EDITORIAL Improving the writing of research papers: IMRAD and beyond Jianguo Wu Published online: 5 November 2011 �� Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011 Publishing in peer-reviewed journals is essential to scientific research. ������A scientific experiment, no matter how spectacular the results, is not completed until the results are published������ (Day and Gastel 2006). Advances in science depend on the rigorous process of scientific publishing. Justified or not, journal impact factors and article citations have become the buzz- words in today���s academic world, and have been used increasingly as metrics to evaluate the performance of research projects, journals, scientists, and institutions. As scientific journals and published articles continue to proliferate, we as editors, reviewers, and scientists all are faced with increasing challenges to communi- cate science more effectively and efficiently. In this series of editorials, we focus on the question: How can we improve our writing of research papers for Landscape Ecology and other professional journals to increase their readability and facilitate the process of their evaluation? Obviously, this is not a new question nor do we promise to have revolutionary answers. Experts have written numerous books and journal articles addressing this very topic. The main goal here is to discuss several key issues on the organization of research papers���particularly on the structure of IMRAD (introduction-methods-results- and-discussion)���the predominant format of scientific writing. I hope that our editors, reviewers, and authors will benefit from this discussion. IMRAD as an outcome of the evolution of scientific publishing Everyone in science may know something about IMRAD���the introduction-methods-results-and- discussion structure (Fig. 1). But its history is rather brief when compared to that of scientific writing as a whole. The first scientific journals appeared in the 17th century, when articles were published mainly in the form of descriptive letters and narratives structured chronologically (Meadows 1985 Day 1989). For more J. Wu (&) School of Life Sciences and Global Institute of Sustainability, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA e-mail: Jingle.Wu@asu.edu 123 Landscape Ecol (2011) 26:1345���1349 DOI 10.1007/s10980-011-9674-3

than two centuries, scientific papers were published without a generally accepted format. During this period of time, however, the idiosyncrasy in scientific publishing gradually withered as both the journals and the papers in them became increasingly formalized by developing some form of organization in structure (Meadows 1985). Day (1989) argued that it was Louis Pasteur who invented the first IMRAD-like writing structure in his classic book, Etudes sur la Biere (studies on fermentation), originally published in 1876. Pasteur���s book had identifiable sections of ������introduc- tion������, ������methods������, and ������discussion���������although such headings were not explicitly used (Day 1989). How- ever, IMRAD did not become the ������standard������ until the 1970s, when the American national standard for the preparation of scientific papers for written or oral presentation (ANSI Z39.16-1972) was published in 1972 and again 1979 (Day 1989 Day and Gastel 2006). IMRAD began to be adopted by scientific journals around the 1940s, and quickly became the dominant format for research papers in a majority of leading scientific journals by the late 1970s. For example, for leading journals in medical research IMRAD was adopted in the 1950s, became predominant in the 1960s, and has been the standard since the 1980s (Sollaci and Pereira 2004). In physics, IMRAD was already employed extensively in the 1950s (Bazerman 1984). Research papers in two of the most prominent ecological journals, Journal of Ecology (published by British Ecological Society since 1913) and Ecology (published by Ecological Society of America since 1920), began to adopt IMRAD in the 1950s. For instance, Lindeman���s (1942) seminal article on trophic dynamics in Ecology was organized by topics, but the classic paper on vegetation continuum by Curtis and McIntosh (1951) in the same journal clearly was IMRAD-structured. In Journal of Ecology, Watt���s (1947) masterpiece on pattern and process in plant communities was also organized with topical head- ings, but Pielou���s (1957) paper���one of the earliest about scale effects on characterizing spatial patterns��� had the appearance of IMRAD. Today, IMRAD is the standard for all major journals in ecology, including this one���Landscape Ecology. Why has IMRAD been adopted by almost all research journals so widely and quickly, with no sign of being abandoned anytime soon? According to Meadows (1985, 1998), changing the internal organi- zation of research papers is one way for the scientific community to respond to the exponential growth of Fig. 1 Diagrammatic representation of the IMRAD structure of research papers (modified from a diagram at http://www.services. unimelb.edu.au/asu/writing/). The basic structure of IMRAD has only four sections: introduction (I), methods (M), results (R), and discussion (D). Most original research papers today have 6���10 sections, with those in dotted-lined boxes being optional. The shape of each section is meaningful as it suggests how that section should proceed in terms ofspecificity (focusing onyour study)and generality (relating to studies by others). The size of each box is roughly proportionaltothe relative length ofeachsection. The text with arrows indicates what main questions each section should address 1346 Landscape Ecol (2011) 26:1345���1349 123