Components of Empirical Articles
1. Title and Abstract
a. Title informative—is it always accurate?
b. Read abstract a couple of times to orient yourself to main points
2. Introduction
a. Importance of topic
b. Review of literature (theoretical and empirical context)—trends, themes and
gaps
c. Rationale and justification for study
d. Purpose and aims
e. Primary questions and hypothesis
3. Methods
a. Sample (participants)
b. Procedure(s)
c. Measures
d. Data analysis plan
4. Results
a. Contains many findings—focus only on primary
i. Do not report preliminary analyses, intercorrelations, means, and
standard deviations
b. Main questions may be briefly reported
c. Organized around main research questions
d. Confirmatory findings—did findings support hypothesis?
e. Non-confirmatory findings—did any findings contradict hypothesis?
f. Non-statistically significant—were any hypotheses not significant (p>.05)
g. What were the main findings?
5. Discussion
a. Contains summary of results
b. Seeks to answer and discuss questions set out in introduction
c. Empirical context or results and theoretical context of results
d. Frames findings from study in terms of literature, previous studies, and/or
theory
i. Discusses unexpected findings/results and reasons for them
e. Statement of implications
f. Limitations
g. Questions/directions for future study
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