What are the 7 parts of a research paper? My professor mentioned them but I forgot.

My professor went over the parts of a research paper in class but I was so overwhelmed I didn't retain anything. Now I'm trying to figure it out on my own and getting conflicting information.

From what I can gather, most research papers have these sections:

1. Title Page - Title, name, date, course. Simple enough.

2. Abstract - Summary of the whole paper in like 250 words. Sounds impossible — how do you summarize 10+ pages in one paragraph?

3. Introduction - Background, research question, thesis. Why this topic matters and what you're trying to prove.

4. Literature Review - What other scholars have said about this topic. Not just summaries — synthesis. Showing how your research fits into existing conversations.

5. Methodology - How you did your research. For science papers this is detailed; for humanities it might be more about your approach.

6. Results/Findings - What you discovered. Just the facts, no interpretation yet.

7. Discussion - What your results mean. Interpret them, connect to literature, acknowledge limitations.

8. Conclusion - Summarize, restate importance, suggest future research. (That's 8, not 7 — see, conflicting info!)

9. References/Bibliography - All your sources, properly formatted.

So maybe it's 9 parts? Or 7 if you combine some? I'm so confused. Does anyone have a definitive list of what goes in a research paper?

Mike this is actually a really good question. The confusion is real because different fields use different structures. In social sciences, we usually do: Title, Abstract, Intro (with lit review integrated), Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion, References. That's 8. In natural sciences, they often do IMRaD (Intro, Methods, Results, Discussion) with Abstract and References, so 6. In humanities, it's more flexible. Your list of 9 is comprehensive and safe for most undergrad papers. When in doubt, more structure is better than less!