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Research Paper Basics: IMRaD

What is IMRaD?

IMRaD is an acronym for Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion. It describes the format for the sections of a research report. The IMRaD (or IMRD) format is often used in the social sciences, as well as in the STEM fields.

Credit: IMRD: The Parts of a Research Paper by Wordvice Editing Service on YouTube

Outline of Scholarly Writing

With some variation among the different disciplines, most scholarly articles of original research follow the IMRD model, which consists of the following components:

Introduction

  • Literature Review
  • Statement of Problem (i.e. "the Gap")
  • Plan to Solve the Problem

Method & Results

  • How Research was Done
  • Data
  • What Answers were Found

Discussion

  • Interpretation of Results
    (What Does It Mean?)
  • Implications for the Field

This form is most obvious in scientific studies, where the methods are clearly defined and described, and data is often presented in tables or graphs for analysis.

In other fields, such as history, the method and results may be embedded in a narrative, perhaps describing and interpreting events from archival sources. In this case, the method is the selection of archival sources and how they were interpreted, while the results are the interpretation and resultant story.

In full-length books, you might see this general pattern followed over the entire book, within each chapter, or both.

 

Creative Commons License

Credit: Howard-Tilton Memorial Library at Tulane University. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.