Original (Research) Article 

Original research articles are considered to be primary sources. 

An article can be considered as a primary source, if:

• The authors of the research article are the ones who did the study, and not merely describing the research work of others.
  
• The article states a novel research hypothesis and addresses the research question by following scientific methods.
• The scientific methods and results of the study are explicitly reported.
• In some cases, the raw data of the study are provided along with the article as supplementary material.
• The articles generally follow IMRAD (Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion)  structure with a concise abstract.

The following are resources providing more information about how to start writing and how to structure a good original research article:

Articles

• Vintzileos, A. M., & Ananth, C. V. (2010). How to write and publish an original research article. American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, 202, 4, pp. 344.e1 – 344.e6.
• Edwards, M. (2014). What does originality in research mean? A student’s perspective. Nurse Researcher, 21, 6, pp. 8-10.
• Cooper, I. D. (2015). How to write an original research paper (and get it published). Journal of the Medical Library Association: JMLA, 103, 2, 67-68.
• Heßler, N., Rottmann, M., and Ziegler, A. (2020). Empirical analysis of the text structure of original research articles in medical journals. PLoS ONE 15, 10, e0240288. 

Websites

• Purdue Online Writing Lab (n.d.). What is Primary Research and How do I get Started?
• University of Kansas, KU Writing Center (n.d.). Formatting Original Research.
• North Dakota State Libraries (n.d.). Finding and Identifying Original Research Articles in the Sciences.
• Walden University (n.d.). How do I find original or primary research that analyzes empirical data?
• Phillips Library, Mount St. Mary’s University (n.d.). Primary Sources and Original Research vs. Review Articles.