IMRAD

In this sense, to explain how to line up the information in IMRaD writing, the 'wine glass model' (see the pattern diagram shown in Fig.1) will be helpful (see pp 2–3 of the Hilary Glasman-deal [4]).

Although the IMRAD structure originates in the empirical sciences, it now also regularly appears in academic journals across a wide range of disciplines.

For example, it is explicitly recommended in the "Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals" issued by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (previously called the Vancouver guidelines): The text of observational and experimental articles is usually (but not necessarily) divided into the following sections: Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion.

This so-called "IMRAD" structure is not an arbitrary publication format but rather a direct reflection of the process of scientific discovery.

[8]The IMRAD structure is also recommended for empirical studies in the 6th edition of the publication manual of the American Psychological Association (APA style).

[10] The IMRAD structure has proved successful because it facilitates literature review, allowing readers to navigate articles more quickly to locate material relevant to their purpose.

[11] But the neat order of IMRAD rarely corresponds to the actual sequence of events or ideas of the research presented; the IMRAD structure effectively supports a reordering that eliminates unnecessary detail, and allows the reader to assess a well-ordered and noise-free presentation of the relevant and significant information.

It allows the most relevant information to be presented clearly and logically to the readership, by summarizing the research process in an ideal sequence and without unnecessary detail.

In a radio talk in 1964 the Nobel laureate Peter Medawar criticised this text structure for not giving a realistic representation of the thought processes of the writing scientist: "… the scientific paper may be a fraud because it misrepresents the processes of thought that accompanied or gave rise to the work that is described in the paper".

A few variations can occur, as follows: In the late 20th century and early 21st, the scientific communities found that the communicative value of journal articles was still much less than it could be if best practices were developed, promoted, and enforced.

Fig.1: Wineglass model for IMRaD structure. The above scheme shows how to line up the information in IMRaD writing. It has two characteristics: the first is its top-bottom symmetric shape; the second is its change of width, meaning the top is wide, and it narrows towards the middle, and then widens again as it goes down toward the bottom. The first characteristic, the top-bottom symmetric shape, represents the symmetry of the story development. The second one, the change of width, represents the change in generality of the viewpoint.