Research Paper Format
Research papers for this course should be written in accordance with the Style Manual of the American Institute of Physics. Essentially all research published in physics, astronomy, and engineering journals follows this style or one very similar to it.
Below I list the major sections usually, but not always, included in a astrophysics research paper with a short description.
Title – Pick a descriptive title.
Author List – List of authors names.
Affiliation – Your institutional affiliation. For example: Department of Physics, Colorado College
Date – You know what this is.
Abstract – The abstract is a brief summary of the paper. It is typically one paragraph long and is a concise summary what was done and the principle results. It may be assumed that the reader has some knowledge of the subject, but the abstract should be intelligible without reference to the paper. Don’t cite sections, tables, or figures in the abstract. The title of the paper is part of the abstract, so the opening sentence should be framed without repetition of the title. I usually write the abstract last as I often have a better sense of what should be included after I’ve written the paper.
Introduction – This section introduces the topic of your paper to the reader. It usually includes a historical overview with references to previous work. In the AIP style, references are made with a numbered footnote, but papers in astronomy and astrophyics journals use a simple author date format. See the sample papers for examples. The introduction might include any theoretical calculations or results that you will use in your observations, although many times detailed theoretical calculations are included in a separate theory section or in an appendix. However, the most important purpose of the introduction is to describe the objectives of your experiment.
Observations and Data Reduction – In this section you describe how the observations were done. One typically describes the instruments and detectors used in this section. You must also describe how the data was reduced and analyzed. Depending on the length, this section might be broken into two or more subsections. Don't forget to describe how uncertainties in your quantitative results were obtained if this is appropriate.
Results and Discussion – This section is the real meat of the paper. This is were you present and interpret your results. You may wish to break this into subsections if it makes the paper clearer. In this section you should interpret your results in light of theory and other information contained in the Introduction. This is where you would compare your result with theory or other observations. Describe how the result fits or doesn't fit current models. If you are presenting quantitative results, be sure to include uncertainties. Use tables, graphs, and images where needed to present your results.
Summary and Conclusion – No new information is presented here. Briefly summarize your main results and draw conclusions from them. Do your results confirm or deny current models or theories? If appropriate, suggest observations that might resolve issues your observations weren't able to resolve. Often the abstract and conclusion are the only part of the paper that a casual reader will read.
Acknowledgments – Acknowledge those who helped.
Appendices – Include an appendix if you wish to derive an important result or describe and aspect of the experiment that isn’t appropriate to include in the main part of the text.
References – This section includes the references in the approriate format. See any astronomy or astrophysics papers published in one of the major journals for examples of the proper format.