Journals usually publish research papers under a specific type. Knowing them could be helpful in writing a paper, so that you can choose one in order to write your own, or it would be a guide of how to extract a paper from your theses.
Types of research papers
Original research
An original research explains all the steps of a complete research and contains all parts of a research paper.
In this type of research article, the researcher should explain what has done in details. So an original research paper contains a review of the literature and methodology in addition to findings and results.
Most of the research articles are written in this format.
Short reports or letters
In this type of research article, the researcher give a short report of data. The data are collected from an original research, but due to time limitations, the researcher provide a short report to reveal the results in a short and summarized format as soon as possible.
It happens usually in fast growing field of studies in which there is a competition among researchers, in addition sometimes a researcher achieves remarkable results and he/she is keen to provide a short report as soon as possible. The researcher can publish the original research afterwards.
Review articles
Review papers act as the literature review of original researches. In fact, in review papers a summary of previous researches which has been done by other researchers is presented.
Usually editors of a journal ask scientific leaders to write these types of research articles. However you can also send a draft of your work and ask for editor’s opinion.
Case studies
In case studies, the researcher chooses a specific subject to research on. These types of researches are done in depth due to the subject being limited.
The case or subject would be a specific society, individual, event, action existing in a specific time and place.
Methodologies or methods
These kind of papers introduce a new method or questionnaire for measuring a variable, based on previous researches and presented methodologies.
