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BIOS 107: Biology I: Find a biological experiment

This Research Guide will help you find library resources in the biological sciences, including articles from scientific journals. It will also help you to identify the components of an original research article and other useful information.

What do original research articles look like?

How Research Works: Follow the Science

What are original research articles?

An original research article is based on new evidence or research from a study or experiment.  The researchers are the first to report on the findings from their experiment or study.  These articles have gone through the peer-review process which validates the results of the original research.

Generally an original research article has a standard format with the following pieces:

1. Abstract:

2. Introduction/background: overview or summary of the article, experiment or study, background for why the authors did this research

3. Methods or methodology: how was the experiment/study conducted, who or what was studied, and how many participated

4. Results: what happened as a result of the study, what are the findings

5. Discussion/Conclusion: what did the researchers observe from the experiment or study, is further study needed, did the experiment prove or disprove the hypothesis

6. References: what sources did the researchers use in the article to support their findings

7. Graphs, Charts, Tables are generally found in these types of articles

Finding Original Research Articles

Find a biological experiment article