How to Write a Good Journal Article

A journal is a publication on a particular professional activity or subject targeting technical or academic audience. Journals contain articles by professors, researchers, and other experts. Since journals are not for a general audience, you must write an insightful and well-researched article that will add value to a profession or technical area.

Decide on a good purpose

You should have a good purpose and target for a journal article. Write down the vision and refer to it often to stay focuses on the mission. Do a background research and reading. Decide on a refined research goal and several objectives for writing a journal article. Start to write after completing all the analysis and created a plot that supports your goal for writing an article. It helps to get a strong outline for developing a discussion.

Before you start writing look at the article structure for the journal you will send your article to so that you follow the norm. The editor will reject your article in case of a mismatch in your manuscript and the journal style. Make sure that your article complements the journal’s mission. You can easily find its mission by reading the published articles.

Choose a catchy title

An academician will not read journal articles for fun but for a specific reason. They look at the title to decide if there is any need to read the entire article. Write attention grabbing title after completing your paper in order to put it into context.

Prepare an outline

Although a journal has its article style, you should have your own outline. You can prepare an outline beforehand or develop it when writing but it should be consistent throughout your work. Come up with a detailed outline on main sections and calibrate it with the target journal. Let it match the type of headings in the journal and length of sections. Set your word limits for each section and sub-sections to match that of the journal.

Appeal to your readers in the article’

Start with motivation introduction that influences readers to think that your article has something they should know. Write a short introduction with information on the subject of your article.

Start your article when you have clarity of mind so that you can put ideas across in the best way. Avoid making grammatical and spelling mistakes as they will make you seem careless. Be simple. Simplify complex ideas and present them in a way that a scholar will easily understand. Discuss your ideas in a coherent story, relevant in the context of the article’s topic and subject.

Write about aspects you wish to discuss in detail within the body of your article. Back your arguments and proposals with evidence from your research. It makes your article more credible. Take a fresh from the authors of the material you got from your research when presenting your evidence. Take a new approach even when you write about something that somebody already wrote about so that your article does not look like a duplicate.

Discuss 2 or 3 ideas to avoid giving too much information that is difficult for readers to comprehend. For research or study based article, you should write about the steps of your experiment. Include details on how you collected data and how it applied in your analysis. Explain how the results of your study address the goals and objectives of your article.

Write a strong conclusion

A conclusion should tie up the matters you discussed and portray the importance of your article. Restate the significant points and importance. It should also identify any areas to consider for further research. Your conclusion should be interesting like the beginning of your article. It should persuade readers to mull over your article. You can leave a lasting impression by ending with a quote, a question or startling statement.