA). The trends for the World and the MENA region are also included as benchmarks with dotted lines. This figure provides some additional insights into the evolution of the funding of scientific publications in MENA.

Trends of the percentage of publications with funding acknowledgments for domestic and international publications in MENA countries and the World (2008–2021)

One can notice the upward trends across most countries as well as in the World and MENA. These uptrends of the proportion of PWFAs can be observed in the international publications as well as in the domestic publications of each country. It is worth noting that the MENA countries as well as the world started from a relatively low level of PWFAs in 2008 (approximately 10% on average), which might be due to low coverage of funding acknowledgments in publications in WoS in 2008. Another reason could be a lack of funding acknowledgments made by researchers in their publications in the early years of the study period. Acknowledging funders explicitly in scientific publications might have been less common in the past than it is currently.

The countries are shown in Fig.  4 from the highest average proportion of PWFAs between 2008 and 2021 (top left) to the lowest (bottom right) when considering the international publications of the country. Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Pakistan lead the region. The high growth of the proportion of PWFAs in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE may also reflect the investment in research and funding policies recently set in these countries. In the early 2000s, according to its Seventh Development Plan, Saudi Arabia increased its total amount of spending on research and development activities with the goal to reach 2% of its GDP by 2025 (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Ministry of Economy & Planning, 2000 ). This level of investment in research brought Saudi Arabia from being the 50th largest spender in the world in 2009 to the 16th rank in 2016; one example of such spending on research in Saudi Arabia consisted of the establishment of King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in 2009, which currently has a 20-billion-dollar endowment (Research Professional, 2020 ). This increase is also highlighted in the recent Saudi National Transformation Program 2020 (Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, 2020 ). Similarly, the Ministry of Education in the UAE set a target of 1.5% of its GDP for 2021 for the expenditure on research and development. In addition to internal funding for research provided by Higher Education Institutions in the UAE, a few national sources of funding are available, such as the Abu Dhabi Department of Education and Knowledge Award, the Sheikh Hamdan Award for Medical Sciences and more recently the National Fund or Sandooq Al Watan (Al Marzouqi et al., 2019 ). In Qatar, the Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF) was established in 2006 as a national organization with the mission to fund and promote research in Qatar as well as scientific research cooperation. As a result of such development, QNRF awarded $650 million in grants in the first 7 years of its existence (Weber, 2014 ).

For most countries, the trends in the proportion of PWFAs for domestic and international publications are similar, but some countries stand out. For instance, the differences between the proportion of PWFAs in international and domestic publications is relatively small for Iran, and Kuwait throughout the study period and for Qatar in recent years. The differences between the share of PWFAs in domestic and international publications are relatively constant for several countries such as Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Jordan, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Algeria and Bahrain. However, these differences are increasing for Yemen, Libya, Egypt and more specifically Pakistan and Tunisia, which both show a slight decrease of the share of PWFAs in its domestic publications in recent years.

Syria, and Afghanistan show downtrends in the share of PWFAs in recent years, which might be due to the recent conflicts or unrest in these countries. Figure  4 also reveals a decrease of the share of PWFAs around 2013 for some countries, such as Tunisia, Libya, or Yemen. It is unclear what caused these decreases. One reason could be the so-called Arab Spring which impacted several countries in the region. Then, the share of PWFAs increased in these countries in the following years. Science systems are particularly vulnerable to wars, social and political unrests, which limit the availability of funding granted to scientists or may even damage the national science systems.

Major funders in MENA

The unified data allows the identification of the major funders for each MENA country. Table 3 lists the number of major agencies for each country in MENA with the distinction between the publications of the country with and without international co-authors. Major funders are defined as agencies which contribute to at least 1% of a country’s total number of publications with and without international co-authors indexed in WoS.

These results suggest that MENA countries seem to have different structures of research funding systems. Several dozen funders appear in at least 1% of the national number of international publications in countries such as Palestine, Qatar and Morocco. It appears that these countries have more diversified funding sources than countries dominated by one or two major agencies like Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Bahrain. Other countries such as Djibouti, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, or Egypt show a few funders. However, when considering only domestic publications, there is a clear decrease in the number of funders for all the countries in MENA. This decrease is particularly greater for the countries with a relatively high rate of international co-authorship. Table 3 also allows to make a distinction between countries in MENA with only one or more funders based on their contributions to domestic publications. Saudi Arabia shows the highest number of funders acknowledged in domestic publications than any other country in MENA. Then Jordan, Lebanon, Iran, Qatar and the UAE follow. Then, several countries such as Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia or Pakistan count only one major funder contributing to domestic publications.

Overall, Table  3 provides a snapshot of the number of funders in the MENA countries. It provides some useful information about the potential funding support available for each country.

To better understand the structure of research funding in MENA, when available, Table  4 lists the three main funders for each country (CU) in MENA based on the related number of domestic publications with funding acknowledgments (DPWFAs), the proportion these publications represent over the total number of domestic publications (%DP) over the study period, the country of the funder (FCU) and its type.

Unsurprisingly, Table  4 lists almost exclusively domestic funders, except for Afghanistan, Djibouti and Syria. For some countries like Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Bahrain, and Turkey it was not possible to find three funders because they are dominated by a single funder. Then, the countries dominated by double funders include Iran, Iraq, Libya, and Tunisia. The academic sector is the most prominent contributor across MENA with 24 universities contributing more than 1% of the total number of domestic publications in their countries. Then, the government institutions, mainly ministries of higher education and research, national research centers, foundations, or funds. Libya and Yemen are not listed in Table  5 since there is no major funder acknowledged in their domestic publications.

When available, the top three funders of international publications are listed in Table  5 along with the number of publications with funding acknowledgments (IPWFAs), the related proportion (%IP) for the corresponding country of publication (CU) over the study period, the country of the funder (FCU) and its type. This table also provides some information in terms of source of funding support received. For most countries in MENA, the funders are government organizations or organizations related to government entities. One can also see that, for some countries, the academic sector appears as the major contributing funders type since the main universities of these countries contribute to a large proportion of the national output and are acknowledged in their scientific publications. These findings also show that most important funders in Middle East countries such as Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman, Bahrain, and Jordan are universities by contrast to North African countries. Universities in the Middle East are granted direct government funds to support research initiatives in an independent way, however research funding is regulated through national calls for research projects in North Africa as confirmed previously by Currie-Alder ( 2015 ) and Hanafi and Arvanitis ( 2015 ).

Also, the location of the funders allows to distinguish countries dominated by domestic or foreign funders. Most countries in MENA have at least one major domestic funder contributing to international publications. Afghanistan, UAE, Bahrain, Egypt, Egypt, Palestine, Syria and Yemen are the exceptions. In the case of Egypt and Yemen, King Saud University in Saudi Arabia appears as a main funder. This might be due to non-Saudi researchers who are affiliated to Saudi institutions and list them as affiliations (Bhattacharjee, 2011 ) but also as funders. The United States of America, the United Kingdom, China, Japan, South Korea. Malaysia and some European countries such as France, Germany or Spain, are the locations of the main foreign funders. This suggests some relatively strong funding ties between specific countries and the MENA region. Saudi Arabia and Iran are the only countries in MENA appearing as a foreign location of one funder: King Saud University is the main funder in the case of Egypt and Yemen. Similarly, the National Institute of Health Research of Iran appears as a main funder located in MENA for Bahrain.

Location and type of major funders

To characterize further the funding landscape in MENA, the analysis of the location of all the major funders allows us to determine the geographical source of the funding granted to research projects in which researchers in the MENA region participated. Several distinctions can be made between domestic and foreign funders, but also between MENA and non-MENA funders. The contribution of all the funders by location is shown in Fig.  5 for each country in MENA based on the share of publications where their name appears in the funding acknowledgments.

Share of PWFAs of major funders in WoS with international co-authors (top) and only domestic authors (bottom) broken down by location type for each country in MENA (2008–2021)

When considering the international publications, Fig.  5 shows that several countries in MENA, such as Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Algeria, Morocco and Bahrain have a significant share of contribution of foreign funders not located in MENA (top chart in Fig.  5 ). This might be due to the presence of foreign funders acknowledged by international co-authors in the related publications. It is also possible that some foreign funders have specific funding programs focused on collaboration with researchers located in MENA.

Countries like Tunisia, Oman, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Yemen show a higher involvement of both domestic and foreign funders (top chart). Turkey and Iran are dominated by one domestic funder as listed previously in Table  4 .

When focusing only on domestic publications, most MENA countries show an exclusive contribution of domestic funders (bottom chart). However, researchers located in a few MENA countries such as Djibouti, Syria and Afghanistan acknowledged foreign funders in a substantial share of their publications. Also, it is worth noting that Libya and Yemen do not show any major contribution of funders in their domestic publications.

It seems the distribution of funders by location has become diverse in recent years for specific countries in MENA. However, the level of diversity in funding sources varies between MENA countries. These findings partially reveal that some differences exist between countries in MENA in terms of domestic funding capabilities and funding structures with some science systems relying more on foreign funding support than other economies especially when considering their international co-publications.

Another characteristic of funders considered in this section is their type. In Fig.  6 , the contribution of funders based on the share of publications where they are acknowledged is broken down by type for each country in MENA. As for the top 3 funders shown in Table  4 , the government agencies seem to be the most active in the region in terms of research funding. Then, the academic funders, the nonprofit funding organizations and the research councils follow. Figure  6 also shows that some countries with a relatively high number of funders such as Qatar, Palestine, and Morocco have a contribution to international publications from a diverse range of agency types (right of the top chart). The chart also highlights the strong presence of government funders in all MENA countries and academic funders in most countries.

Share of PWFAs of major funders in WoS with international co-authors (top) and only domestic authors (bottom) broken by agency type for each country in MENA (2008–2021)

However, when focusing only on the domestic publications (bottom chart), the types of the funders are less diverse than in the international publications. The government and academic sectors appear to be the major contributors in terms of publications with funding acknowledgments. In most countries in MENA, the government and/or academic sector are even the sole major source of funding acknowledged in domestic publications. However, a few countries such as Oman, Kuwait, Qatar but also Egypt and Lebanon still show other types of funders including research institutes, nonprofit and research councils being also main domestic sources of funding.

These results are aligned with statistics reported by UNESCO ( 2015 ). The bulk of Global Expenditure on Research and Development (GERD) in many countries in MENA is reported to be performed mainly by the government sector, followed by the higher education sector. At the time of the report, the UNESCO also highlights that the private sector plays a small or no role in the research activities. However, some exceptions such as Jordan, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Tunisia and the UAE where the private sector did contribute on average 25% of GERD. But such contribution is not necessarily reflected in the funding acknowledgments found in scientific publications as per the results of this study. This may suggest that these funding contributions are directly not visible in the scientific publications as the final outputs but may support other purposes such as funding of patenting activities or commercialization efforts. Also, the funding support provided to research and development activities may also simply be reflected in the affiliations of the authors of a scientific publication.

Qualitative analyses of funding acknowledgments in international publications

To complement the previous results, several qualitative analyses of funding acknowledgments found in distinct random samples of international publications were conducted.

Based on the previous scientometric analyses, the clarity of research funding remains a challenge when acknowledged in international publications. It is not very clear who the funding recipient is. The first random sample (S1) is composed of 100 random international papers with funding acknowledgments. The purpose of analyzing this sample is to gain deeper insights into the context of the funding reported in such international publications.

Tables 4 and 5 highlight the significant presence of universities in funding acknowledgments. In many instances, universities seem to play a funder role. Notably, in domestic publications (Table  4 ), universities appear to be prominent funding contributors. The second random sample (S2) contains 25 random papers with at least one university acknowledged as a funder. The aim of the analysis of this sample is to clarify the funding structure when a university is acknowledged in the funding statement of a scientific publication.

These two random samples were extracted from the in-house version of the Web of Science T-SQL database held at the Centre for Science and Technology Studies-CWTS (Leiden University). Random sampling SQL queries with relevant clauses were run to obtain the random samples (S1: 100 IPWFAs with at least an author from MENA. S2: 25 IPWFAs with at least one university acknowledged as a funder). The MENA countries these two random samples correspond to are shown in Fig.  7 .

Number of publications by MENA country for each random sample

The funding acknowledgments found in the papers of these two random samples were analyzed manually. The data was structured based on groups of recurring themes relevant to the research questions of this study.

A qualitative analysis of funding acknowledgments in 100 random international publications

Several elements were analyzed in the first random sample. Findings are reported in Table  6 . The first element of this analysis consists of analyzing whether the funding is attributed to specific author(s). 30% of the international publications with funding acknowledgments of this random sample contain information about the attribution of the reported funding support. In most cases, authors simply juxtaposition the funders from which they receive funding and do not mention who received the funding. In about two thirds of publications with attributable funding, the funding is granted to the international co-author.

Then, the second aspect of the manual analysis concerns the acknowledgment of the authors affiliations. About half of the publications show an acknowledgment of at least one of the affiliations of the authors, i.e., the employers of the researchers, and 46% of the publications contain the grant details of the funding support received by the authors.

Next, the locations of the acknowledged funders were also analyzed from the perspective of the MENA country for which the publication is counted. It is worth reminding that the IPWFAs are fully counted against the location of each acknowledged funder that can be of mixed origin, with a distinction between domestic funding (the funder shares the same location as the MENA country for which the publication is counted) and foreign funding (the funder is located in a foreign country in MENA or Non-MENA). The full counting of IPWFAs by funder location explains why the total percentage by funder location exceeds 100%. In this first random sample, the share of foreign funders from MENA and non-MENA countries is 79% and 9% respectively. However, the proportion of domestic funders is 42%.

Similarly, funders acknowledged in publications can be of mixed type and IPWFAs are fully counted towards each type. This also explains why the total percentage of IPWFAs by funder type exceeds 100%. This first random sample shows a relatively high variety of funders in terms of types. Government funders represent the highest share (64%), followed by academic (47%) and nonprofit ones (20%).

Overall, these findings confirm the results of “Major funders in MENA” Section found with regards to the locations and types of the acknowledged funders. Additionally, a substantial share of publications contains funding acknowledgments to the authors’ employers. However, the funding is attributed to specific authors in a lesser extent. In these international publications with attributable funding, about two thirds of them show that the funding is granted to the international co-author.

A qualitative analysis of 25 random publications with at least one university acknowledged as a funder

Like Table  6 , Table  7 lists the different elements analyzed in the second random sample consisting of 25 random publications with at least one university acknowledged as a funder. In this sample, the funding is explicitly attributed to a specific author in 24% of the publications. In most cases, authors simply juxtaposition the funders from which they receive funding without explicit attribution. Nevertheless, all the publications in this sample contain an acknowledgment of the university with which at least one of the authors is affiliated.

This sample consists of publications which mention at least one university as a funder which explains the 100% value for the proportion of publications with a funder of academic type. About one third of the publications of this sample also acknowledge a government funder. Global corporates are also acknowledged but in a much lesser extent (4%).

In terms of locations of the acknowledged funders, the share of foreign funders (MENA and non-MENA) in the first and second random samples are similar. However, the proportion of domestic funders is substantially higher in the second sample than in the first one, respectively 72% and 42%. In fact, in the second random sample, all the MENA authors acknowledge their employers, i.e., the universities where they work, as their funding providers. In most cases, the acknowledgments found in that sample consist of giving credit to the authors’ employers without specific details. In such instances, the authors may simply refer to the salaries they receive from their employers to conduct research. However, other funding acknowledgments provide more details in terms of received funding support (awards of grants with grant details, purchase of equipment, travel exchange programs, special projects, etc.).

Survey of 220 corresponding authors of IPWFAs

In order to contextualize the previous results, this section presents the findings of the survey of 220 corresponding authors of 220 IPWFAs constituting the third random sample (10 publications for each country in MENA). The corresponding authors of these papers were contacted by email with a series of open and closed questions related to the funding reported in their publications. Each email was personalized, featuring title and a direct link to the related IPWFA but also the list of acknowledged funders. The primary objectives of these questions were to determine whether:

The reported funding was dedicated to a specific research project, or if the funding was internal (e.g., salaried research time),

The funding was shared among co-authors,

And whether there were any requirements regarding international collaboration with specific countries.

28 responses were received, representing a response rate of 12.7%. Response rates of surveys vary based on multiple factors such as the employed survey method, the demographics of the surveyed population, or the field (Langfeldt et al., 2023 ). However, 12.7% is higher than what is observed in a similar online email survey of researchers (Ni & Waltman, 2023 ).

The countries of affiliation of the 28 corresponding authors of the IPWFAs, at the time of publication, are listed in Table  8 . MENA countries are marked with an asterisk symbol. It is worth reminding that the corresponding authors of international publications were not necessarily from MENA at the time of publication of the IPWFAs under study and that some corresponding authors had multiple affiliations from different countries.

Quotes are reported in this section to illustrate the findings. These responses were grouped under three topics:

The distinction between funding received for a dedicated research project and the internal funding or salary received from the author’s employer to do research,

The distinction between research projects where the funding is shared among all co-authors and the juxtaposition of research funding acknowledged in publications,

And requirements in terms of international collaboration.

Dedicated funding versus salaried research time

Out of the 28 responses, 10 authors clarified that the funding support they received was dedicated to the research reported in their paper. Several answers provide insights into the distinction between research funding dedicated to specific projects and the internal funding or salary received from the authors’ employers to conduct research. The authors’ statements emphasize the source and purpose of the funding they received, clarifying the nature of financial support for their research activities.

In the first two quotes below, the funding is explicitly described as being provided for dedicated research projects. The mention of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the University Grants Commission highlights the origin of these funds, which were granted for specific research initiatives. This indicates that the research was intentionally supported by external and specific entities, underlining the clear distinction between these funds and internal resources. Here, the funding is attributed through PhD programs.

The first author was a PhD student at that time and these funds were granted from the French ministry of foreign affairs.

In the second quote below, the author also mentions specific programs with the pharmaceutical industry. This may suggest a close collaboration between the author’s university and the pharmaceutical company which funds specific research projects.

Yes, it was a funded project. I was a Ph.D. student on this project. This project was granted by UGC [University Grants Commission] to my supervisor. This research was funded through pharmaceutical research programs.

The following quote illustrates how dedicated funding was provided for investigating a specific topic, in this case, waterpipe tobacco smoking. The grant was awarded by a major funder, the US National Institutes of Health, aligning the financial support directly with the research subject. This quote also emphasizes the targeted nature of funding for research purposes.

The two US National Institutes of Health grants (one from the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the other from the National Cancer Institute) that were cited in the publication were both awarded for the investigative team to study waterpipe tobacco smoking, which is the subject of the publication. So, yes, this funding was provided (in part) and "dedicated" for the purpose of studying the questions that were addressed in this publication. We were also funded to address other questions on the same topic (waterpipe tobacco smoking)

The final quote provides an example where the research did not receive dedicated funding. Instead, the authors’ institutions were contracted to provide technical support, leading to collaborative publications resulting from this collaboration. This scenario demonstrates how research outputs can arise from support work, even when the funding is not explicitly dedicated to the research at hand. The author also clearly mentions that, in some cases, scientific publications are expected to be produced from certain types of technical and research works.

We did not receive dedicated funding for the research in this paper. Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (JHSPH) and the Indian Institute of Health Management Research (IIHMR) were contracted by the Ministry of Public Health of Afghanistan as a third party to support monitoring and evaluation of their basic and hospital package of services. However, this work resulted in many joint publications between JHSPH and IIHMR researchers and MoPH officials. Institutions such as Hopkins pretty much expect publications to result from all technical support work.

Overall, these quotes clarify the significance of understanding the source, purpose, and intentions behind research funding. The distinction between funding dedicated to specific projects and internal resources is crucial for accurately assessing the financial landscape of scientific research.

Shared funding among co-authors or juxtaposition of research funding?

Out of 28 responses, 4 authors mentioned that the received funding was shared among the co-authors. Several answers from the corresponding authors allows to make the distinction between research projects where funding is shared among all co-authors and projects where each researcher reports their individual funding. Their answers emphasize how funding is allocated, acknowledged, and used within collaborative research efforts.

The first two quotes are instances where the funding is distributed among co-authors. In the first quote, the authors highlight that some co-authors received salaries from the reported funding, underscoring the shared nature of the financial support.

A couple of co-authors received salary from the reported funding to carry out the studies.

The second quote indicates that salaries for multiple authors were drawn from the combined funding sources, reinforcing the collaborative aspect of the project.

This paper was the result of a collaboration that was supported by a grant that I received from the Swiss National Science Foundation, as well as funding from the Leenards and Jeantet Foundations. Salaries for 7 of the authors were drawn from these fundings.

In contrast, the acknowledged funding is not shared by co-authors in most cases. The authors tend to mention and use independently the funding they receive. The subsequent quotes reveal situations where acknowledged funding is not shared among co-authors. Authors simply mention and utilize individual funding independently, indicating a non-shared funding approach.

Maziak, Rastam, Ibrahim and Ward were funded by (and salary supported by) DA024876, while Shihadeh was funded by (and salary supported by) CA120142). Eissenberg was funded by (and salary supported by) both DA024786 and CA120142.

This approach seems more frequent in cases where co-authors have distinct funding sources, as showcased in quotes where different co-authors used different funding sources based on their country of origin.

Different co-authors used different funding sources. Netherlands’ and Turkish funding was granted to the authors from The Netherlands and Turkey.

The two quotes below provide context into projects where external funding is not the primary factor behind collaboration. In one case, the research was not externally funded, and the authors leveraged their own affiliations for acknowledgment.

This was not externally funded. The study was run by a PhD student (who was externally funded by the Libyan government to do her PhD) and myself (fully funded by the University of Liverpool). We could have described it as ‘Funded by the Libyan Government’ – but they funded the student to do the PhD, not the clinical trial. So, we just used University of Liverpool as that is my university and the place of the PhD.

In another, the collaboration is driven by shared research interests rather than shared funding.

I knew Victor and Wissem much earlier than the time when we wrote the paper. The fact we share mathematical research interest is the only reason why we collaborated. There is no special shared funding relating to this article/work. The mentioned grants were used by the specified authors only.

These quotes collectively highlight the diverse approaches to acknowledging and sharing research funding among co-authors. While some collaborations involve shared financial resources, others rely on individual funding sources. This variability reflects the complexity of funding dynamics within collaborative research projects, where both shared and non-shared funding models play a role in driving scientific research activities.

International collaboration requirements

The survey of the corresponding authors also offers insights into the requirements imposed by funders for international collaborations in specific research projects. Their answers illustrate how the support provided by funders can influence the nature and extent of collaboration between researchers from different countries.

The first quote below points to a collaboration facilitated by the supervisor of a PhD student. This suggests that the collaboration was likely influenced by the co-author’s institutional connection, showcasing how affiliations with specific organizations can drive international collaboration.

The co-author was my PhD advisor who worked in Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), Djibouti

In the following quote, the mention of a postdoctoral funded by the Higher Education Commission in Pakistan and completed in Japan highlights the role of funding from a specific country in fostering international scientific mobility and collaborations for advanced research positions.

This was a Pakistan HEC post doc funding which was completed in Japan.

The third quote below reveals a certain commitment and intentions to geographical diversity and capacity building. For instance, the following quote is related to a project funded by internal budgets that emphasizes the importance of Global North–South scientific collaboration.

It [the funding] was only used for the PhD grant and the PhD student travels between the two involved countries, France and Tunisia. The reason for [my] collaboration with a colleague from Tunisia was to promote North-South scientific collaboration, training young south countries students. As a French researcher, I am particularly involved in such cooperations.

The subsequent quotes point to instances where internal budgeting and affiliations drive collaborations. In these cases, the funding sources may not be tied to external expectations for international collaboration but enable opportunities for researchers to engage across borders.

This research projected was supported by the Center’s internal budget. It was internal research funding. The colleague at the time of the research was affiliated to our institution and had assumed a position at Qatar University.

Another example specifies that temporary or visiting positions also play a critical role in funding support and funding acknowledgment:

I visited the biology department at Sultan Qaboos university [which funded the research project], there was an opportunity to collaborate on a small project.

In a different scenario described below, collaboration arises informally due to shared interests and complementary scientific disciplines. The collaboration is driven by the mutual benefits each researcher brings to the project, highlighting how rigor in research is promoted through transdisciplinary teamwork.

We are all close friends working from complementary scientific disciplines (Engineering, Epidemiology, Medicine, Psychology). We continue to work together in a collegial and transdisciplinary fashion today. We work together because each of us makes the work more rigorous, more revealing scientifically, and more fun.

In addition to specific required expertise, the facilities or equipment available in some research institutions also play a role in shaping collaborations and support acknowledged by authors. For instance, in the following quote, the author mentions that the co-author was instrumental in doing specific sample analyses that the corresponding author would not have been able to do in his own institution.

The funding was provided by the university [Izmir Institute of Technology], and it was used solely to finance the required chemicals and sample analysis. There were no conditions in terms of international collaboration. The colleague from Germany was helpful in some key sample analysis.

Finally, a corresponding author explains that the international collaboration with researchers from specific countries was a requirement from a funder supporting the research project.

Yes, this funding was dedicated to this research project. EURAPMON and Greater Los Angeles Zoo Association are the funders. And this funding was also used by co-authors. It was required from ERAPMON to collaborate with colleagues from specific countries [Djibouti, Oman] but there was no such a requirement from GLAZA.

Overall, these quotes showcase a range of international collaborations driven by various funding sources and motivations. Whether it is funders’ requirements, institutional affiliations, specific funding programs, or personal connections, funders also play a crucial role in shaping the global collaborative landscape in scientific research.

Discussion and conclusions

The aim of this study was to better understand the funding structure of scientific research in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region based on the funding acknowledgments found in scientific publications. An important element to consider when analyzing funding acknowledgments is the distinction between domestic publications and international publications. The recent increase of international co-authorship in scientific publications likely explains why some countries in MENA show a relatively high level of contribution of foreign funders. These foreign funders may have financially supported researchers who have co-authored scientific publications with researchers located in MENA. Also, the analysis of domestic publications reveals the contribution of the main domestic funders but also the role some foreign funders play in funding domestic research.

First, this study shows that the proportions of publications with funding acknowledgments vary greatly across MENA countries. Overall, countries in MENA have lower proportions of publications with funding acknowledgments than the World. Saudi Arabia and Qatar top the list with about half of their publications containing a funding acknowledgment. This may demonstrate the high level of funding available at a country level, but one needs to remember that some factors might impact what authors acknowledge in their publications. There are many reasons that influence the inclusion or exclusion of acknowledgments in scientific publications. For example, the presence of funding acknowledgments might be a requirement of the funder which supported financially the authors (Alvarez & Caregnato, 2018 ). In collaborations for multicentric medical research, minor contributors who do not qualify for authorship are often recognized with acknowledgments because of some journals’ editorial policies limiting the number of authors per article (Alvarez & Caregnato, 2021 ). Researchers paid by their employer such as a public university to do research, may be considered to be funded by the government but this would not necessarily be reported as a funding acknowledgment in their publications. In this case, the researcher’s affiliation may better reflect the support of their research institution as a funder.

The share of publications with funding acknowledgments follows an uptrend across all MENA countries except in countries which have witnessed conflicts or unrests in the recent years. Next, the names of the funding organizations found in the funding acknowledgments of scientific publications indexed in Web of Science (WoS) were unified. This unification process reveals a diverse funding landscape with Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt having the largest number of domestic funding organizations in the region. The difference in terms of number of funders might be explained by the size of the respective country but also by the different national funding structures.

Three groups of countries in MENA can be distinguished as per their number of funders: when considering all their publications, some countries like Qatar, Palestine and Morocco are dominated by several dozen funders contributing to at least 1% of the total number of national publications; then other countries such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait or Pakistan rely mainly on a few funders. Finally, countries like Turkey or Iran are dominated by one or two funders. However, when analyzing only the domestic publications, then the findings reveal only a few major domestic funders for most countries in MENA.

The findings also show the contribution of domestic and foreign funders to the scientific output of each country. Some countries, like Turkey, Iran, Oman, Kuwait, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, have a relatively high level of contribution of domestic funders mentioned in their scientific papers. In contrast, other countries in MENA seem to rely more on foreign funding sources.

The main funders found in scientific publications in MENA are government and academic organizations. This is not surprising since most of the scientific research in MENA is conducted by public universities funded by the governments and more specifically by the Ministry of Higher Education and Research or equivalent national institutions. Nevertheless, this study also shows the funding contributions of other sectors or types such as nonprofit institutions, research councils or national academies. Corporations appear as funders mainly in international scientific publications, but their contribution is much less visible. Public–private partnerships, and more specifically collaboration between the public and the private sector, have gained traction in scientific research funding in recent years and help to accelerate the translation of research into practical applications.

The different qualitative analyses allow a better understanding of the funding reported by authors in funding publications. More specifically, they clarified when the funding was attributed to specific authors, whether the funding was internal or external, and if it was dedicated to a specific project. Furthermore, the responses received from the surveyed corresponding authors shed light on collaborations observed in international co-authored publications. These analyses contribute to the limited body of qualitative studies on acknowledgments in science from the perspective of researchers (Alvarez & Caregnato, 2020 ; Cronin & Overfelt, 1994 ; Roa‐Atkinson & Velho, 2005 ). They confirm the important role played by acknowledgments in the primary communication process and also contribute to the literature about the operationalization of funding (Aagaard et al., 2021 ). The attribution and the amalgamation (fusion or juxtaposition) of funding are revealed by the employed qualitative methods and provide context on the collaboration between co-authors (Alvarez & Caregnato, 2020 ).

This study also contributes to a growing literature on research funding (Gök et al., 2016 ) which concerns various stakeholders: governments, public and private funding institutions, universities, research managers, and researchers. Several MENA countries have made investments in science and technology capacity to promote research and innovation (Schmoch et al., 2016 ; Shin et al., 2012 ; Siddiqi et al., 2016 ). Policy makers also changed their research governance (Currie-Alder, 2019 ). For instance, Arab countries have set national research priorities and changed the way to access public funding. Research funds expanded over the past two decades (Currie-Alder, 2015 ) and incentives were set to collaborate with distant and scientifically proficient foreign partners to connect with global scientific networks and improve the rank or Arab research organizations in international rankings of academic quality (Currie-Alder, 2019 ; Currie-Alder et al., 2018 ).

This present study sheds light on the recent trends on the landscape of funding in scientific research conducted in MENA. While the findings are significant, the analysis of funding acknowledgments comes with limitations which may underestimate the role of institutional funding which researchers do not always mention explicitly in their acknowledgments. In fact, researchers also mention the institutional funding their received by reporting their institutional affiliations in their scientific publications. Although some limitations exist, this study provides insights into the structure of scientific funding in MENA especially in terms of funding source, type and funding trends. These insights can be used by policy makers to monitor and design their research funding programs (Alvarez-Bornstein & Montesi, 2021 ; Paul-Hus et al., 2016 ; Wang & Shapira, 2015 ). For instance, from a funding policy and research evaluation perspective, policymakers could examine whether researchers in specific countries who received funding have produced any scientific publications (Albrecht et al., 2009 ; Alvarez & Caregnato, 2018 , 2021 ; Álvarez-Bornstein et al., 2018 ; Costas & Yegros-Yegros, 2013 ; Díaz-Faes & Bordons, 2014 ; Gao et al., 2019 ; Gök et al., 2016 ). Another example may consist of determining the trends in financing a specific subject or research area has received (Dorsey et al., 2006 ). Other works using funding acknowledgments have involved the mapping of funders to specific fields (Lewison & Dawson, 1998 ; Lewison et al., 2001 ) or specific funding programs (Boyack & Börner, 2003 ). Rangnekar ( 2005 ) also conducted an analysis of the mention of the Multiple Sclerosis Society, as a funder, within multiple sclerosis-related publications to analyze its visibility, its research orientations as well as its impact.

Finally, the results of this study open doors to new research opportunities. This study also reveals that funding acknowledgments data is a valuable starting point to understand funding structures and funding mechanisms. For instance, future work could focus on transnational research funding and how different forms of funding are used and reported by researchers. More specifically, future research may seek to analyze the collaboration and co-funding networks by country at the research area level, which may provide useful insights into the structures of funding mechanisms with regards to collaboration and research fields. The recent expansion of grant data coverage through the integration of Pivot-RP data in WoS Footnote 1 means that more records in WoS will have funding information for the first time and may also open doors to more granular analyses including the funding types (e.g. research, training, awards, collaboration agreement, travel, postdoctoral award, etc.). However, this study also reveals the complexity hidden in funding acknowledgments and the importance of both quantitative and qualitative methods to reveal information not explicitly communicated in funding acknowledgments. Ideally, to use funding acknowledgments quantitatively, authors will need to be more explicit about the funding context of their research. Scientific journals, conferences, books editors and preprint servers may have an important role to play in streamlining the funding information communicated by authors. Achieving a complete standardization of funding acknowledgments may not be feasible, necessitating an enduring need for qualitative analyses. Such quantitative and qualitative analyses are expected to better inform the policy makers on the funding structure of national science systems in MENA. They are also expected to provide insights on how the national science systems can best be funded in the near future.

Data availability

The research presented in this paper uses Web of Science data made available by Clarivate. The author is not allowed to share this data. However, the list of unified funders with their type and country is available in a data repository (El-Ouahi, 2023 ).

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Ludo Waltman and Thomas Franssen for their insightful comments and valuable suggestions that greatly improved the quality of this paper. I extend my gratitude to two anonymous reviewers whose comments enhanced the quality of this article.

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El-Ouahi, J. Research funding in the Middle East and North Africa: analyses of acknowledgments in scientific publications indexed in the Web of Science (2008–2021). Scientometrics (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-024-04983-8

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-024-04983-8

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