"IMRAD": A handy way
to organize reports
on scientific research

It's a common format for writing up scientific research, including not only hard sciences like physics and biology but also the social sciences. And social science research methods are used in applied fields like mass communications, business administration, social work and education as well as psychology and other hard-core behavioral sciences. So it's a good thing to know. Writers at the University of Wisconsin have a handy way of remembering how to do it -- they call it the "IMRAD format." That's because it consists of an Introduction followed by separate sections with the headings Methods, Research and Discussion (the a in "and" doesn't really stand for a heading, but it makes it easier to pronounce it like "im-rad"). Sometimes this organization is also known as the APA format, for the American Psychological Association which promotes use of the IMRAD headings in its APA stylesheet.

It's also a good way -- sometimes the best way -- to think through research papers you write for English and other freshman- and sophomore-level classes. Especially my classes!

Here are links to several OWL websites (which have nothing to do with nocturnal birds but are called OWLs after an acronym for Online Writing Laboratories). They have especially good explanations of the IMRAD headings. Read them. They will help you think through your research projects for Communications 150, English 111 and my other classes.

• An overview of the "IMRAD format" in a handout from the Writing Center of the University of Wisconsin at Madison at http://www-math.science.unitn.it/LRM3D2/report.htm. There are links to more detailed explanations of each of the headings, too.
• The Writing Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has a very good introduction to writing lab reports by Jennie Skerl at http://www.rpi.edu/web/writingcenter/labs.html
• Also on RPI's website is a introduction to the format for electrical computer and systems engineering (ECSE) students at http://www.rpi.edu/web/writingcenter/ecse_report.html
• "Writing Lab Reports in Psychology" by Greg Pierce of Hamilton College at http://www.hamilton.edu/academic/Resource/WC/WritingPsychPapers.html
• The biology department at George Mason University has a good overview of writing scientific papers, with links to separate pages on the introduction, method, results and discussion sections. The overview and links are at http://classweb.gmu.edu/biologyresources/writingguide/ScientificPaper.htm

The exercise below shows how I asked my ENG 111 students to use the IMRAD format in a class exercise in October 2003. It worked so well then that I've done it again several times, sometimes without advance notice. So it can pay you to know the format.

-- Pete Ellertsen, instructor, communications and English

The purpose of this exercise is to give you experience in writing up the kind of research usually performed by people in the behavioral sciences - and many applied fields like business, social work or communications. Your assignment: Write a 3- to 5-page report based on field research on a free food day at SCI.

Here's your research question: How do students at SCI feel about free food days? Your research - based on observation, interviews and/or survey research - will give you data you can use to formulate an answer to the question. Your answer will be the hypothesis you prove, or your thesis. Your reporting of the data becomes the evidence you use to prove it.

When you write up your answer, use the following sections, which are based on a standard format for social science research:

Your title can be brief, but, you need to have one. Center it on the page, at the top of the first page.

Below the title, but without a heading of its own, write an introductory paragraph or two outlining the research problem, or question, and suggesting its significance. Sometimes you can use this section as an attention-getter to draw readers into your report -- give an interesting real-life example, or summarize what you learned in a fresh and original way. At the end of this section, state your thesis in one sentence.

Describe how you gathered the information. Did you observe students, faculty and staff on Ginkgo Square for the free food day? Who did you interview? Why did you interview them? What sort of information did you expect to get from them? If you interviewed people who didn't take part in free food day, were did you find them? What did you expect they'd tell you? If you decide to do a survey questionnaire, here is where you would describe it.

What did you find? Here's where you include your description of the free food day, and most of the quotes you got from people there. This section would correspond to the body of a paper for English class, and it should be the longest section of your research report. For a science class, you will probably be expected to use passive voice and formal English to explain what phenomena were observed, etc. (When in doubt, ask your instructor.) For my classes, you probably want to make it sound more like a feature story in the newspaper.

What do your findings mean? Specifically, how do your findings prove your thesis? What patterns do you see in the data? Did you find what you expected to find, or were you surprised? (Often the parts that surprised you are the most significant, and the most interesting.) Is further research desirable? In the real world, researchers often use this section to promote interest (and funding) for their next research project. It corresponds to the conclusion in a freshman English paper.