03 - Article structure - Seminar papers

Article structures between disciplines and across countries vary, although there does seem to be some convergence within academic literature. From my personal experience as a researcher and as a corrector of texts written in English by French authors, I have the feeling that English language articles are more compact than articles by some French writers. Articles in English journals tend to concentrate on one key idea: the hypothesis is set out, the data/information used to test it is presented and the results are then written up as briefly as possible. Or, as my PhD supervisor in "civilisation britannique", which draws mainly on the methodology of history, used to say: "PIC - problématiser, informer, commenter".

In some of the texts by French authors I have corrected, the research on several ideas is grouped together in one paper. This makes the article (paper) long, more difficult to prepare (i.e. write and correct in English) and perhaps harder to get published.

A somewhat "purist" view of how articles should be written is given by John Cochrane (see reference below). He is a professor of finance at the University of Chicago, a university known for its free-market views, which he shares. His original university training was also in physics, which may partly explain his writing style. For Cochrane, the most important thing to keep in mind is that articles should be as short as possible, concentrating on essential information: i.e. your specific contribution to the research/literature.

Such brevity begins with the abstract, which presents the main idea of the article.

Similarly, the introduction sets out briefly what your main idea is, and why you have looked at the issue you analyse.

If you provide a review of the literature, keep it short and do it to explain why you are doing your research.

Then move on to the body of article, in which you should present your ideas/findings as quickly as possible.  Background theory should be presented succinctly, as should data.

The conclusion too should be short, and it is perhaps not necessary to restate your main idea/findings if these are already stated in the abstract, the introduction and the body of the text.

For further information, see John H. Cochrane, "Writing tips for PhD students", June 8, 2005, which you can download in pdf format from the link below. (I thank Bertrand Wigniolle for referring me to this article.)

An interesting example of this compact style can be found in an article by Franklin Gilliam, Professor of Politicals Sciences at UCLA, entitled "The "Welfare Queen" Experiment: How Viewers React to Images of African-American Mothers on Welfare". He describes an experiment he conducted on the views of welfare recipients in the United States, linked to the issue of race and gender. His experiment seeks to assess the "narrative script" which emerged in the United States about black women living on state aid, and which was used by Ronald Reagan and the "New Right" to promote anti-government policies. It is probably fairly safe to say that Prof Cochrane and Prof Gilliam have opposing views about social and economic policy. But they both share a similar approach to presenting research in economics and political sciences.

For information about writing a seminar paper, see Dirk Thiessen, Seminar: Writing Techniques, WS 2006-2007.
http://www.nets.rwth-aachen.de/content/teaching/seminars/sub/seminar_hints/seminar_paper.pdf