What is an empirical research article in the social sciences?

Definition and purpose

Empirical research articles in the social sciences are documents that communicate research ideas. Articles present the answers to the social scientist’s research questions.

The purpose of an article is to communicate ideas from one researcher or research team to an audience. There are many ways to do this: orally (as in a conference, or podcast or interview), visually (video or graphically), or in writing.

We focus on journal articles, and, as such, on writing as the means of scientific communication. For the purpose of this post, “writing” refers to all elements within a standard journal article: text and tables and graphs.

How to think about academic writing in the social sciences

Writing Habits and Writing Strategies

Their audience

There are many audiences, from the public to experts, from policy-makers to scientists. These include articles designed to be read by teachers and organizations.

The primary audience of journal articles are other social scientists.

Their structure

Social scientists expect to understand what the author(s) – researcher or research team – did. As such, they expect specific kinds of information to appear in the articles. Due to long-held conventions, the structure became standard.

I write in the passive voice because, outside of the fact that it appeared and was adopted in the 20th Century, I do not know the origins of the structure (perhaps there is a research paper that details it).

The structure of empirical research articles varies by discipline, but there are commonalities across the social sciences. Some refer to it as the IMRaD structure – Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion, which is the standard structure of articles in the natural sciences and psychology. Sociologists also use this structure, but include a special section called “Theory and Hypotheses” – psychologists include this information in their “Introduction” section. There are other disciplinary differences in what scientists expect.

Criticism of the structure of empirical research research articles in the social sciences

The IMRaD and similar structures misrepresent the scientific process and are inefficient in many ways. The process from idea to publishing in the social sciences is not and never a straight line from introduction to conclusion. It misses important steps in the scientific process, such as how scientists discover ideas and tests of various ideas that do not work, both of which are creative endeavors. The rigid structure of social science articles hides the creativity of science and suggests, wrongly, a linear path from idea to completed article.

The article as it appears in the vast majority of social science journals is inefficient. The title can have unhelpful information. Information in the abstract appears in the introduction. Information in the introduction appears in the theory section. The conclusion can have, at times, a version of the introduction written in the past tense.

Moreover, the strict “word count” publishers impose on articles is a legacy of the age of the printing press that, in the age of the internet, is no longer necessary.

Scientists are trapped in expectations of others and, thus, in the current structure of empirical articles.

We could consider the structure as a sacrifice – scientists need specific information that the structure provides. For example, it would be difficult to report on the dead ends of research ideas in a way that would be clear for the audience to understand what the researcher or research team did. As such, the paper sacrifices accurate representations of the scientific process, as well as creativity and efficiency in order to be quick(ish) and clear reports on how the scientist(s) answered their research question.

Joshua K. Dubrow is a PhD from The Ohio State University and a Professor of Sociology at the Polish Academy of Sciences.