the parts of a research report

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Writing Research Papers

• Research Paper Structure

Whether you are writing a B.S. Degree Research Paper or completing a research report for a Psychology course, it is highly likely that you will need to organize your research paper in accordance with American Psychological Association (APA) guidelines.  Here we discuss the structure of research papers according to APA style.

Major Sections of a Research Paper in APA Style

A complete research paper in APA style that is reporting on experimental research will typically contain a Title page, Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, and References sections. 1  Many will also contain Figures and Tables and some will have an Appendix or Appendices.  These sections are detailed as follows (for a more in-depth guide, please refer to " How to Write a Research Paper in APA Style ”, a comprehensive guide developed by Prof. Emma Geller). 2

What is this paper called and who wrote it? – the first page of the paper; this includes the name of the paper, a “running head”, authors, and institutional affiliation of the authors.  The institutional affiliation is usually listed in an Author Note that is placed towards the bottom of the title page.  In some cases, the Author Note also contains an acknowledgment of any funding support and of any individuals that assisted with the research project.

One-paragraph summary of the entire study – typically no more than 250 words in length (and in many cases it is well shorter than that), the Abstract provides an overview of the study.

Introduction

What is the topic and why is it worth studying? – the first major section of text in the paper, the Introduction commonly describes the topic under investigation, summarizes or discusses relevant prior research (for related details, please see the Writing Literature Reviews section of this website), identifies unresolved issues that the current research will address, and provides an overview of the research that is to be described in greater detail in the sections to follow.

What did you do? – a section which details how the research was performed.  It typically features a description of the participants/subjects that were involved, the study design, the materials that were used, and the study procedure.  If there were multiple experiments, then each experiment may require a separate Methods section.  A rule of thumb is that the Methods section should be sufficiently detailed for another researcher to duplicate your research.

What did you find? – a section which describes the data that was collected and the results of any statistical tests that were performed.  It may also be prefaced by a description of the analysis procedure that was used. If there were multiple experiments, then each experiment may require a separate Results section.

What is the significance of your results? – the final major section of text in the paper.  The Discussion commonly features a summary of the results that were obtained in the study, describes how those results address the topic under investigation and/or the issues that the research was designed to address, and may expand upon the implications of those findings.  Limitations and directions for future research are also commonly addressed.

List of articles and any books cited – an alphabetized list of the sources that are cited in the paper (by last name of the first author of each source).  Each reference should follow specific APA guidelines regarding author names, dates, article titles, journal titles, journal volume numbers, page numbers, book publishers, publisher locations, websites, and so on (for more information, please see the Citing References in APA Style page of this website).

Tables and Figures

Graphs and data (optional in some cases) – depending on the type of research being performed, there may be Tables and/or Figures (however, in some cases, there may be neither).  In APA style, each Table and each Figure is placed on a separate page and all Tables and Figures are included after the References.   Tables are included first, followed by Figures.   However, for some journals and undergraduate research papers (such as the B.S. Research Paper or Honors Thesis), Tables and Figures may be embedded in the text (depending on the instructor’s or editor’s policies; for more details, see "Deviations from APA Style" below).

Supplementary information (optional) – in some cases, additional information that is not critical to understanding the research paper, such as a list of experiment stimuli, details of a secondary analysis, or programming code, is provided.  This is often placed in an Appendix.

Variations of Research Papers in APA Style

Although the major sections described above are common to most research papers written in APA style, there are variations on that pattern.  These variations include: 

• Literature reviews – when a paper is reviewing prior published research and not presenting new empirical research itself (such as in a review article, and particularly a qualitative review), then the authors may forgo any Methods and Results sections. Instead, there is a different structure such as an Introduction section followed by sections for each of the different aspects of the body of research being reviewed, and then perhaps a Discussion section. 
• Multi-experiment papers – when there are multiple experiments, it is common to follow the Introduction with an Experiment 1 section, itself containing Methods, Results, and Discussion subsections. Then there is an Experiment 2 section with a similar structure, an Experiment 3 section with a similar structure, and so on until all experiments are covered.  Towards the end of the paper there is a General Discussion section followed by References.  Additionally, in multi-experiment papers, it is common for the Results and Discussion subsections for individual experiments to be combined into single “Results and Discussion” sections.

Departures from APA Style

In some cases, official APA style might not be followed (however, be sure to check with your editor, instructor, or other sources before deviating from standards of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association).  Such deviations may include:

• Placement of Tables and Figures  – in some cases, to make reading through the paper easier, Tables and/or Figures are embedded in the text (for example, having a bar graph placed in the relevant Results section). The embedding of Tables and/or Figures in the text is one of the most common deviations from APA style (and is commonly allowed in B.S. Degree Research Papers and Honors Theses; however you should check with your instructor, supervisor, or editor first). 
• Incomplete research – sometimes a B.S. Degree Research Paper in this department is written about research that is currently being planned or is in progress. In those circumstances, sometimes only an Introduction and Methods section, followed by References, is included (that is, in cases where the research itself has not formally begun).  In other cases, preliminary results are presented and noted as such in the Results section (such as in cases where the study is underway but not complete), and the Discussion section includes caveats about the in-progress nature of the research.  Again, you should check with your instructor, supervisor, or editor first.
• Class assignments – in some classes in this department, an assignment must be written in APA style but is not exactly a traditional research paper (for instance, a student asked to write about an article that they read, and to write that report in APA style). In that case, the structure of the paper might approximate the typical sections of a research paper in APA style, but not entirely.  You should check with your instructor for further guidelines.

Workshops and Downloadable Resources

• For in-person discussion of the process of writing research papers, please consider attending this department’s “Writing Research Papers” workshop (for dates and times, please check the undergraduate workshops calendar).

Downloadable Resources

• How to Write APA Style Research Papers (a comprehensive guide) [ PDF ]
• Tips for Writing APA Style Research Papers (a brief summary) [ PDF ]
• Example APA Style Research Paper (for B.S. Degree – empirical research) [ PDF ]
• Example APA Style Research Paper (for B.S. Degree – literature review) [ PDF ]

Further Resources

How-To Videos     

• Writing Research Paper Videos

APA Journal Article Reporting Guidelines

• Appelbaum, M., Cooper, H., Kline, R. B., Mayo-Wilson, E., Nezu, A. M., & Rao, S. M. (2018). Journal article reporting standards for quantitative research in psychology: The APA Publications and Communications Board task force report . American Psychologist , 73 (1), 3.
• Levitt, H. M., Bamberg, M., Creswell, J. W., Frost, D. M., Josselson, R., & Suárez-Orozco, C. (2018). Journal article reporting standards for qualitative primary, qualitative meta-analytic, and mixed methods research in psychology: The APA Publications and Communications Board task force report . American Psychologist , 73 (1), 26.  

External Resources

• Formatting APA Style Papers in Microsoft Word
• How to Write an APA Style Research Paper from Hamilton University
• WikiHow Guide to Writing APA Research Papers
• Sample APA Formatted Paper with Comments
• Sample APA Formatted Paper
• Tips for Writing a Paper in APA Style

1 VandenBos, G. R. (Ed). (2010). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.) (pp. 41-60).  Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

2 geller, e. (2018).  how to write an apa-style research report . [instructional materials]. , prepared by s. c. pan for ucsd psychology.

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• Formatting Research Papers
• Using Databases and Finding References
• What Types of References Are Appropriate?
• Evaluating References and Taking Notes
• Citing References
• Writing a Literature Review
• Writing Process and Revising
• Improving Scientific Writing
• Academic Integrity and Avoiding Plagiarism
• Writing Research Papers Videos

Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

Section 1- Evidence-based practice (EBP)

Chapter 6: Components of a Research Report

Components of a research report.

Partido, B.B.

Elements of  research report

The research report contains four main areas:

• Introduction – What is the issue? What is known? What is not known? What are you trying to find out? This sections ends with the purpose and specific aims of the study.
• Methods – The recipe for the study. If someone wanted to perform the same study, what information would they need? How will you answer your research question? This part usually contains subheadings: Participants, Instruments, Procedures, Data Analysis,
• Results – What was found? This is organized by specific aims and provides the results of the statistical analysis.
• Discussion – How do the results fit in with the existing  literature? What were the limitations and areas of future research?

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How to Write a Research Paper: Parts of the Paper

• Choosing Your Topic
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• Critical Thinking
• Evaluating Information
• Parts of the Paper
• Writing Tips from UNC-Chapel Hill
• Librarian Contact

Parts of the Research Paper Papers should have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Your introductory paragraph should grab the reader's attention, state your main idea, and indicate how you will support it. The body of the paper should expand on what you have stated in the introduction. Finally, the conclusion restates the paper's thesis and should explain what you have learned, giving a wrap up of your main ideas.

1. The Title The title should be specific and indicate the theme of the research and what ideas it addresses. Use keywords that help explain your paper's topic to the reader. Try to avoid abbreviations and jargon. Think about keywords that people would use to search for your paper and include them in your title.

2. The Abstract The abstract is used by readers to get a quick overview of your paper. Typically, they are about 200 words in length (120 words minimum to  250 words maximum). The abstract should introduce the topic and thesis, and should provide a general statement about what you have found in your research. The abstract allows you to mention each major aspect of your topic and helps readers decide whether they want to read the rest of the paper. Because it is a summary of the entire research paper, it is often written last. 

3. The Introduction The introduction should be designed to attract the reader's attention and explain the focus of the research. You will introduce your overview of the topic,  your main points of information, and why this subject is important. You can introduce the current understanding and background information about the topic. Toward the end of the introduction, you add your thesis statement, and explain how you will provide information to support your research questions. This provides the purpose and focus for the rest of the paper.

4. Thesis Statement Most papers will have a thesis statement or main idea and supporting facts/ideas/arguments. State your main idea (something of interest or something to be proven or argued for or against) as your thesis statement, and then provide your supporting facts and arguments. A thesis statement is a declarative sentence that asserts the position a paper will be taking. It also points toward the paper's development. This statement should be both specific and arguable. Generally, the thesis statement will be placed at the end of the first paragraph of your paper. The remainder of your paper will support this thesis.

Students often learn to write a thesis as a first step in the writing process, but often, after research, a writer's viewpoint may change. Therefore a thesis statement may be one of the final steps in writing. 

Examples of Thesis Statements from Purdue OWL

5. The Literature Review The purpose of the literature review is to describe past important research and how it specifically relates to the research thesis. It should be a synthesis of the previous literature and the new idea being researched. The review should examine the major theories related to the topic to date and their contributors. It should include all relevant findings from credible sources, such as academic books and peer-reviewed journal articles. You will want  to:

• Explain how the literature helps the researcher understand the topic.
• Try to show connections and any disparities between the literature.
• Identify new ways to interpret prior research.
• Reveal any gaps that exist in the literature.

More about writing a literature review. . .

6. The Discussion ​The purpose of the discussion is to interpret and describe what you have learned from your research. Make the reader understand why your topic is important. The discussion should always demonstrate what you have learned from your readings (and viewings) and how that learning has made the topic evolve, especially from the short description of main points in the introduction.Explain any new understanding or insights you have had after reading your articles and/or books. Paragraphs should use transitioning sentences to develop how one paragraph idea leads to the next. The discussion will always connect to the introduction, your thesis statement, and the literature you reviewed, but it does not simply repeat or rearrange the introduction. You want to: 

• Demonstrate critical thinking, not just reporting back facts that you gathered.
• If possible, tell how the topic has evolved over the past and give it's implications for the future.
• Fully explain your main ideas with supporting information.
• Explain why your thesis is correct giving arguments to counter points.

7. The Conclusion A concluding paragraph is a brief summary of your main ideas and restates the paper's main thesis, giving the reader the sense that the stated goal of the paper has been accomplished. What have you learned by doing this research that you didn't know before? What conclusions have you drawn? You may also want to suggest further areas of study, improvement of research possibilities, etc. to demonstrate your critical thinking regarding your research.

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Uncomplicated Reviews of Educational Research Methods

• Writing a Research Report

.pdf version of this page

This review covers the basic elements of a research report. This is a general guide for what you will see in journal articles or dissertations. This format assumes a mixed methods study, but you can leave out either quantitative or qualitative sections if you only used a single methodology.

This review is divided into sections for easy reference. There are five MAJOR parts of a Research Report:

1.    Introduction 2.    Review of Literature 3.    Methods 4.    Results 5.    Discussion

As a general guide, the Introduction, Review of Literature, and Methods should be about 1/3 of your paper, Discussion 1/3, then Results 1/3.

Section 1 : Cover Sheet (APA format cover sheet) optional, if required.

Section 2: Abstract (a basic summary of the report, including sample, treatment, design, results, and implications) (≤ 150 words) optional, if required.

Section 3 : Introduction (1-3 paragraphs) •    Basic introduction •    Supportive statistics (can be from periodicals) •    Statement of Purpose •    Statement of Significance

Section 4 : Research question(s) or hypotheses •    An overall research question (optional) •    A quantitative-based (hypotheses) •    A qualitative-based (research questions) Note: You will generally have more than one, especially if using hypotheses.

Section 5: Review of Literature ▪    Should be organized by subheadings ▪    Should adequately support your study using supporting, related, and/or refuting evidence ▪    Is a synthesis, not a collection of individual summaries

Section 6: Methods ▪    Procedure: Describe data gathering or participant recruitment, including IRB approval ▪    Sample: Describe the sample or dataset, including basic demographics ▪    Setting: Describe the setting, if applicable (generally only in qualitative designs) ▪    Treatment: If applicable, describe, in detail, how you implemented the treatment ▪    Instrument: Describe, in detail, how you implemented the instrument; Describe the reliability and validity associated with the instrument ▪    Data Analysis: Describe type of procedure (t-test, interviews, etc.) and software (if used)

Section 7: Results ▪    Restate Research Question 1 (Quantitative) ▪    Describe results ▪    Restate Research Question 2 (Qualitative) ▪    Describe results

Section 8: Discussion ▪    Restate Overall Research Question ▪    Describe how the results, when taken together, answer the overall question ▪    ***Describe how the results confirm or contrast the literature you reviewed

Section 9: Recommendations (if applicable, generally related to practice)

Section 10: Limitations ▪    Discuss, in several sentences, the limitations of this study. ▪    Research Design (overall, then info about the limitations of each separately) ▪    Sample ▪    Instrument/s ▪    Other limitations

Section 11: Conclusion (A brief closing summary)

Section 12: References (APA format)

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About research rundowns.

Research Rundowns was made possible by support from the Dewar College of Education at Valdosta State University .

• Experimental Design
• What is Educational Research?
• Writing Research Questions
• Mixed Methods Research Designs
• Qualitative Coding & Analysis
• Qualitative Research Design
• Correlation
• Effect Size
• Instrument, Validity, Reliability
• Mean & Standard Deviation
• Significance Testing (t-tests)
• Steps 1-4: Finding Research
• Steps 5-6: Analyzing & Organizing
• Steps 7-9: Citing & Writing

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Scientific and Scholarly Writing

• Literature Searches
• Tracking and Citing References

Parts of a Scientific & Scholarly Paper

Introduction.

• Writing Effectively
• Where to Publish?
• Capstone Resources

Different sections are needed in different types of scientific papers (lab reports, literature reviews, systematic reviews, methods papers, research papers, etc.). Projects that overlap with the social sciences or humanities may have different requirements. Generally, however, you'll need to include:

INTRODUCTION (Background)

METHODS SECTION (Materials and Methods)

What is a title

Titles have two functions: to identify the main topic or the message of the paper and to attract readers.

The title will be read by many people. Only a few will read the entire paper, therefore all words in the title should be chosen with care. Too short a title is not helpful to the potential reader. Too long a title can sometimes be even less meaningful. Remember a title is not an abstract. Neither is a title a sentence.

What makes a good title?

A good title is accurate, complete, and specific. Imagine searching for your paper in PubMed. What words would you use?

• Use the fewest possible words that describe the contents of the paper.
• Avoid waste words like "Studies on", or "Investigations on".
• Use specific terms rather than general.
• Use the same key terms in the title as the paper.
• Watch your word order and syntax.

The abstract is a miniature version of your paper. It should present the main story and a few essential details of the paper for readers who only look at the abstract and should serve as a clear preview for readers who read your whole paper. They are usually short (250 words or less).

The goal is to communicate:

•  What was done?
•  Why was it done?
•  How was it done?
•  What was found?

A good abstract is specific and selective. Try summarizing each of the sections of your paper in a sentence two. Do the abstract last, so you know exactly what you want to write.

• Use 1 or more well developed paragraphs.
• Use introduction/body/conclusion structure.
• Present purpose, results, conclusions and recommendations in that order.
• Make it understandable to a wide audience.
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• Academic Skills
• Reading, writing and referencing

Research reports

This resource will help you identify the common elements and basic format of a research report.

Research reports generally follow a similar structure and have common elements, each with a particular purpose. Learn more about each of these elements below.

Common elements of reports

Your title should be brief, topic-specific, and informative, clearly indicating the purpose and scope of your study. Include key words in your title so that search engines can easily access your work. For example:  Measurement of water around Station Pier.

An abstract is a concise summary that helps readers to quickly assess the content and direction of your paper. It should be brief, written in a single paragraph and cover: the scope and purpose of your report; an overview of methodology; a summary of the main findings or results; principal conclusions or significance of the findings; and recommendations made.

The information in the abstract must be presented in the same order as it is in your report. The abstract is usually written last when you have developed your arguments and synthesised the results.

The introduction creates the context for your research. It should provide sufficient background to allow the reader to understand and evaluate your study without needing to refer to previous publications. After reading the introduction your reader should understand exactly what your research is about, what you plan to do, why you are undertaking this research and which methods you have used. Introductions generally include:

• The rationale for the present study. Why are you interested in this topic? Why is this topic worth investigating?
• Key terms and definitions.
• An outline of the research questions and hypotheses; the assumptions or propositions that your research will test.

Not all research reports have a separate literature review section. In shorter research reports, the review is usually part of the Introduction.

A literature review is a critical survey of recent relevant research in a particular field. The review should be a selection of carefully organised, focused and relevant literature that develops a narrative ‘story’ about your topic. Your review should answer key questions about the literature:

• What is the current state of knowledge on the topic?
• What differences in approaches / methodologies are there?
• Where are the strengths and weaknesses of the research?
• What further research is needed? The review may identify a gap in the literature which provides a rationale for your study and supports your research questions and methodology.

The review is not just a summary of all you have read. Rather, it must develop an argument or a point of view that supports your chosen methodology and research questions.

The purpose of this section is to detail how you conducted your research so that others can understand and replicate your approach.

You need to briefly describe the subjects (if appropriate), any equipment or materials used and the approach taken. If the research method or method of data analysis is commonly used within your field of study, then simply reference the procedure. If, however, your methods are new or controversial then you need to describe them in more detail and provide a rationale for your approach. The methodology is written in the past tense and should be as concise as possible.

This section is a concise, factual summary of your findings, listed under headings appropriate to your research questions. It’s common to use tables and graphics. Raw data or details about the method of statistical analysis used should be included in the Appendices.

Present your results in a consistent manner. For example, if you present the first group of results as percentages, it will be confusing for the reader and difficult to make comparisons of data if later results are presented as fractions or as decimal values.

In general, you won’t discuss your results here. Any analysis of your results usually occurs in the Discussion section.

Notes on visual data representation:

• Graphs and tables may be used to reveal trends in your data, but they must be explained and referred to in adjacent accompanying text.
• Figures and tables do not simply repeat information given in the text: they summarise, amplify or complement it.
• Graphs are always referred to as ‘Figures’, and both axes must be clearly labelled.
• Tables must be numbered, and they must be able to stand-alone or make sense without your reader needing to read all of the accompanying text.

The Discussion responds to the hypothesis or research question. This section is where you interpret your results, account for your findings and explain their significance within the context of other research. Consider the adequacy of your sampling techniques, the scope and long-term implications of your study, any problems with data collection or analysis and any assumptions on which your study was based. This is also the place to discuss any disappointing results and address limitations.

Checklist for the discussion

• To what extent was each hypothesis supported?
• To what extent are your findings validated or supported by other research?
• Were there unexpected variables that affected your results?
• On reflection, was your research method appropriate?
• Can you account for any differences between your results and other studies?

Conclusions in research reports are generally fairly short and should follow on naturally from points raised in the Discussion. In this section you should discuss the significance of your findings. To what extent and in what ways are your findings useful or conclusive? Is further research required? If so, based on your research experience, what suggestions could you make about improvements to the scope or methodology of future studies?

Also, consider the practical implications of your results and any recommendations you could make. For example, if your research is on reading strategies in the primary school classroom, what are the implications of your results for the classroom teacher? What recommendations could you make for teachers?

A Reference List contains all the resources you have cited in your work, while a Bibliography is a wider list containing all the resources you have consulted (but not necessarily cited) in the preparation of your work. It is important to check which of these is required, and the preferred format, style of references and presentation requirements of your own department.

Appendices (singular ‘Appendix’) provide supporting material to your project. Examples of such materials include:

• Relevant letters to participants and organisations (e.g. regarding the ethics or conduct of the project).
• Background reports.
• Detailed calculations.

Different types of data are presented in separate appendices. Each appendix must be titled, labelled with a number or letter, and referred to in the body of the report.

Appendices are placed at the end of a report, and the contents are generally not included in the word count.

Fi nal ti p

While there are many common elements to research reports, it’s always best to double check the exact requirements for your task. You may find that you don’t need some sections, can combine others or have specific requirements about referencing, formatting or word limits.

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Home Market Research

Research Reports: Definition and How to Write Them

Reports are usually spread across a vast horizon of topics but are focused on communicating information about a particular topic and a niche target market. The primary motive of research reports is to convey integral details about a study for marketers to consider while designing new strategies.

Certain events, facts, and other information based on incidents need to be relayed to the people in charge, and creating research reports is the most effective communication tool. Ideal research reports are extremely accurate in the offered information with a clear objective and conclusion. These reports should have a clean and structured format to relay information effectively.

What are Research Reports?

Research reports are recorded data prepared by researchers or statisticians after analyzing the information gathered by conducting organized research, typically in the form of surveys or qualitative methods .

A research report is a reliable source to recount details about a conducted research. It is most often considered to be a true testimony of all the work done to garner specificities of research.

The various sections of a research report are:

• Background/Introduction
• Implemented Methods
• Results based on Analysis
• Deliberation

Learn more: Quantitative Research

Components of Research Reports

Research is imperative for launching a new product/service or a new feature. The markets today are extremely volatile and competitive due to new entrants every day who may or may not provide effective products. An organization needs to make the right decisions at the right time to be relevant in such a market with updated products that suffice customer demands.

The details of a research report may change with the purpose of research but the main components of a report will remain constant. The research approach of the market researcher also influences the style of writing reports. Here are seven main components of a productive research report:

• Research Report Summary: The entire objective along with the overview of research are to be included in a summary which is a couple of paragraphs in length. All the multiple components of the research are explained in brief under the report summary.  It should be interesting enough to capture all the key elements of the report.
• Research Introduction: There always is a primary goal that the researcher is trying to achieve through a report. In the introduction section, he/she can cover answers related to this goal and establish a thesis which will be included to strive and answer it in detail.  This section should answer an integral question: “What is the current situation of the goal?”.  After the research design was conducted, did the organization conclude the goal successfully or they are still a work in progress –  provide such details in the introduction part of the research report.
• Research Methodology: This is the most important section of the report where all the important information lies. The readers can gain data for the topic along with analyzing the quality of provided content and the research can also be approved by other market researchers . Thus, this section needs to be highly informative with each aspect of research discussed in detail.  Information needs to be expressed in chronological order according to its priority and importance. Researchers should include references in case they gained information from existing techniques.
• Research Results: A short description of the results along with calculations conducted to achieve the goal will form this section of results. Usually, the exposition after data analysis is carried out in the discussion part of the report.

Learn more: Quantitative Data

• Research Discussion: The results are discussed in extreme detail in this section along with a comparative analysis of reports that could probably exist in the same domain. Any abnormality uncovered during research will be deliberated in the discussion section.  While writing research reports, the researcher will have to connect the dots on how the results will be applicable in the real world.
• Research References and Conclusion: Conclude all the research findings along with mentioning each and every author, article or any content piece from where references were taken.

Learn more: Qualitative Observation

15 Tips for Writing Research Reports

Writing research reports in the manner can lead to all the efforts going down the drain. Here are 15 tips for writing impactful research reports:

• Prepare the context before starting to write and start from the basics:  This was always taught to us in school – be well-prepared before taking a plunge into new topics. The order of survey questions might not be the ideal or most effective order for writing research reports. The idea is to start with a broader topic and work towards a more specific one and focus on a conclusion or support, which a research should support with the facts.  The most difficult thing to do in reporting, without a doubt is to start. Start with the title, the introduction, then document the first discoveries and continue from that. Once the marketers have the information well documented, they can write a general conclusion.
• Keep the target audience in mind while selecting a format that is clear, logical and obvious to them:  Will the research reports be presented to decision makers or other researchers? What are the general perceptions around that topic? This requires more care and diligence. A researcher will need a significant amount of information to start writing the research report. Be consistent with the wording, the numbering of the annexes and so on. Follow the approved format of the company for the delivery of research reports and demonstrate the integrity of the project with the objectives of the company.
• Have a clear research objective: A researcher should read the entire proposal again, and make sure that the data they provide contributes to the objectives that were raised from the beginning. Remember that speculations are for conversations, not for research reports, if a researcher speculates, they directly question their own research.
• Establish a working model:  Each study must have an internal logic, which will have to be established in the report and in the evidence. The researchers’ worst nightmare is to be required to write research reports and realize that key questions were not included.

Learn more: Quantitative Observation

• Gather all the information about the research topic. Who are the competitors of our customers? Talk to other researchers who have studied the subject of research, know the language of the industry. Misuse of the terms can discourage the readers of research reports from reading further.
• Read aloud while writing. While reading the report, if the researcher hears something inappropriate, for example, if they stumble over the words when reading them, surely the reader will too. If the researcher can’t put an idea in a single sentence, then it is very long and they must change it so that the idea is clear to everyone.
• Check grammar and spelling. Without a doubt, good practices help to understand the report. Use verbs in the present tense. Consider using the present tense, which makes the results sound more immediate. Find new words and other ways of saying things. Have fun with the language whenever possible.
• Discuss only the discoveries that are significant. If some data are not really significant, do not mention them. Remember that not everything is truly important or essential within research reports.

Learn more: Qualitative Data

• Try and stick to the survey questions. For example, do not say that the people surveyed “were worried” about an research issue , when there are different degrees of concern.
• The graphs must be clear enough so that they understand themselves. Do not let graphs lead the reader to make mistakes: give them a title, include the indications, the size of the sample, and the correct wording of the question.
• Be clear with messages. A researcher should always write every section of the report with an accuracy of details and language.
• Be creative with titles – Particularly in segmentation studies choose names “that give life to research”. Such names can survive for a long time after the initial investigation.
• Create an effective conclusion: The conclusion in the research reports is the most difficult to write, but it is an incredible opportunity to excel. Make a precise summary. Sometimes it helps to start the conclusion with something specific, then it describes the most important part of the study, and finally, it provides the implications of the conclusions.
• Get a couple more pair of eyes to read the report. Writers have trouble detecting their own mistakes. But they are responsible for what is presented. Ensure it has been approved by colleagues or friends before sending the find draft out.

Learn more: Market Research and Analysis

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• How it works

5 Initial Elements of Report Writing

Published by Grace Graffin at November 19th, 2021 , Revised On October 9, 2023

Is it time to write your first report? Try not to dread too much on it. Think of the report writing process as a fun project and break it into stages. College students are asked to write a report for a particular audience; if not in college, you may be asked to write one at your job. Whatsoever the reason and premises, it is essential to learn the basics of report writing to draft an immaculate one.

Introduction to Report Writing:  

The report itself refers to giving an account of something you have seen, observed, or found out. In the academics and professional world, a report refers to any document that elaborates an event or a thesis that has been investigated through formal research methodologies. Moreover, research is a systematic study of an event, natural phenomenon, material, or condition to find out the facts and underlying reasons. Therefore, for academic research, thesis or dissertation, you have to write an elaborate report that is an integral part of a college degree.

According to the definition, a report is any formal document that explains a topic using facts, figures, charts, graphs, and other aids to support the arguments and findings.

Precisely, a report is any write-up that explains the findings of research in a set standard format. You need to get familiar with report writing skills and techniques to write a flawless paper and secure a good grade.

Types of Report:  

Some of the types of reports are:

Informational:  

The informational reports are the reports that are aimed to inform and instruct. The audience who reads such a report is informed about an occurrence, situation, and event. Since the report writers do not critically evaluate a problem in the informational report, there are no conclusions, limitations, or suggestions included.

Analytical:

The analytical reports critically analyze the information, and thus it includes conclusions and recommendations, etc. When writing this report, the report writers aim not only to inform the reader but provide the perspective of good or bad, right or wrong about the certain situation.

Persuasive:

The persuasive reports are called an extension of the analytical reports as the report writers take a side based on the analysis of a situation that he has made. Moreover, the writer aims to convince the audience to believe and conform with his notion. The persuasive reports are usually written at businesses, as their purpose is to sell an idea, product, or service.

Difference between Report and Essay:

From the above-mentioned definition of report writing and its types, you might have become confused about how, if,  reports differ from essay writing . Reports and essays are two different kinds of writings; here it is how.

The purpose of the report is to elaborate and explain research or study that you can carry out yourself. On the other hand, writing an essay aims to describe ideas or research carried out by other people. Even if you have carried out a study yourself, you will write an essay about the arguments you have already made. Elaborately or precisely, an essay does not directly include any practical research.

• Graphic aids: 

In the report writing, you can add charts, graphs, images, or other graphic aids to substantiate the arguments or findings of the research. In the essay, you cannot add any kind of graphic aid whatsoever the reason it could be.

• Table of contents:

While it is required for the reports to have a table of contents , you do not need to add a table of content for essays.

• Recommendations: 

Reports, except informational reports, include recommendations, but essays do not constitute any recommendations.

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Elements of Report Writing:  

1.     executive summary:  .

The executive summary is a precise overview of the report that gives a quick preview of what the report is all about. It includes a glimpse of the outline, problem statement , methodology , findings , and limitations. Although abstract and executive summary are used interchangeably, there exists a fine difference between them both. Abstract and executive summary both constitute the same elements but differ in length: abstract is shorter than the executive summary. The executive summary is the comprehensive description or the overview of the paper. Moreover, abstracts are written for content that is to be published in a journal.

Anyways, the executive summary or abstract contains the following elements:

• Background: 

The background includes an overview of the event or a more generalized description of a concept.

• Problem statement:

You will write a sentence or two to define the problem that urged you to carry out the research. The problem can be any mere observation or literature gap that you have identified from the literature.

The executive summary will also include the methodology employed to do the research. It will mention the type and approach of sampling and analysis, i.e., qualitative and quantitative .

It will provide the main results, conclusions, and findings of the research.

One thing that you must remember in mind

2.    Introduction:  

The next element of the report writing is the introduction. It is a significant part of the report that introduces the reader to the broad value of the research. While the executive summary is a brief overview, the introduction part of the research is a detailed overview. In the introduction, you will describe the context and background and provide the significance of the report. In this section, you will also highlight the research objectives and aim that you want to achieve. Shed some light on the problem and the driving reason behind the research. You will also mention the method that you have used to carry out the investigation. Briefly mention the answer to the problem that you have dug out a thorough investigation in the research.

3.    Findings:  

The findings of the report will contain the main conclusions that you have extracted as a result of the research. You will mention your findings and can include graphical aids if they support them. To cut the story short, it is the place where you will pen down the details of the observations that you found out from the event, object, or situation.

4.    Discussion:

In the discussion session, you will discuss and analyze the finding of the research. The discussion tackles two areas. First, it elaborates the findings; second, it makes the recommendations.

In this section, you will make the comparisons, check the result along with different scales, and extend the discourse by making speculations based on facts and identifying the covert reasons for specific phenomena. In the discussion, it is imperative to put the explanations in a logical and systematic manner to avoid any inadequacies. Moreover, in the discussion section, when you are explaining your findings, they must be aided with sufficient facts.

5.    Conclusion:

Last but not least, you will end up your report with the conclusion that sums up the whole story of the research. In conclusion, it is important to maintain a hierarchy of ideas in order of importance of details. In a way, it is more like an essay conclusion that rephrases the introduction. It is the gist of the report that precisely describes the main conclusions, mentions major issues to the given situation and the report writer’s interpretation of that. When writing the conclusion, you must cut corners and focus on what is important and valuable to discuss.

Also Read: Things You Should Know About Report Writing

In a nutshell

While students/employees respond in many ways to write different assignments, report writing is something they usually find daunting. If you know what to do in report writing, you will find it exciting to craft a good report and get all the praise from your supervisor. The five pillars of report writing include an executive summary, introduction, findings, discussion, and conclusion. Keep them in your mind while writing your report, and you will be able to write a perfect one.

Good Luck with your report writing!

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the different types of report writing.

Different types of report writing include research reports, business reports, technical reports, investigative reports, and academic reports, each serving specific purposes like analysis, documentation, or communication.

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• Research Report: Definition, Types + [Writing Guide]

One of the reasons for carrying out research is to add to the existing body of knowledge. Therefore, when conducting research, you need to document your processes and findings in a research report. 

With a research report, it is easy to outline the findings of your systematic investigation and any gaps needing further inquiry. Knowing how to create a detailed research report will prove useful when you need to conduct research.  

What is a Research Report?

A research report is a well-crafted document that outlines the processes, data, and findings of a systematic investigation. It is an important document that serves as a first-hand account of the research process, and it is typically considered an objective and accurate source of information.

In many ways, a research report can be considered as a summary of the research process that clearly highlights findings, recommendations, and other important details. Reading a well-written research report should provide you with all the information you need about the core areas of the research process.

Features of a Research Report 

So how do you recognize a research report when you see one? Here are some of the basic features that define a research report. 

• It is a detailed presentation of research processes and findings, and it usually includes tables and graphs. 
• It is written in a formal language.
• A research report is usually written in the third person.
• It is informative and based on first-hand verifiable information.
• It is formally structured with headings, sections, and bullet points.
• It always includes recommendations for future actions. 

Types of Research Report 

The research report is classified based on two things; nature of research and target audience.

Nature of Research

• Qualitative Research Report

This is the type of report written for qualitative research . It outlines the methods, processes, and findings of a qualitative method of systematic investigation. In educational research, a qualitative research report provides an opportunity for one to apply his or her knowledge and develop skills in planning and executing qualitative research projects.

A qualitative research report is usually descriptive in nature. Hence, in addition to presenting details of the research process, you must also create a descriptive narrative of the information.

• Quantitative Research Report

A quantitative research report is a type of research report that is written for quantitative research. Quantitative research is a type of systematic investigation that pays attention to numerical or statistical values in a bid to find answers to research questions. 

In this type of research report, the researcher presents quantitative data to support the research process and findings. Unlike a qualitative research report that is mainly descriptive, a quantitative research report works with numbers; that is, it is numerical in nature. 

Target Audience

Also, a research report can be said to be technical or popular based on the target audience. If you’re dealing with a general audience, you would need to present a popular research report, and if you’re dealing with a specialized audience, you would submit a technical report. 

• Technical Research Report

A technical research report is a detailed document that you present after carrying out industry-based research. This report is highly specialized because it provides information for a technical audience; that is, individuals with above-average knowledge in the field of study. 

In a technical research report, the researcher is expected to provide specific information about the research process, including statistical analyses and sampling methods. Also, the use of language is highly specialized and filled with jargon. 

Examples of technical research reports include legal and medical research reports. 

• Popular Research Report

A popular research report is one for a general audience; that is, for individuals who do not necessarily have any knowledge in the field of study. A popular research report aims to make information accessible to everyone. 

It is written in very simple language, which makes it easy to understand the findings and recommendations. Examples of popular research reports are the information contained in newspapers and magazines. 

Importance of a Research Report 

• Knowledge Transfer: As already stated above, one of the reasons for carrying out research is to contribute to the existing body of knowledge, and this is made possible with a research report. A research report serves as a means to effectively communicate the findings of a systematic investigation to all and sundry.  
• Identification of Knowledge Gaps: With a research report, you’d be able to identify knowledge gaps for further inquiry. A research report shows what has been done while hinting at other areas needing systematic investigation. 
• In market research, a research report would help you understand the market needs and peculiarities at a glance. 
• A research report allows you to present information in a precise and concise manner. 
• It is time-efficient and practical because, in a research report, you do not have to spend time detailing the findings of your research work in person. You can easily send out the report via email and have stakeholders look at it. 

Guide to Writing a Research Report

A lot of detail goes into writing a research report, and getting familiar with the different requirements would help you create the ideal research report. A research report is usually broken down into multiple sections, which allows for a concise presentation of information.

Structure and Example of a Research Report

This is the title of your systematic investigation. Your title should be concise and point to the aims, objectives, and findings of a research report. 

• Table of Contents

This is like a compass that makes it easier for readers to navigate the research report.

An abstract is an overview that highlights all important aspects of the research including the research method, data collection process, and research findings. Think of an abstract as a summary of your research report that presents pertinent information in a concise manner. 

An abstract is always brief; typically 100-150 words and goes straight to the point. The focus of your research abstract should be the 5Ws and 1H format – What, Where, Why, When, Who and How. 

• Introduction

Here, the researcher highlights the aims and objectives of the systematic investigation as well as the problem which the systematic investigation sets out to solve. When writing the report introduction, it is also essential to indicate whether the purposes of the research were achieved or would require more work.

In the introduction section, the researcher specifies the research problem and also outlines the significance of the systematic investigation. Also, the researcher is expected to outline any jargons and terminologies that are contained in the research.  

• Literature Review

A literature review is a written survey of existing knowledge in the field of study. In other words, it is the section where you provide an overview and analysis of different research works that are relevant to your systematic investigation. 

It highlights existing research knowledge and areas needing further investigation, which your research has sought to fill. At this stage, you can also hint at your research hypothesis and its possible implications for the existing body of knowledge in your field of study. 

• An Account of Investigation

This is a detailed account of the research process, including the methodology, sample, and research subjects. Here, you are expected to provide in-depth information on the research process including the data collection and analysis procedures. 

In a quantitative research report, you’d need to provide information surveys, questionnaires and other quantitative data collection methods used in your research. In a qualitative research report, you are expected to describe the qualitative data collection methods used in your research including interviews and focus groups. 

In this section, you are expected to present the results of the systematic investigation. 

This section further explains the findings of the research, earlier outlined. Here, you are expected to present a justification for each outcome and show whether the results are in line with your hypotheses or if other research studies have come up with similar results.

• Conclusions

This is a summary of all the information in the report. It also outlines the significance of the entire study. 

• References and Appendices

This section contains a list of all the primary and secondary research sources. 

Tips for Writing a Research Report

• Define the Context for the Report

As is obtainable when writing an essay, defining the context for your research report would help you create a detailed yet concise document. This is why you need to create an outline before writing so that you do not miss out on anything. 

• Define your Audience

Writing with your audience in mind is essential as it determines the tone of the report. If you’re writing for a general audience, you would want to present the information in a simple and relatable manner. For a specialized audience, you would need to make use of technical and field-specific terms. 

• Include Significant Findings

The idea of a research report is to present some sort of abridged version of your systematic investigation. In your report, you should exclude irrelevant information while highlighting only important data and findings. 

• Include Illustrations

Your research report should include illustrations and other visual representations of your data. Graphs, pie charts, and relevant images lend additional credibility to your systematic investigation.

• Choose the Right Title

A good research report title is brief, precise, and contains keywords from your research. It should provide a clear idea of your systematic investigation so that readers can grasp the entire focus of your research from the title. 

• Proofread the Report

Before publishing the document, ensure that you give it a second look to authenticate the information. If you can, get someone else to go through the report, too, and you can also run it through proofreading and editing software. 

How to Gather Research Data for Your Report  

• Understand the Problem

Every research aims at solving a specific problem or set of problems, and this should be at the back of your mind when writing your research report. Understanding the problem would help you to filter the information you have and include only important data in your report. 

• Know what your report seeks to achieve

This is somewhat similar to the point above because, in some way, the aim of your research report is intertwined with the objectives of your systematic investigation. Identifying the primary purpose of writing a research report would help you to identify and present the required information accordingly. 

• Identify your audience

Knowing your target audience plays a crucial role in data collection for a research report. If your research report is specifically for an organization, you would want to present industry-specific information or show how the research findings are relevant to the work that the company does. 

• Create Surveys/Questionnaires

A survey is a research method that is used to gather data from a specific group of people through a set of questions. It can be either quantitative or qualitative. 

A survey is usually made up of structured questions, and it can be administered online or offline. However, an online survey is a more effective method of research data collection because it helps you save time and gather data with ease. 

You can seamlessly create an online questionnaire for your research on Formplus . With the multiple sharing options available in the builder, you would be able to administer your survey to respondents in little or no time. 

Formplus also has a report summary too l that you can use to create custom visual reports for your research.

Step-by-step guide on how to create an online questionnaire using Formplus  

• Sign into Formplus

In the Formplus builder, you can easily create different online questionnaires for your research by dragging and dropping preferred fields into your form. To access the Formplus builder, you will need to create an account on Formplus. 

Once you do this, sign in to your account and click on Create new form to begin. 

• Edit Form Title : Click on the field provided to input your form title, for example, “Research Questionnaire.”
• Edit Form : Click on the edit icon to edit the form.
• Add Fields : Drag and drop preferred form fields into your form in the Formplus builder inputs column. There are several field input options for questionnaires in the Formplus builder. 
• Edit fields
• Click on “Save”
• Form Customization: With the form customization options in the form builder, you can easily change the outlook of your form and make it more unique and personalized. Formplus allows you to change your form theme, add background images, and even change the font according to your needs. 
• Multiple Sharing Options: Formplus offers various form-sharing options, which enables you to share your questionnaire with respondents easily. You can use the direct social media sharing buttons to share your form link to your organization’s social media pages.  You can also send out your survey form as email invitations to your research subjects too. If you wish, you can share your form’s QR code or embed it on your organization’s website for easy access. 

Conclusion  

Always remember that a research report is just as important as the actual systematic investigation because it plays a vital role in communicating research findings to everyone else. This is why you must take care to create a concise document summarizing the process of conducting any research. 

In this article, we’ve outlined essential tips to help you create a research report. When writing your report, you should always have the audience at the back of your mind, as this would set the tone for the document. 

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Parts of a Research Paper

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Inhaltsverzeichnis

• 1 Parts of a Research Paper: Definition
• 3 Research Paper Structure
• 4 Research Paper Examples
• 5 Research Paper APA Formatting
• 6 In a Nutshell

Parts of a Research Paper: Definition

The point of having specifically defined parts of a research paper is not to make your life as a student harder. In fact, it’s very much the opposite. The different parts of a research paper have been established to provide a structure that can be consistently used to make your research projects easier, as well as helping you follow the proper scientific methodology.

This will help guide your writing process so you can focus on key elements one at a time. It will also provide a valuable outline that you can rely on to effectively structure your assignment. Having a solid structure will make your research paper easier to understand, and it will also prepare you for a possible future as a researcher, since all modern science is created around similar precepts.

Have you been struggling with your academic homework lately, especially where it concerns all the different parts of a research paper? This is actually a very common situation, so we have prepared this article to outline all the key parts of a research paper and explain what you must focus as you go through each one of the various parts of a research paper; read the following sections and you should have a clearer idea of how to tackle your next research paper effectively.

What are the main parts of a research paper?

There are eight main parts in a research paper :

• Title (cover page)

Introduction

• Literature review
• Research methodology
• Data analysis
• Reference page

If you stick to this structure, your end product will be a concise, well-organized research paper.

Do you have to follow the exact research paper structure?

Yes, and failing to do so will likely impact your grade very negatively. It’s very important to write your research paper according to the structure given on this article. Follow your research paper outline   to avoid a messy structure. Different types of academic papers have very particular structures. For example, the structure required for a literature review is very different to the structure required for a scientific research paper.

What if I'm having trouble with certain parts of a research paper?

If you’re having problems with some parts of a research paper, it will be useful to look at some examples of finished research papers in a similar field of study, so you will have a better idea of the elements you need to include. Read a step-by-step guide for writing a research paper, or take a look at the section towards the end of this article for some research paper examples. Perhaps you’re just lacking inspiration!

Is there a special formatting you need to use when citing sources?

Making adequate citations to back up your research is a key consideration in almost every part of a research paper. There are various formatting conventions and referencing styles that should be followed as specified in your assignment. The most common is APA formatting, but you could also be required to use MLA formatting. Your professor or supervisor should tell you which one you need to use.

What should I do once I have my research paper outlined?

If you have created your research paper outline, then you’re ready to start writing. Remember, the first copy will be a draft, so don’t leave it until the last minute to begin writing. Check out some tips for overcoming writer’s block if you’re having trouble getting started.

Research Paper Structure

There are 8 parts of a research paper that you should go through in this order:

The very first page in your research paper should be used to identify its title, along with your name, the date of your assignment, and your learning institution. Additional elements may be required according to the specifications of your instructors, so it’s a good idea to check with them to make sure you feature all the required information in the right order. You will usually be provided with a template or checklist of some kind that you can refer to when writing your cover page .

This is the very beginning of your research paper, where you are expected to provide your thesis statement ; this is simply a summary of what you’re setting out to accomplish with your research project, including the problems you’re looking to scrutinize and any solutions or recommendations that you anticipate beforehand.

Literature Review

This part of a research paper is supposed to provide the theoretical framework that you elaborated during your research. You will be expected to present the sources you have studied while preparing for the work ahead, and these sources should be credible from an academic standpoint (including educational books, peer-reviewed journals, and other relevant publications). You must make sure to include the name of the relevant authors you’ve studied and add a properly formatted citation that explicitly points to their works you have analyzed, including the publication year (see the section below on APA style citations ).

Research Methodology

Different parts of a research paper have different aims, and here you need to point out the exact methods you have used in the course of your research work. Typical methods can range from direct observation to laboratory experiments, or statistical evaluations. Whatever your chosen methods are, you will need to explicitly point them out in this section.

Data Analysis

While all the parts of a research paper are important, this section is probably the most crucial from a practical standpoint. Out of all the parts of a research paper, here you will be expected to analyze the data you have obtained in the course of your research. This is where you get your chance to really shine, by introducing new data that may contribute to building up on the collective understanding of the topics you have researched. At this point, you’re not expected to analyze your data yet (that will be done in the subsequent parts of a research paper), but simply to present it objectively.

From all the parts of a research paper, this is the one where you’re expected to actually analyze the data you have gathered while researching. This analysis should align with your previously stated methodology, and it should both point out any implications suggested by your data that might be relevant to different fields of study, as well as any shortcomings in your approach that would allow you to improve you results if you were to repeat the same type of research.

As you conclude your research paper, you should succinctly reiterate your thesis statement along with your methodology and analyzed data – by drawing all these elements together you will reach the purpose of your research, so all that is left is to point out your conclusions in a clear manner.

Reference Page

The very last section of your research paper is a reference page where you should collect the academic sources along with all the publications you consulted, while fleshing out your research project. You should make sure to list all these references according to the citation format specified by your instructor; there are various formats now in use, such as MLA, Harvard and APA, which although similar rely on different citation styles that must be consistently and carefully observed.

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Research Paper Examples

When you’re still learning about the various parts that make up a research paper, it can be useful to go through some examples of actual research papers from your exact field of study. This is probably the best way to fully grasp what is the purpose of all the different parts.

We can’t provide you universal examples of all the parts of a research paper, since some of these parts can be very different depending on your field of study.

To get a clear sense of what you should cover in each part of your paper, we recommend you to find some successful research papers in a similar field of study. Often, you may be able to refer to studies you have gathered during the initial literature review.

There are also some templates online that may be useful to look at when you’re just getting started, and trying to grasp the exact requirements for each part in your research paper:

Research Paper APA Formatting

When you write a research paper for college, you will have to make sure to add relevant citation to back up your major claims. Only by building up on the work of established authors will you be able to reach valuable conclusions that can be taken seriously on a academic context. This process may seem burdensome at first, but it’s one of the essential parts of a research paper.

The essence of a citation is simply to point out where you learned about the concepts and ideas that make up all the parts of a research paper. This is absolutely essential, both to substantiate your points and to allow other researchers to look into those sources in cause they want to learn more about some aspects of your assignment, or dig deeper into specific parts of a research paper.

There are several citation styles in modern use, and APA citation is probably the most common and widespread; you must follow this convention precisely when adding citations to the relevant part of a research paper. Here is how you should format a citation according to the APA style.

In a Nutshell

• There are eight different parts of a research paper that you will have to go through in this specific order.
• Make sure to focus on the different parts of a research paper one at a time, and you’ll find it can actually make the writing process much easier.
• Producing a research paper can be a very daunting task unless you have a solid plan of action; that is exactly why most modern learning institutions now demand students to observe all these parts of a research paper.
• These guidelines are not meant to make student’s lives harder, but actually to help them stay focused and produce articulate and thoughtful research that could make an impact in their fields of study.

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Home » Research Paper – Structure, Examples and Writing Guide

Research Paper – Structure, Examples and Writing Guide

Table of Contents

Research Paper

Definition:

Research Paper is a written document that presents the author’s original research, analysis, and interpretation of a specific topic or issue.

It is typically based on Empirical Evidence, and may involve qualitative or quantitative research methods, or a combination of both. The purpose of a research paper is to contribute new knowledge or insights to a particular field of study, and to demonstrate the author’s understanding of the existing literature and theories related to the topic.

Structure of Research Paper

The structure of a research paper typically follows a standard format, consisting of several sections that convey specific information about the research study. The following is a detailed explanation of the structure of a research paper:

The title page contains the title of the paper, the name(s) of the author(s), and the affiliation(s) of the author(s). It also includes the date of submission and possibly, the name of the journal or conference where the paper is to be published.

The abstract is a brief summary of the research paper, typically ranging from 100 to 250 words. It should include the research question, the methods used, the key findings, and the implications of the results. The abstract should be written in a concise and clear manner to allow readers to quickly grasp the essence of the research.

Introduction

The introduction section of a research paper provides background information about the research problem, the research question, and the research objectives. It also outlines the significance of the research, the research gap that it aims to fill, and the approach taken to address the research question. Finally, the introduction section ends with a clear statement of the research hypothesis or research question.

Literature Review

The literature review section of a research paper provides an overview of the existing literature on the topic of study. It includes a critical analysis and synthesis of the literature, highlighting the key concepts, themes, and debates. The literature review should also demonstrate the research gap and how the current study seeks to address it.

The methods section of a research paper describes the research design, the sample selection, the data collection and analysis procedures, and the statistical methods used to analyze the data. This section should provide sufficient detail for other researchers to replicate the study.

The results section presents the findings of the research, using tables, graphs, and figures to illustrate the data. The findings should be presented in a clear and concise manner, with reference to the research question and hypothesis.

The discussion section of a research paper interprets the findings and discusses their implications for the research question, the literature review, and the field of study. It should also address the limitations of the study and suggest future research directions.

The conclusion section summarizes the main findings of the study, restates the research question and hypothesis, and provides a final reflection on the significance of the research.

The references section provides a list of all the sources cited in the paper, following a specific citation style such as APA, MLA or Chicago.

How to Write Research Paper

You can write Research Paper by the following guide:

• Choose a Topic: The first step is to select a topic that interests you and is relevant to your field of study. Brainstorm ideas and narrow down to a research question that is specific and researchable.
• Conduct a Literature Review: The literature review helps you identify the gap in the existing research and provides a basis for your research question. It also helps you to develop a theoretical framework and research hypothesis.
• Develop a Thesis Statement : The thesis statement is the main argument of your research paper. It should be clear, concise and specific to your research question.
• Plan your Research: Develop a research plan that outlines the methods, data sources, and data analysis procedures. This will help you to collect and analyze data effectively.
• Collect and Analyze Data: Collect data using various methods such as surveys, interviews, observations, or experiments. Analyze data using statistical tools or other qualitative methods.
• Organize your Paper : Organize your paper into sections such as Introduction, Literature Review, Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusion. Ensure that each section is coherent and follows a logical flow.
• Write your Paper : Start by writing the introduction, followed by the literature review, methods, results, discussion, and conclusion. Ensure that your writing is clear, concise, and follows the required formatting and citation styles.
• Edit and Proofread your Paper: Review your paper for grammar and spelling errors, and ensure that it is well-structured and easy to read. Ask someone else to review your paper to get feedback and suggestions for improvement.
• Cite your Sources: Ensure that you properly cite all sources used in your research paper. This is essential for giving credit to the original authors and avoiding plagiarism.

Research Paper Example

Note : The below example research paper is for illustrative purposes only and is not an actual research paper. Actual research papers may have different structures, contents, and formats depending on the field of study, research question, data collection and analysis methods, and other factors. Students should always consult with their professors or supervisors for specific guidelines and expectations for their research papers.

Research Paper Example sample for Students:

Title: The Impact of Social Media on Mental Health among Young Adults

Abstract: This study aims to investigate the impact of social media use on the mental health of young adults. A literature review was conducted to examine the existing research on the topic. A survey was then administered to 200 university students to collect data on their social media use, mental health status, and perceived impact of social media on their mental health. The results showed that social media use is positively associated with depression, anxiety, and stress. The study also found that social comparison, cyberbullying, and FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) are significant predictors of mental health problems among young adults.

Introduction: Social media has become an integral part of modern life, particularly among young adults. While social media has many benefits, including increased communication and social connectivity, it has also been associated with negative outcomes, such as addiction, cyberbullying, and mental health problems. This study aims to investigate the impact of social media use on the mental health of young adults.

Literature Review: The literature review highlights the existing research on the impact of social media use on mental health. The review shows that social media use is associated with depression, anxiety, stress, and other mental health problems. The review also identifies the factors that contribute to the negative impact of social media, including social comparison, cyberbullying, and FOMO.

Methods : A survey was administered to 200 university students to collect data on their social media use, mental health status, and perceived impact of social media on their mental health. The survey included questions on social media use, mental health status (measured using the DASS-21), and perceived impact of social media on their mental health. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and regression analysis.

Results : The results showed that social media use is positively associated with depression, anxiety, and stress. The study also found that social comparison, cyberbullying, and FOMO are significant predictors of mental health problems among young adults.

Discussion : The study’s findings suggest that social media use has a negative impact on the mental health of young adults. The study highlights the need for interventions that address the factors contributing to the negative impact of social media, such as social comparison, cyberbullying, and FOMO.

Conclusion : In conclusion, social media use has a significant impact on the mental health of young adults. The study’s findings underscore the need for interventions that promote healthy social media use and address the negative outcomes associated with social media use. Future research can explore the effectiveness of interventions aimed at reducing the negative impact of social media on mental health. Additionally, longitudinal studies can investigate the long-term effects of social media use on mental health.

Limitations : The study has some limitations, including the use of self-report measures and a cross-sectional design. The use of self-report measures may result in biased responses, and a cross-sectional design limits the ability to establish causality.

Implications: The study’s findings have implications for mental health professionals, educators, and policymakers. Mental health professionals can use the findings to develop interventions that address the negative impact of social media use on mental health. Educators can incorporate social media literacy into their curriculum to promote healthy social media use among young adults. Policymakers can use the findings to develop policies that protect young adults from the negative outcomes associated with social media use.

References :

• Twenge, J. M., & Campbell, W. K. (2019). Associations between screen time and lower psychological well-being among children and adolescents: Evidence from a population-based study. Preventive medicine reports, 15, 100918.
• Primack, B. A., Shensa, A., Escobar-Viera, C. G., Barrett, E. L., Sidani, J. E., Colditz, J. B., … & James, A. E. (2017). Use of multiple social media platforms and symptoms of depression and anxiety: A nationally-representative study among US young adults. Computers in Human Behavior, 69, 1-9.
• Van der Meer, T. G., & Verhoeven, J. W. (2017). Social media and its impact on academic performance of students. Journal of Information Technology Education: Research, 16, 383-398.

Appendix : The survey used in this study is provided below.

Social Media and Mental Health Survey

• How often do you use social media per day?
• Less than 30 minutes
• 30 minutes to 1 hour
• 1 to 2 hours
• 2 to 4 hours
• More than 4 hours
• Which social media platforms do you use?
• Others (Please specify)
• How often do you experience the following on social media?
• Social comparison (comparing yourself to others)
• Cyberbullying
• Fear of Missing Out (FOMO)
• Have you ever experienced any of the following mental health problems in the past month?
• Do you think social media use has a positive or negative impact on your mental health?
• Very positive
• Somewhat positive
• Somewhat negative
• Very negative
• In your opinion, which factors contribute to the negative impact of social media on mental health?
• Social comparison
• In your opinion, what interventions could be effective in reducing the negative impact of social media on mental health?
• Education on healthy social media use
• Counseling for mental health problems caused by social media
• Social media detox programs
• Regulation of social media use

Thank you for your participation!

Applications of Research Paper

Research papers have several applications in various fields, including:

• Advancing knowledge: Research papers contribute to the advancement of knowledge by generating new insights, theories, and findings that can inform future research and practice. They help to answer important questions, clarify existing knowledge, and identify areas that require further investigation.
• Informing policy: Research papers can inform policy decisions by providing evidence-based recommendations for policymakers. They can help to identify gaps in current policies, evaluate the effectiveness of interventions, and inform the development of new policies and regulations.
• Improving practice: Research papers can improve practice by providing evidence-based guidance for professionals in various fields, including medicine, education, business, and psychology. They can inform the development of best practices, guidelines, and standards of care that can improve outcomes for individuals and organizations.
• Educating students : Research papers are often used as teaching tools in universities and colleges to educate students about research methods, data analysis, and academic writing. They help students to develop critical thinking skills, research skills, and communication skills that are essential for success in many careers.
• Fostering collaboration: Research papers can foster collaboration among researchers, practitioners, and policymakers by providing a platform for sharing knowledge and ideas. They can facilitate interdisciplinary collaborations and partnerships that can lead to innovative solutions to complex problems.

When to Write Research Paper

Research papers are typically written when a person has completed a research project or when they have conducted a study and have obtained data or findings that they want to share with the academic or professional community. Research papers are usually written in academic settings, such as universities, but they can also be written in professional settings, such as research organizations, government agencies, or private companies.

Here are some common situations where a person might need to write a research paper:

• For academic purposes: Students in universities and colleges are often required to write research papers as part of their coursework, particularly in the social sciences, natural sciences, and humanities. Writing research papers helps students to develop research skills, critical thinking skills, and academic writing skills.
• For publication: Researchers often write research papers to publish their findings in academic journals or to present their work at academic conferences. Publishing research papers is an important way to disseminate research findings to the academic community and to establish oneself as an expert in a particular field.
• To inform policy or practice : Researchers may write research papers to inform policy decisions or to improve practice in various fields. Research findings can be used to inform the development of policies, guidelines, and best practices that can improve outcomes for individuals and organizations.
• To share new insights or ideas: Researchers may write research papers to share new insights or ideas with the academic or professional community. They may present new theories, propose new research methods, or challenge existing paradigms in their field.

Purpose of Research Paper

The purpose of a research paper is to present the results of a study or investigation in a clear, concise, and structured manner. Research papers are written to communicate new knowledge, ideas, or findings to a specific audience, such as researchers, scholars, practitioners, or policymakers. The primary purposes of a research paper are:

• To contribute to the body of knowledge : Research papers aim to add new knowledge or insights to a particular field or discipline. They do this by reporting the results of empirical studies, reviewing and synthesizing existing literature, proposing new theories, or providing new perspectives on a topic.
• To inform or persuade: Research papers are written to inform or persuade the reader about a particular issue, topic, or phenomenon. They present evidence and arguments to support their claims and seek to persuade the reader of the validity of their findings or recommendations.
• To advance the field: Research papers seek to advance the field or discipline by identifying gaps in knowledge, proposing new research questions or approaches, or challenging existing assumptions or paradigms. They aim to contribute to ongoing debates and discussions within a field and to stimulate further research and inquiry.
• To demonstrate research skills: Research papers demonstrate the author’s research skills, including their ability to design and conduct a study, collect and analyze data, and interpret and communicate findings. They also demonstrate the author’s ability to critically evaluate existing literature, synthesize information from multiple sources, and write in a clear and structured manner.

Characteristics of Research Paper

Research papers have several characteristics that distinguish them from other forms of academic or professional writing. Here are some common characteristics of research papers:

• Evidence-based: Research papers are based on empirical evidence, which is collected through rigorous research methods such as experiments, surveys, observations, or interviews. They rely on objective data and facts to support their claims and conclusions.
• Structured and organized: Research papers have a clear and logical structure, with sections such as introduction, literature review, methods, results, discussion, and conclusion. They are organized in a way that helps the reader to follow the argument and understand the findings.
• Formal and objective: Research papers are written in a formal and objective tone, with an emphasis on clarity, precision, and accuracy. They avoid subjective language or personal opinions and instead rely on objective data and analysis to support their arguments.
• Citations and references: Research papers include citations and references to acknowledge the sources of information and ideas used in the paper. They use a specific citation style, such as APA, MLA, or Chicago, to ensure consistency and accuracy.
• Peer-reviewed: Research papers are often peer-reviewed, which means they are evaluated by other experts in the field before they are published. Peer-review ensures that the research is of high quality, meets ethical standards, and contributes to the advancement of knowledge in the field.
• Objective and unbiased: Research papers strive to be objective and unbiased in their presentation of the findings. They avoid personal biases or preconceptions and instead rely on the data and analysis to draw conclusions.

Advantages of Research Paper

Research papers have many advantages, both for the individual researcher and for the broader academic and professional community. Here are some advantages of research papers:

• Contribution to knowledge: Research papers contribute to the body of knowledge in a particular field or discipline. They add new information, insights, and perspectives to existing literature and help advance the understanding of a particular phenomenon or issue.
• Opportunity for intellectual growth: Research papers provide an opportunity for intellectual growth for the researcher. They require critical thinking, problem-solving, and creativity, which can help develop the researcher’s skills and knowledge.
• Career advancement: Research papers can help advance the researcher’s career by demonstrating their expertise and contributions to the field. They can also lead to new research opportunities, collaborations, and funding.
• Academic recognition: Research papers can lead to academic recognition in the form of awards, grants, or invitations to speak at conferences or events. They can also contribute to the researcher’s reputation and standing in the field.
• Impact on policy and practice: Research papers can have a significant impact on policy and practice. They can inform policy decisions, guide practice, and lead to changes in laws, regulations, or procedures.
• Advancement of society: Research papers can contribute to the advancement of society by addressing important issues, identifying solutions to problems, and promoting social justice and equality.

Limitations of Research Paper

Research papers also have some limitations that should be considered when interpreting their findings or implications. Here are some common limitations of research papers:

• Limited generalizability: Research findings may not be generalizable to other populations, settings, or contexts. Studies often use specific samples or conditions that may not reflect the broader population or real-world situations.
• Potential for bias : Research papers may be biased due to factors such as sample selection, measurement errors, or researcher biases. It is important to evaluate the quality of the research design and methods used to ensure that the findings are valid and reliable.
• Ethical concerns: Research papers may raise ethical concerns, such as the use of vulnerable populations or invasive procedures. Researchers must adhere to ethical guidelines and obtain informed consent from participants to ensure that the research is conducted in a responsible and respectful manner.
• Limitations of methodology: Research papers may be limited by the methodology used to collect and analyze data. For example, certain research methods may not capture the complexity or nuance of a particular phenomenon, or may not be appropriate for certain research questions.
• Publication bias: Research papers may be subject to publication bias, where positive or significant findings are more likely to be published than negative or non-significant findings. This can skew the overall findings of a particular area of research.
• Time and resource constraints: Research papers may be limited by time and resource constraints, which can affect the quality and scope of the research. Researchers may not have access to certain data or resources, or may be unable to conduct long-term studies due to practical limitations.

About the author

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Researcher, Academic Writer, Web developer

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Workshop Report: ACToday Vietnam - Fundamentals of Index Insurance Course, March 2020

Timm, Benjamin

In 2017, President Lee Bollinger of Columbia University announced a new initiative aimed at improving the links between academic research and real-world problem-solving. Through this initiative, called Columbia World Projects, President Bollinger challenged the Columbia community to identify big global problems and apply Columbia-based research to solving them. The first Columbia World project aims to help countries achieve Sustainable Development Goal 2 (SDG2): “End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture,” by developing nation’s climate services. The project is called “Adapting Agriculture to Climate Today, for Tomorrow,” or “ACToday,” and is led by the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI), part of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. Another unit at IRI, The Financial Instruments Sector Team (FIST) has been a key partner scaling many index insurance projects around the world. The Financial Instrument Sector Team has developed a suite of weather index insurance educational materials born out of years of experience and expertise that incorporates a participative philosophy through interactive exercises which have been instrumental in the design and the scaling of index insurance products.

• Sustainability
• Climatic changes

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• What Is a Research Methodology? | Steps & Tips

What Is a Research Methodology? | Steps & Tips

Published on August 25, 2022 by Shona McCombes and Tegan George. Revised on November 20, 2023.

Your research methodology discusses and explains the data collection and analysis methods you used in your research. A key part of your thesis, dissertation , or research paper , the methodology chapter explains what you did and how you did it, allowing readers to evaluate the reliability and validity of your research and your dissertation topic .

It should include:

• The type of research you conducted
• How you collected and analyzed your data
• Any tools or materials you used in the research
• How you mitigated or avoided research biases
• Why you chose these methods
• Your methodology section should generally be written in the past tense .
• Academic style guides in your field may provide detailed guidelines on what to include for different types of studies.
• Your citation style might provide guidelines for your methodology section (e.g., an APA Style methods section ).

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Table of contents

How to write a research methodology, why is a methods section important, step 1: explain your methodological approach, step 2: describe your data collection methods, step 3: describe your analysis method, step 4: evaluate and justify the methodological choices you made, tips for writing a strong methodology chapter, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about methodology.

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Your methods section is your opportunity to share how you conducted your research and why you chose the methods you chose. It’s also the place to show that your research was rigorously conducted and can be replicated .

It gives your research legitimacy and situates it within your field, and also gives your readers a place to refer to if they have any questions or critiques in other sections.

You can start by introducing your overall approach to your research. You have two options here.

Option 1: Start with your “what”

What research problem or question did you investigate?

• Aim to describe the characteristics of something?
• Explore an under-researched topic?
• Establish a causal relationship?

And what type of data did you need to achieve this aim?

• Quantitative data , qualitative data , or a mix of both?
• Primary data collected yourself, or secondary data collected by someone else?
• Experimental data gathered by controlling and manipulating variables, or descriptive data gathered via observations?

Option 2: Start with your “why”

Depending on your discipline, you can also start with a discussion of the rationale and assumptions underpinning your methodology. In other words, why did you choose these methods for your study?

• Why is this the best way to answer your research question?
• Is this a standard methodology in your field, or does it require justification?
• Were there any ethical considerations involved in your choices?
• What are the criteria for validity and reliability in this type of research ? How did you prevent bias from affecting your data?

Once you have introduced your reader to your methodological approach, you should share full details about your data collection methods .

Quantitative methods

In order to be considered generalizable, you should describe quantitative research methods in enough detail for another researcher to replicate your study.

Here, explain how you operationalized your concepts and measured your variables. Discuss your sampling method or inclusion and exclusion criteria , as well as any tools, procedures, and materials you used to gather your data.

Surveys Describe where, when, and how the survey was conducted.

• How did you design the questionnaire?
• What form did your questions take (e.g., multiple choice, Likert scale )?
• Were your surveys conducted in-person or virtually?
• What sampling method did you use to select participants?
• What was your sample size and response rate?

Experiments Share full details of the tools, techniques, and procedures you used to conduct your experiment.

• How did you design the experiment ?
• How did you recruit participants?
• How did you manipulate and measure the variables ?
• What tools did you use?

Existing data Explain how you gathered and selected the material (such as datasets or archival data) that you used in your analysis.

• Where did you source the material?
• How was the data originally produced?
• What criteria did you use to select material (e.g., date range)?

The survey consisted of 5 multiple-choice questions and 10 questions measured on a 7-point Likert scale.

The goal was to collect survey responses from 350 customers visiting the fitness apparel company’s brick-and-mortar location in Boston on July 4–8, 2022, between 11:00 and 15:00.

Here, a customer was defined as a person who had purchased a product from the company on the day they took the survey. Participants were given 5 minutes to fill in the survey anonymously. In total, 408 customers responded, but not all surveys were fully completed. Due to this, 371 survey results were included in the analysis.

• Information bias
• Omitted variable bias
• Regression to the mean
• Survivorship bias
• Undercoverage bias
• Sampling bias

Qualitative methods

In qualitative research , methods are often more flexible and subjective. For this reason, it’s crucial to robustly explain the methodology choices you made.

Be sure to discuss the criteria you used to select your data, the context in which your research was conducted, and the role you played in collecting your data (e.g., were you an active participant, or a passive observer?)

Interviews or focus groups Describe where, when, and how the interviews were conducted.

• How did you find and select participants?
• How many participants took part?
• What form did the interviews take ( structured , semi-structured , or unstructured )?
• How long were the interviews?
• How were they recorded?

Participant observation Describe where, when, and how you conducted the observation or ethnography .

• What group or community did you observe? How long did you spend there?
• How did you gain access to this group? What role did you play in the community?
• How long did you spend conducting the research? Where was it located?
• How did you record your data (e.g., audiovisual recordings, note-taking)?

Existing data Explain how you selected case study materials for your analysis.

• What type of materials did you analyze?
• How did you select them?

In order to gain better insight into possibilities for future improvement of the fitness store’s product range, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 8 returning customers.

Here, a returning customer was defined as someone who usually bought products at least twice a week from the store.

Surveys were used to select participants. Interviews were conducted in a small office next to the cash register and lasted approximately 20 minutes each. Answers were recorded by note-taking, and seven interviews were also filmed with consent. One interviewee preferred not to be filmed.

• The Hawthorne effect
• Observer bias
• The placebo effect
• Response bias and Nonresponse bias
• The Pygmalion effect
• Recall bias
• Social desirability bias
• Self-selection bias

Mixed methods

Mixed methods research combines quantitative and qualitative approaches. If a standalone quantitative or qualitative study is insufficient to answer your research question, mixed methods may be a good fit for you.

Mixed methods are less common than standalone analyses, largely because they require a great deal of effort to pull off successfully. If you choose to pursue mixed methods, it’s especially important to robustly justify your methods.

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Next, you should indicate how you processed and analyzed your data. Avoid going into too much detail: you should not start introducing or discussing any of your results at this stage.

In quantitative research , your analysis will be based on numbers. In your methods section, you can include:

• How you prepared the data before analyzing it (e.g., checking for missing data , removing outliers , transforming variables)
• Which software you used (e.g., SPSS, Stata or R)
• Which statistical tests you used (e.g., two-tailed t test , simple linear regression )

In qualitative research, your analysis will be based on language, images, and observations (often involving some form of textual analysis ).

Specific methods might include:

• Content analysis : Categorizing and discussing the meaning of words, phrases and sentences
• Thematic analysis : Coding and closely examining the data to identify broad themes and patterns
• Discourse analysis : Studying communication and meaning in relation to their social context

Mixed methods combine the above two research methods, integrating both qualitative and quantitative approaches into one coherent analytical process.

Above all, your methodology section should clearly make the case for why you chose the methods you did. This is especially true if you did not take the most standard approach to your topic. In this case, discuss why other methods were not suitable for your objectives, and show how this approach contributes new knowledge or understanding.

In any case, it should be overwhelmingly clear to your reader that you set yourself up for success in terms of your methodology’s design. Show how your methods should lead to results that are valid and reliable, while leaving the analysis of the meaning, importance, and relevance of your results for your discussion section .

• Quantitative: Lab-based experiments cannot always accurately simulate real-life situations and behaviors, but they are effective for testing causal relationships between variables .
• Qualitative: Unstructured interviews usually produce results that cannot be generalized beyond the sample group , but they provide a more in-depth understanding of participants’ perceptions, motivations, and emotions.
• Mixed methods: Despite issues systematically comparing differing types of data, a solely quantitative study would not sufficiently incorporate the lived experience of each participant, while a solely qualitative study would be insufficiently generalizable.

Remember that your aim is not just to describe your methods, but to show how and why you applied them. Again, it’s critical to demonstrate that your research was rigorously conducted and can be replicated.

1. Focus on your objectives and research questions

The methodology section should clearly show why your methods suit your objectives and convince the reader that you chose the best possible approach to answering your problem statement and research questions .

2. Cite relevant sources

Your methodology can be strengthened by referencing existing research in your field. This can help you to:

• Show that you followed established practice for your type of research
• Discuss how you decided on your approach by evaluating existing research
• Present a novel methodological approach to address a gap in the literature

3. Write for your audience

Consider how much information you need to give, and avoid getting too lengthy. If you are using methods that are standard for your discipline, you probably don’t need to give a lot of background or justification.

Regardless, your methodology should be a clear, well-structured text that makes an argument for your approach, not just a list of technical details and procedures.

If you want to know more about statistics , methodology , or research bias , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• Normal distribution
• Measures of central tendency
• Chi square tests
• Confidence interval
• Quartiles & Quantiles

Methodology

• Cluster sampling
• Stratified sampling
• Thematic analysis
• Cohort study
• Peer review
• Ethnography

Research bias

• Implicit bias
• Cognitive bias
• Conformity bias
• Hawthorne effect
• Availability heuristic
• Attrition bias

Methodology refers to the overarching strategy and rationale of your research project . It involves studying the methods used in your field and the theories or principles behind them, in order to develop an approach that matches your objectives.

Methods are the specific tools and procedures you use to collect and analyze data (for example, experiments, surveys , and statistical tests ).

In shorter scientific papers, where the aim is to report the findings of a specific study, you might simply describe what you did in a methods section .

In a longer or more complex research project, such as a thesis or dissertation , you will probably include a methodology section , where you explain your approach to answering the research questions and cite relevant sources to support your choice of methods.

In a scientific paper, the methodology always comes after the introduction and before the results , discussion and conclusion . The same basic structure also applies to a thesis, dissertation , or research proposal .

Depending on the length and type of document, you might also include a literature review or theoretical framework before the methodology.

Quantitative research deals with numbers and statistics, while qualitative research deals with words and meanings.

Quantitative methods allow you to systematically measure variables and test hypotheses . Qualitative methods allow you to explore concepts and experiences in more detail.

Reliability and validity are both about how well a method measures something:

• Reliability refers to the  consistency of a measure (whether the results can be reproduced under the same conditions).
• Validity   refers to the  accuracy of a measure (whether the results really do represent what they are supposed to measure).

If you are doing experimental research, you also have to consider the internal and external validity of your experiment.

A sample is a subset of individuals from a larger population . Sampling means selecting the group that you will actually collect data from in your research. For example, if you are researching the opinions of students in your university, you could survey a sample of 100 students.

In statistics, sampling allows you to test a hypothesis about the characteristics of a population.

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• Published: 12 March 2024

The first demonstration of entirely roll-to-roll fabricated perovskite solar cell modules under ambient room conditions

• Hasitha C. Weerasinghe 1   na1 ,
• Nasiruddin Macadam 2   na1 ,
• Jueng-Eun Kim   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-3826-9537 1 , 3   na1 ,
• Luke J. Sutherland 1 , 3 ,
• Dechan Angmo 1 ,
• Leonard W. T. Ng 1 , 2 , 4 ,
• Andrew D. Scully   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-3116-3067 1 ,
• Fiona Glenn 1 ,
• Regine Chantler   ORCID: orcid.org/0009-0000-7322-6121 1 ,
• Nathan L. Chang   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2744-582X 5 ,
• Mohammad Dehghanimadvar   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-8160-5455 5 ,
• Lei Shi 5 , 6 ,
• Anita W. Y. Ho-Baillie   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-9849-4755 5 , 7 ,
• Renate Egan   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8970-4703 5 ,
• Anthony S. R. Chesman   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1807-4468 1 ,
• Mei Gao   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-0395-7006 1 ,
• Jacek J. Jasieniak   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1608-6860 3 ,
• Tawfique Hasan   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-6250-7582 2 &
• Doojin Vak   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7704-5563 1  

Nature Communications volume  15 , Article number:  1656 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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• Chemical engineering
• Design, synthesis and processing
• Solar cells

The rapid development of organic-inorganic hybrid perovskite solar cells has resulted in laboratory-scale devices having power conversion efficiencies that are competitive with commercialised technologies. However, hybrid perovskite solar cells are yet to make an impact beyond the research community, with translation to large-area devices fabricated by industry-relevant manufacturing methods remaining a critical challenge. Here we report the first demonstration of hybrid perovskite solar cell modules, comprising serially-interconnected cells, produced entirely using industrial roll-to-roll printing tools under ambient room conditions. As part of this development, costly vacuum-deposited metal electrodes are replaced with printed carbon electrodes. A high-throughput experiment involving the analysis of batches of 1600 cells produced using 20 parameter combinations enabled rapid optimisation over a large parameter space. The optimised roll-to-roll fabricated hybrid perovskite solar cells show power conversion efficiencies of up to 15.5% for individual small-area cells and 11.0% for serially-interconnected cells in large-area modules. Based on the devices produced in this work, a cost of ~0.7 USD W −1 is predicted for a production rate of 1,000,000 m² per year in Australia, with potential for further significant cost reductions.

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Introduction

Organic-inorganic hybrid perovskite solar cells (PeSCs) are a promising next-generation photovoltaic (PV) technology that has a demonstrated power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 26.1% 1 . Despite the record efficiencies being competitive with the market incumbent technology, crystalline Si PV with 26.8% PCE 1 , numerous challenges must be addressed for PeSCs to be realised in real-world applications. Foremost is the need to translate small-area lab-scale cells, which are often fabricated using materials or methods that are not economically viable or scalable, to large-area devices produced by high-volume, low-cost manufacturing methods. As shown by other solar PV technologies with high PCEs, such as inorganic multi-junction or GaAs cells, a failure to lower production costs will prevent PeSCs from making an impact in the marketplace 2 , 3 .

A key difference between PeSCs and conventional inorganic PV technologies is the potential for low-cost and low-energy manufacturing using solution-based industrial processes, such as spray 4 , 5 , 6 , blade 7 , 8 , 9 and slot-die (SD) coating 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 . Recent advances in large-area glass-based PeSCs have resulted in promising efficiencies of up to 25.8% 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 . However, these devices have been produced using discrete sheet-to-sheet processing, utilise vacuum-based evaporation steps, and employ subtractive laser-patterning to achieve interconnections for large-area modules. These requirements will add challenges in lowering the cost of large-scale production. In contrast, flexible PeSCs enable high-volume and high-throughput manufacturing using continuous roll-to-roll (R2R) manufacturing techniques 20 , 21 , 22 . The lightweight and physical flexibility of flexible PeSCs also offer the prospect of solar PV panels having high specific power (power-to-weight ratio), which is highly desirable for emerging applications, including space 3 , vehicle-integrated PV, and building-integrated PV 2 , 23 . However, the process of manufacturing PeSCs on a continuously-moving flexible plastic substrate imposes several technical challenges, particularly time and temperature processing limitations 24 .

Beyond advancing the manufacturing process, replacing the high-cost components in the solar cell architecture with cheaper alternatives while retaining comparable performance remains a persistent challenge. The highest cost component is the vacuum-processed Au electrode, followed by commercially produced transparent conductive electrodes (TCEs). Vacuum deposition is costly, and the nature of the process is unsuitable for use with a conventional R2R manufacturing line. There have been several reports of solution-processed back electrodes in glass-based devices 25 , 26 , 27 , but their processing involved a prolonged high-temperature step that is neither compatible with flexible plastic substrates nor suitable for R2R-based upscaling due to time constraints in the continuous process. Due to these technical challenges, the first example of a small-area PeSC (0.09 cm 2 active area) having all layers deposited on a flexible plastic substrate using R2R processes was only very recently reported (in February 2023) 28 with individual cells displaying PCEs of up to 10.8%. While the first report marked a significant milestone in the field, the efficiency was still far from that of typical research cells and only small cells were demonstrated.

Here we report the fabrication of entirely R2R-printed individual PeSCs with a record-high 15.5% PCE. We also report the first demonstration of PeSC modules produced using only industry-relevant R2R fabrication techniques, and under ambient room conditions. This was achieved by developing: (i) a robust and scalable deposition technique, (ii) perovskite-friendly carbon inks to replace vacuum-based electrodes, and (iii) a R2R-based high-throughput experimental platform as illustrated in Fig.  1a . The latter mimics manufacturing processes to produce and test thousands of research cells a day. This allowed the seamless translation from the miniature factory to the full-scale R2R fabrication of PeSC modules (~50 cm² active area) exhibiting up to 11% PCE. The future prospects of the printed PeSCs are evaluated by considering manufacturing costs for various production scenarios calculated using cost models based on the production methods and materials used in the present work, together with the resulting device efficiencies.

a A reliable SD coating process and a perovskite-friendly carbon ink are developed to enable vacuum-free perovskite PV production. The carbon ink is upscaled using a three-roll mill and used to optimise device parameters by fabricating and testing numerous research cells using an automated roll-to-roll research platform. b Schematic illustration of roll-to-roll production of modules using SD coating, reverse gravure (RG) coating and screen printing. c The detailed structure of the series connected module, which is fully roll-to-roll fabricated on commercially available transparent electrodes.

Control of perovskite crystallisation for upscaling

Although spin coating has been widely adopted to produce efficient PeSCs, the deposition and drying parameters are significantly different in R2R production. As such, it is necessary to initially develop processing conditions using R2R or R2R-compatible methods. The introduction of the printing-friendly sequential deposition (PFSD) technique by select co-authors of this work in 2017 13 enabled the demonstration of the first PeSCs comprising R2R-deposited electron-transport layer (ETL), light-absorbing layer, and hole-transport layer (HTL), with up to 11% PCE achieved for a small-area device. Since then we also developed more facile single-step deposition techniques via the introduction of various additives such as polymers, ammonium salts, and 2D organic cations together with heating and nitrogen blowing 12 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , and investigated R2R techniques reported by others 10 , 11 , 15 , 24 , 34 . Although it was possible to produce the perovskite layer in a single-step deposition, we found no approach that significantly outperforms PFSD for R2R-based upscaling.

The PFSD approach is described as ‘printing friendly’ due to its robustness and reliability under ambient conditions, and the absence of time-consuming processing steps. The key to PFSD is adding organic cations at a loading of less than 50 mol% of PbI 2 , far below the stoichiometric amount required to form perovskite crystals. This strategy retards crystallization and the precursor thin-film behaves like an amorphous material with much better film-forming properties than crystalline analogues. When additional organic cation is subsequently deposited, the reactive amorphous-phase film quickly converts to a perovskite without needing to remove the additive as it becomes a part of the perovskite. This allows the conversion to be completed on a time scale suitable for R2R processing.

Our further development of the PFSD method resulted in up to 17.9% PCE from R2R-fabricated PeSCs with vacuum-deposited Au electrodes, as discussed in Supplementary Note  2 . One significant innovation in the PFSD technique is the introduction of a shallow-angle blowing technique, (Fig.  2a ) as opposed to the conventional blowing technique applied at a right angle, used to fabricate high-quality perovskite films involving blowing gas across the substrate 35 . While effective at a laboratory scale, creating a highly uniform gas flow over a large area is challenging. The shallow-angle blowing on the edge of a roller is a simple but effective way to upscale this process, and the angle of incidence can be easily adjusted to levels that can approach zero degrees by simply changing the blower-head position. Utilising this approach, the SD-coated wet films are not deformed by an aggressive air flow before entering the well-defined solidification zone. This significantly reduces the amount of crystalline defects, and amorphous glassy films can be fabricated that are then converted instantly to a perovskite when the methyl ammonium iodide (MAI) solution is deposited, as shown in Supplementary Fig.  1 .

a Schematic illustration of the edge-blowing technique in the roll-to-roll process. b An image (reflection mode) of perovskite films after MAI deposition. The upper sample shows a face-blowing sample with a hazy surface and the lower sample shows an edge-blowing sample with a darker and more uniform surface. Inset shows the mirror-like perovskite film fabricated with the shallow-angle blowing. c XRD data of the perovskite films produced using the two blowing methods. (The large peak at 27° is PET and the peak at 10.4° is hydrated perovskite of the air-exposed sample.) Source data are provided with this paper.

Figure  2b shows the improved quality of the perovskite film fabricated with the edge-blowing technique. The inset photograph shows the flawless mirror-like perovskite film continuously fabricated under ambient conditions (40–50% relative humidity). X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis of the film does not indicate the presence of PbI 2 crystals, which would be evidence of ion migration followed by inhomogeneous local concentration in the solidification process. Shallow-angle blowing produced an intermediate layer that appeared to be amorphous or comprised of small enough grains that allowed for rapid and complete conversion to perovskite upon MAI deposition. Notably, this could not be examined directly as the reactive and unstable intermediate films continuously change upon exposure to air. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) images in Supplementary Fig.  2 show more homogenous films with compact grains of the shallow-angle-blown sample compared to the right-angle-blown sample. The introduction of the shallow-angle blowing not only improved the quality of the perovskite and the reliability of device performance, but also enhanced humidity tolerance (as discussed later), making the PFSD approach a suitable technique for low-cost manufacturing.

Automated, ambient, and vacuum-free device fabrication

The discovery of R2R-printable electrodes for PeSCs has long been a critical challenge in the realisation of fully R2R-fabricated vacuum-free cells. To date, most R2R-fabricated PeSCs in the literature incorporate vacuum or batch-processed back electrodes. The first fully R2R-fabricated PeSC was reported recently using a printed carbon electrode, achieving a PCE of 10.8% 28 . The efficiency was significantly lower than vacuum-based counterparts, suggesting performance degradation caused by the carbon ink. Therefore, we developed perovskite-friendly carbon inks and trialled them alongside commercially available carbon pastes, as discussed in Supplementary Note  3 .

Replacing this vacuum process, which is not only costly but also time consuming, has the additional benefit of creating a new avenue for experimental optimisation. While such an approach improves throughput for conventional R2R systems with manual operation 36 , its full potential is realised with the development of a programmable R2R SD coater for unmanned operation, allowing for the fabrication of thousands of unique PeSCs daily. Manual characterisation of this many cells is not practical. We therefore developed an automated R2R tester to test over ten thousand solar cells a day. Device parameters were automatically calculated and saved online, permitting the analysis of thousands of solar cells in minutes, rather than hours or days. The custom-built R2R research tools are shown in Fig.  3a, b , and demonstrations of the system can be seen in the  Supplementary Information . Figure  3c shows the device layout and testing setup for the high-throughput testing of R2R-fabricated solar cells.

a The custom-built R2R SD coater used for the fabrication of thousands of unique solar cells in a day. b The custom-built automatic solar tester with a daily throughput of over 10,000 cells. c Schematic illustration of the automatic testing setup. d – h An example of a high-throughput R2R experiment to screen deposition parameters of the perovskite layer of PeSCs with a configuration: flexible TCE/SnO 2 /FA 0.45 MA 0.55 PbI 3 /PPDT2FBT/carbon electrode. Statistical ( d ) PCE, ( e ) J sc , ( f ) FF , and ( g ) open-circuit voltage ( V oc ) of 80 devices (along 44 cm substrate for each condition) for 20 different deposition parameter combinations of PbI 2 with 45 mol% FAI and MAI solutions. (centre line, median; diamond, mean; box limits, upper and lower quartiles; whiskers, 1.5× interquartile range; linecross, outliers) ( h ) PCE of 1600 consecutively fabricated PeSCs and deposition parameters along the position of the flexible film. Red dashed lines indicate the MAI amount that is nearest to the theoretical stoichiometric amount. The error bars in the box charts represent 1.5 times the interquartile range. Source data are provided with this paper.

This high-throughput experimental platform enabled us to explore the extensive fabrication parameters of vacuum-free PeSCs to rapidly identify the optimal conditions. Figure  3d–h show an example of the high-throughput R2R experiment, in this case being used to optimise deposition parameters for PbI 2 with 45 mol% formamidinium iodide (FA) and MAI solutions and to identify composition-dependant device parameters. Three PbI 2 conditions were selected to fabricate perovskite layers of about 600 nm to 1000 nm thickness. This range is somewhat thicker than typical vacuum-deposited electrode devices due to the absence of a mirror effect from the carbon-based back electrode. Also, a perfectly matched stoichiometry is not necessarily the best formulation in the FA 0.45 MA 0.55 PbI 3 system, as it can benefit from either a slight excess of lead 37 , 38 , 39 or a cation-excessive composition 40 . Therefore, the ability of SD coating to give quantitative control over the amount of material deposited allowed for the amount of MAI present in the perovskite layer to be varied from slightly cation deficient (lead-excessive composition) through to stoichiometric and slightly excessive compositions for each PbI 2 condition. The MAI-deposition flow rate was varied between 30 and 100 µL min −1 in 10 µL min −1 intervals. Figure  3h shows the deposition parameters together with the PCEs of 1600 consecutively fabricated PeSCs with 20 deposition parameters depending on the position along a 9 m-long substrate. The PeSCs were obtained in a roll form and the roll was transferred to the automatic R2R PV tester shown in Fig.  3b .

Figure  3d–h show statistical device parameters obtained from 80 cells for each condition. A thickness-tolerance hole transport material, poly[(2,5-bis(2-hexyldecyloxy)phenylene)-alt-(5,6-difluoro-4,7-di(thiophen-2-yl)benzo[c]-[1,2,5]thiadiazole)] (PPDT2FBT) 41 (further discussion on the material choice can be seen in Supplementary Note  3 ), which was used to screen carbon inks was used as an HTL in these devices. The devices with an MAI content close to the stoichiometric amount show better performance than others. The thinnest condition (16 µL min −1 ) shows the best performance at the stoichiometric amount and performance decreases rapidly with an excess of MAI or PbI 2 . Thicker films show more interesting behaviour; MAI-deficient films show better fill factor ( FF) with narrow performance variations, while films with excess MAI show higher short-circuit current ( J sc ). Most importantly, these results demonstrate the utility of the high-throughput experimental platform by identifying a composition-dependent performance trend in just one day.

A significant improvement in fully R2R-fabricated cells was achieved by introducing a new hole-transport layer (HTL) system. Poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) is a simple, widely used conjugated polymer with good light-harvesting and charge-transporting properties 42 that lends itself to low-cost mass production. While the polymer alone shows relatively poor performance as an HTL, it shows promising performance when combined with n -hexyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (HTAB) 43 , which passivates the surface traps of the perovskite layer and also provides anchoring points for the hexyl side chain of P3HT to self-assemble in the preferred molecular orientation. Despite such advantages, this HTL system has never been used with R2R-fabricated PeSCs, likely due to the technical difficulty of forming an ultra-thin HTAB skin on perovskite layers utilising a scalable deposition technique. The fabrication of the HTAB skin is achieved through delicate control of surface reactivity by adjusting the ratio of relatively nonpolar and less reactive chlorobenzene to 2-propanol solvents. A uniform P3HT layer was achieved by heating the substrate to 45 °C, which lowers the surface tension of the polymer solution and promotes the self-assembly of P3HT on the HTAB surface. Without substrate heating, P3HT formed poor films on HTAB intermittently, as shown in Fig.  4a .

a R2R SD-coated P3HT films on perovskite films with and without gentle heating of the coating stage. b Histograms of fully R2R-fabricated PeSCs with a configuration of flexible TCE/SnO 2 /FAI 0.45 MA 0.55 PbI 3 /HTAB-P3HT or PPDT2FBT/carbon electrode. c PCE, ( d ) J sc , ( e ) FF , ( f ) V oc , and ( g ) hysteresis factor (forward-scan PCE divided by reverse-scan PCE) of the 240 consecutively fabricated HTAB-P3HT-based devices. The devices were fabricated in uncontrolled ambient conditions on a high-humidity (~60% RH) day. ( h ) Current density-voltage (J-V) curves of vacuum-free PeSCs comparing two HTLs. Inset shows an SEM cross-section image of the device with printed carbon (marked in green). i Incident-photon-to-current efficiency (IPCE) spectrum and calculated current density of the device with HTAB-P3HT HTL and printed carbon electrode. The AM 1.5 G spectrum used to calculate the current is shown in grey. Source data are provided with this paper.

The HTAB-P3HT HTL clearly outperformed PPDT2FBT, as shown in Fig.  4b . The devices not only showed higher performance but also improved reliability, indicated by the narrower distribution in the histogram. All device parameters, including the hysteresis factor of the HTAB-P3HT-based devices, can be seen in Fig.  4c–g . The figures show the parameters of the unfiltered 240 cells that were consecutively fabricated using the automated R2R SD coater. The substrate consists of blocks of 40 electrodes, separated by a 2 cm gap which can be seen in the data. The experiment was carried out under uncontrolled ambient conditions on a day with high relative humidity (~60% RH), demonstrating the robustness of the manufacturing process. In general, while the best devices were obtained on days with low humidity (30-40% RH), reliable production of PeSCs with an average PCE of ~13% was confirmed, regardless of the humidity in the lab. The J-V curve and IPCE spectrum of the best-performing device are shown in Fig.  4h, i , respectively, with 15.5% PCE, 19.9 mA cm −2 J sc , 76.1% FF and 1.02 V V oc . The IPCE spectrum shows good agreement with a calculated current density of 19.4 mA cm −2 .

Transitioning from cells to modules

The optimised device fabrication parameters were used to produce large-area modules. Since all processes were developed by scalable deposition methods, modules could be fabricated in the same way using larger SD heads, as shown in Fig.  5a , and a 10 cm wide substrate with a pre-patterned TCE. The SD heads have five channels (a detailed structure can be seen in Supplementary Fig.  3 ), and hence the optimised flow rate was simply multiplied by five to produce five-cell modules. Supplementary Fig.  4 shows images of high-quality perovskite stripes produced continuously using the R2R SD coating method. The HTAB and P3HT layers were also deposited at a flow rate five times higher than the optimised flow rate for single-stripe coating.

a Image showing the deposition of the perovskite layer using a 5-channel SD coater. The deposition of non-stoichiometric perovskite precursor solution, blow-drying, and the conversion to perovskite by SD coating the MAI solution were carried out in one coating run. b Image showing the RG-coated carbon film on the TCE/ETL/perovskite/HTL stack. c Image of the R2R-screen-printed perovskite PV modules. An industrial off-the-shelf screen printer was used for this production. Inset shows the capacity of the machine. The photo was taken when the printer was used to produce 30 cm × 500 m organic PV modules. d Current-voltage curves of a R2R produced module. Inset shows a schematic illustration of the module structure. e Record efficiencies of various perovskite solar cells. Details can be seen in Supplementary Table  1 . Source data are provided with this paper.

For the R2R-deposited electrode, the carbon ink was deposited using the reverse gravure (RG) technique 44 . The modules were completed by R2R screen printing a silver paste on the carbon film using an industrial R2R screen printer, shown in Fig.  5c and Supplementary Fig.  5 . The printed silver was used to form charge-collection grids and interconnect the 5 individual cells, as illustrated in the inset of Fig.  5d . It was crucial to incorporate additional conductive elements alongside the carbon layer, which had a sheet resistance of approximately 800Ω sq −1 . Supplementary Fig.  11 illustrates that cells without a grid design exhibited significantly poorer performance compared to those with grids. Nonetheless, excessively covering the screen-printed silver led to a decline in performance, most likely due to solvent damage to the underlying layers. Consequently, we designed the silver pattern to achieve minimal coverage while maintaining adequate conductivity, at least surpassing that of the front electrode, for efficient charge collection. We determined that a 0.2 mm line with a 180 mesh screen provided the finest pattern that we could consistently print onto the carbon surface, and this parameter was adopted for the module.

The interconnection of cells was formed through gaps between the stripe patterns at the same time as the grid. The active area is 49.5 cm 2 (1.1 cm × 9 cm × 5 cells) and the geometric fill factor (GFF), as defined as the cell area over total area (cell area + gap area) 45 of the modules, is 75%. The GFF is somewhat lower than that of laser scribed modules with a demonstrated GFF of up to 99% 46 due to the inherent limitation of the stripe-pattern approach. However, it’s worth noting that the laser scribing process may not be suitable for the high-throughput, cost-effective manufacturing of PeSCs. Therefore, our next challenge lies in developing modules with higher GFFs and larger areas while continuing to enhance cell efficiencies through scalable processes.

The entirely R2R-fabricated modules demonstrated up to 11.0% active-area-based PCE with 192 mA current output, 62.3% FF and 4.59 V V oc in a reverse scan and 9.96% PCE in a forward scan. This efficiency is lower than the small cells, likely due to the loss of FF caused by the high resistance of the TCE and partial solvent damage incurred during the screen-printing process. Nonetheless, this report marks a significant milestone in the development of fully R2R-fabricated PeSCs.

The efficiencies obtained in this work are compared with the previous records of various PeSCs, as summarised in Fig.  5e and detailed in Supplementary Table  1 . Flexible PeSCs have always shown inferior performance compared to their glass-based counterparts due to the intrinsic performance limitation of the flexible TCEs. Therefore, batch-processed flexible PeSCs are a more suitable benchmark for R2R PeSCs as they share the same intrinsic properties. While the performances of R2R devices still trail those of batch-processed analogues, this work demonstrates significant progress towards achieving high-efficiency flexible devices. Considering the low-cost nature and the scalability of the R2R-printed carbon electrode, achieving over 15% PCE represents a major milestone in the development of this technology. Through market surveys and considering advantages in the form factor, we established that R2R PeSCs could become competitive in the portable PV market at >10% PCE 47 . Therefore, the demonstration of an 11% R2R-fabricated module is a significant step forward in commercialising this technology. However, the printed silver used in this work may not be suitable for long-term operation for commercial applications due to the corrosion issue. The next challenge would be developing a perovskite-friendly conductive carbon ink that is at least as conductive as TCEs to produce efficient silver-free PeSC modules.

Towards ultra-low-cost manufacturing

This work aimed to develop low-cost manufacturing technologies for PeSCs. Therefore, we developed a cost model based on our previous work 47 which implemented the new materials, processes and device configurations used in this work, as shown in Fig.  6a . Further details of the cost model can be seen in Supplementary Note  4 . In addition to the demonstrated devices, a model device architecture (Sequence C) is also considered to predict the potential for further cost reduction by eliminating the remaining high-cost components, i.e., commercial TCEs and silver grids.

a Device configurations used for the analysis. Sequence (seq.) A: high-cost and high-performance option, seq. B: fully R2R-fabricated device, and seq. C: ultra-low-cost printing option to be pursued. Cost breakdown for ( b ) seq. A and ( c ) seq. B. Projected production costs of the modules ( d ) per module area and ( e ) per peak watt for all three sequences based on 17.9%, 15.5%, and 10% PCE, respectively.

Figure  6b, c show the cost fraction of each functional layer and corresponding capital costs for sequences A and B. For the vacuum-deposited electrode (Seq. A), a combination of the gold material and the equipment purchase and running costs of a R2R evaporator, is the highest cost component, followed by the commercial TCE. Other significant material costs include the encapsulation materials and the HTL whilst the costs of the ETL and perovskite are negligible in comparison. The fully printed configuration, Seq. B, shown in Fig.  6c , shows a significant reduction in the back electrode cost, resulting in only two high-cost components; the commercial TCE, and the encapsulation material.

Figure  6d, e show the production cost of encapsulated flexible perovskite solar modules per unit area (m²) and peak power (W p ), respectively. The best (not average) efficiencies obtained in this work are used for Seq. A (17.9%) and B (15.5%) to calculate $ Wp −1 . Since Seq. C is not experimentally demonstrated here, we have considered it with our highest recorded efficiency to date, achieved for a HTL-free and vacuum-free device (10%), as the most optimistic scenario. The figures clearly show the cost benefits of the carbon-electrode-based devices for both area and power-related cost metrics. The cost for Seq. B is likely to be lower than 1 USD W −1 , and Seq. C could be lower than 0.5 USD W −1 . These represent a significant reduction to the cost estimate from previous works of around 1.5 USD W −1 47 . This results from a similar or lower cost in $ m −2 , and a higher recorded efficiency. However, the technology is still not able to compete with mass-produced silicon solar cells, for which module spot prices have been lower than 0.30 USD W −1 48 . Despite this, opportunities may exist in niche markets that value the lightweight and flexible nature of these modules, as discussed in our previous work 47 . The next step for the technology would be exploring high-value PV markets at the predicted manufacturing costs while addressing the remaining high-cost components to sustainably advance the technology towards commercialisation. Supplementary Fig.  12 , with about 5 USD m −2 module cost (excluding encapsulation), shows the potential for the further cost reduction by eliminating the remaining high-cost components.

In conclusion, we have successfully addressed the key challenges for low-cost roll-to-roll production of large-area perovskite solar modules and demonstrated the world-first fully roll-to-roll-fabricated perovskite solar modules (including back electrodes) on a commercial substrate. A perovskite-friendly carbon ink was developed to replace vacuum-processed metal electrodes, the highest-cost component in perovskite solar cells. This enabled the high-throughput, vacuum-free fabrication of perovskite solar cells using only roll-to-roll processes. Automated roll-to-roll fabrication and testing systems were developed to take full advantage of high-throughput fabrication, allowing thousands of research cells to be fabricated and tested in a single day to rapidly improve roll-to-roll experimentation. Further optimisation of the process and device configuration enabled fully roll-to-roll fabricated perovskite solar cells with up to 15.5% PCE, which represents the record efficiency for fully roll-to-roll fabricated perovskite solar cells to date. All developments in this work were performed with due consideration to upscaling, leading to the first demonstration of fully roll-to-roll printed perovskite solar modules with up to 11% PCE based on the active area of the module ~50 cm². Finally, the cost model developed in this work predicts the projected manufacturing cost of modules likely to be ~0.7 USD W p −1 with the potential for substantial further reduction via replacing remaining high-cost components with low-cost alternatives. This work demonstrates significant progress of the perovskite solar technology towards low-cost at-scale commercial manufacturing.

Materials for the preparation of flexible solar cells, lead(II) iodide (99.9985%) and tin(IV) oxide (15 wt% in H 2 O colloidal dispersion) were purchased from Alfa Aesar. MAI (99.99%), FAI (99.99%) and n-hexyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (HTAB) were purchased from Greatcell Solar Materials. Commercially available TCE substrates with a sheet resistance of 8 Ω sq −1 (OPV8) were sourced from MekoPrint. Hole-transport materials poly[(2,5-bis(2-hexyldecyloxy)phenylene)-alt-(5,6-difluoro-4,7-di(thiophen-2-yl)benzo[c]-[1,2,5]thiadiazole)] (PPDT2FBT), poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT, Lisicon SP001) and 2,2’,7,7’-tetrakis(N,N-di-p-methoxyphenylamino)−9,9’-spirobifluorene (Spiro-MeOTAD) were purchased from 1-Materials, Merck and Luminescence Technology Corp. (Lumtec), respectively. FK209 was purchased from Lumtec. Silver paste (PV416) was purchased from DuPont. All other chemicals, including 4-tert-butylpyridine (t-BP), bis(trifluoromethane)sulfonimide lithium salt (LiNTf 2 ), dichlorobenzene (99%), anhydrous N,N-dimethylformamide (99.8%), and anhydrous 2-propanol (99.5%), and acetonitrile were sourced from Sigma-Aldrich and used as received.

Ink Preparation for R2R coatings

To prepare stock solutions for reverse gravure (RG) coating, a mixture of 10 mL of a 15 wt.% solution of tin(IV) oxide and 5 mL of deionised water was used without any additives. The stock solution could be used for several RG coating trials over a few weeks. For SD coating, stock solutions were prepared by mixing 5 ml of the 15 wt% solution, 10 ml of deionised water and 15 µl of acetic acid. For the perovskite layer, a fresh PbI 2 :FAI solution was prepared by dissolving 1.1 mmol (507 mg) PbI 2 and 0.45 mol% (0.5 mmol, 0.85 mg) FAI per 1 ml of anhydrous N,N-dimethylformamide in a nitrogen-filled glove box, and stirred at 70 °C for approximately 1 h. The solution was cooled to ambient temperature before transferring to a SD head. The MAI solution for the second step of the deposition was made by stirring 40 mg of MAI per 1 ml of anhydrous 2-propanol for 10 min at ambient temperature. 1.0 mM of HTAB solution was prepared in a mixed solvent (chlorobenzene:isopropanol = 9:1 v/v%). The PPDT2FBT and P3HT HTM solutions were prepared by dissolving 10 mg of PPDT2FBT per 1 ml of dichlorobenzene and 5 mg of P3HT in 1 mL of dichlorobenzene, respectively. Polymers without any dopants were dissolved by stirring at 70 °C for more than 1 h. The Spiro-OMeTAD solution was prepared by mixing 6.0 × 10 −5 mol Spiro-OMeTAD (73 mg), 2.0 × 10 −4 mol t-BP (28.8 μL), 2.0 × 10 −4 mol LiNTf 2 (17 μL of 520 mg mL −1 solution in CH 3 CN), and 1.6 × 10 −6 mol FK209 (8 μL of 300 mg mL −1 solution in CH 3 CN) in 1 mL chlorobenzene.

Carbon ink preparation

For the formulation of the SD ink, ethyl cellulose (EC, Sigma-Aldrich, 200646, viscosity 4 cP, 5% in toluene/ethanol) was used as the binder. A 1:1 mixture of carbon black (Vulcan XC72, Cabot) and graphene nanoplatelet powder (CamGraph G3, Cambridge Nanosystems) was used as the conductive carbon pigment. Propylene glycol methyl ether acetate (PGMEA) was used as the solvent. Due to the low viscosity of the desired SD ink, the ink preparation method was separated into two stages. In the initial stage, a high-viscosity ink was produced, which can be processed with a three-roll mill, breaking down pigment agglomerates into primary particles. For a 500 g ink batch, 40 g of EC was mixed in 330 g of PGMEA, stirred until the binder dissolved completely (Supplementary Fig.  9a ). Later, 100 g of the solution was reserved for use in the second stage. The remaining 270 g of solution was mixed with 130 g of conductive carbon pigment to form a slurry (Supplementary Fig.  9b ). This mixture was then processed through a three-roll mill, resulting in a uniform high viscosity ink (Supplementary Fig.  9c ). In the second stage, the high viscosity ink was diluted to produce an ink that can be used for SD coating. The remaining 100 g of EC/PGMEA was hand-mixed with the high-viscosity ink and stirred with a magnetic stir bar until a uniform ink was obtained.

Small-area cell fabrication

Functional layers were coated under ambient conditions on a benchtop R2R coater (Mini-Labo™, Yasui-Seiki) installed in a fume cabinet. A thin layer of SnO 2 ETL layer was coated on the flexible TCE substrate as received using the 10 Wt.% stock solution using reverse-gravure (RG) coating method at 4 rpm RG roll (200 R roll) speed, 0.25 m min −1 line speed and a coating width of 13 mm. The wet film was found to dry immediately and was subsequently moved to a > 135 °C curved hot plate for about 30 s, with hot air blowing at 120 °C for about 30 s.

The PET/TCE/SnO 2 film then underwent R2R IR treatment (2–3 W cm −2 ) for about 5 min using an industrial R2R screen printer (Orthotec SRN3030). The film was then installed back onto the Mini-Labo coater for coating of the perovskite layer. The PbI 2 :FAI solution was then SD coated (20 µL min −1 flow rate, 0.3 m min −1 web speed, 13 mm coating width) onto the SnO 2 film and the continuously moving wet film was then subjected to a flow of nitrogen using a 10 cm-wide air blade installed at the edge of supporting roller about 10 cm behind the coating head and 1–2 cm above the substrate. The N 2 flow rate was adjusted to about 50–100 L min −1 to form a dried intermediate PbI 2 :FAI layer. The MAI solution was then SD coated on the dried intermediate layer with the 60 µL min −1 solution. Solvent evaporation was promoted by gentle air blowing using a small fan placed approximately 20 cm behind of the MAI coating head. The film was then passed over a hot plate at 135 °C for about 10 s. The PET/TCE/SnO 2 /Perovskite film was then rewound and the HTAB and the P3HT solutions were deposited sequentially via SD coating at 0.3 m min −1 line speed, first coating the HTAB layer (15 µL min −1 flow rate, 7 mm coating width) followed by an annealing step on a curved hotplate at 100 °C for 30 s and then coating the P3HT layer (10 µL min −1 flow rate, 6 mm coating width) by placing the SD head immediately above the second curved hotplate at 45 ± 5 °C. Finally, the carbon electrode was SD coated onto the P3HT layer using the PGMEA-based carbon ink by placing the SD head immediately above the curved hotplate at 70 °C (120 µL min −1 flow rate and 5 mm coating width) to remove the solvents on the wet film completely, before an additional annealing step on the second curved hotplate at 130 °C. All R2R-processed devices were tested both with and without the additional screen-printed silver grid. The silver grid was screen printed using a semi-auto screen printer (Keywell KY-600FH) with 180 mesh screen onto the top carbon electrode and was annealed at 130 °C for 30 s on a hot plate.

For automatic fabrications, a thin SnO 2 ETL layer was prepared by SD coating of the 5 wt% solution (65 µL min −1 , 13 mm coating width) with an acetic acid additive at 0.2 m min −1 . (See Supplementary Note  1 for further details) The film was dried with hot air (135 °C for 5 min) and hot plate (135 °C for 1 min) using the commercial coater and then the film was IR treated as described above. 100 m length rolls are typically prepared and a batch of film could be used for multiple experiments over weeks. For other layers, the custom-built R2R machine shown in Fig.  3a was used. The same SD heads used in the commercial R2R coater were used in the custom-built machine. Therefore, all coating parameters were interchangeable between the two machines. However, a smaller air blade (13 mm width) with a lower flow rate (~20 L m −1 ) was used for the nitrogen blowing. Besides the blowing condition, various coating parameters for PbI 2 and MAI solutions described in the main text were trialled with the automatic fabrication setup. For the fabrication of HTAB, P3HT, PPDT2FBT and carbon layers, the coating conditions described above were used in the custom-built machine. Once coating is complete, the roll at the winder was moved to the unwinder so that no rewinding was necessary. The two-step deposition for the perovskite layer was performed in a single pass and the HTAB/P3HT were also deposited in a single pass. So, the fabrication required total four coating runs (ETL, perovskite, HTL and carbon) and was typically completed within a day. The same-design SD heads could be used for all the layers. They were typically cleaned after full disassembly by wiping the remaining inks, followed by ultrasonication in the solvent used in each ink for 5 min and drying by nitrogen blowing. The sonication and drying steps were repeated two more times, and the cleaning typically took 20 min. The tubing was used only once and disposed, except for the SD set for carbon layer (including tube, syringe and the ink), which was kept without disassembly in a sealed bag and used for multiple batches over months.

Serially connected module fabrication

Functional layers were coated under ambient conditions on a benchtop R2R coater (Mini-Labo™, Yasui-Seiki) installed in a fume cabinet. All R2R-processed PeSC modules comprising five series-connected strip cells were fabricated on a stripe-patterned (13 mm stripes with 2 mm gap between stripes) commercial TCE. The module has the same configuration as the small cells, i.e., PET/TCE/SnO 2 FA 0.45 MA 0.55 PbI 3 /HTAB/P3HT/Carbon/Ag. The SnO 2 ETL layer was deposited by RG coating in the same way as the small cells (200 R roll, 4 rpm, and 0.25 m min −1 line speed) but with a roller with 5 stripes. The coating width was the same width as the TCE pattern so that the stripes were made with 0.5–1 mm of offset with respect to the patterned TCEs to achieve exposed TCE for series connections.

The remaining layers up to the carbon electrode were coated using the coating methods (SD coating head having five channels to deposit five 13 mm-wide wet coating stripes), line speeds, and the annealing conditions illustrated in the previous section. Flow rates used for the coating of 5 stripes using the PbI 2 :FAI, MAI, HTAB, P3HT and carbon inks were 100, 300, 140, 92, and 600 µL min −1 , respectively. The P3HT layer was deposited on a custom-built curved hot plate fitted with a heating tape (shown in Supplementary Fig.  4b ) at 45 ± 5 °C. A screen-printed grid using a commercially available Ag ink was used to enhance the charge collection of the module and to interconnect the 5 cells in series. Screen printing was performed on an Orthotec-2 R2R screen printing system. The screen-printed Ag grid was dried using IR irradiance (1.5–2 W cm −2 ) and hot air (90 °C). The active area of each strip cell was typically ~10 cm 2 (width: ~1.1 cm determined by manually controlled offset and length: 9.0 cm) resulting in an active module area of ~50 cm 2 . The fabrication of R2R modules typically took two days and required two researchers.

Characterisation methods

Manual J-V measurements were undertaken using a solar simulator (Newport Oriel) in air without encapsulation. The solar simulator was calibrated to 1-sun (1000 W m −2 ) AM 1.5 G illumination using a certified Si reference cell with KG-1 filter (Enlitech, certified by Enlitech in accordance with IEC 60904-1:2006, spectral mismatch factor with carbon-based cells: 0.92) and a source metre (Keithley 2400). Devices were typically kept in air or a dry box for long-term storage before the measurement. A shadow mask was used to define a cell active area of 0.08 cm 2 for small cells. Modules were tested without a shadow mask. J-V measurements were carried out in the forward (increasing forward bias) and reverse (decreasing forward bias) scan directions over the voltage range from −0.2 V to 1.2 V with 20 mV step for cells (~250 mV s −1 ) and −0.2 V to 5 V with 200 mV step (~1 V s −1 ) for modules, respectively. For automatic J-V testing, a class AAA solar simulator (Enlitech SS-F5-3A) was used after calibration using the same reference cell. A secondary reference cell provided by Enlitech was also used to regularly check the light intensity. For the automatic testing, a circular aperture (1.8 mm diameter, Thorlabs) was used to define the beam size of 0.025 cm 2 which was illuminated on about 0.2 cm 2 cells defined by the coating width of carbon electrodes and the TCE pattern. The small aperture was deliberately chosen to tolerate the positioning error of the roll-to-roll tester. The PeSCs fabricated in the custom-built R2R coater were collected as a roll. The roll was then mounted on the R2R tester by positioning it on the winder of the tester and then rewound to get the starting point of the coating experiment. It is critical to set the position of the first cell under the aperture. A 2 cm gap in the TCE pattern was used to recalibrate the first cell position of every 20 cm block of 40 stripes by checking conductivity through the spring pins. The automatic testing was typically performed in air, but the data in Fig.  4c–g was obtained in a nitrogen-filled box. IPCE measurements were carried out using a commercial IPCE setup (Peccel S20). XRD patterns were obtained using a Rigaku SmartLab, equipped with a rotating anode CuKα source (45 kV, 200 mA), and Hypix 3000 detector. The SEM images of the films were taken with a Zeiss Merlin field emission SEM. A Hewlett-Packard 8453 diode-array spectrophotometer was used for optical density measurements. Time-resolved photoluminescence measurements were performed using a time-correlated single-photon counting (TCSPC) luminescence spectrometer (Edindburgh Instruments Ltd., FLSP920) comprising a pulsed diode laser excitation source (466 nm, 100 kHz, ~100 ps FWHM, ~0.2 nJ cm −2 pulse −1 ) and a Hamamatsu R928P photomultiplier tube detector, giving an overall instrument response time of ~0.7 ns (FWHM). Photoelectron Spectroscopy in Air (PESA) measurements were performed using a Riken Kekei AC2 spectrometer.

Reporting summary

Further information on research design is available in the  Nature Portfolio Reporting Summary linked to this article.

Data availability

The experimental data that support the findings of this study are available in Figshare with the identifier: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.24502210 .

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Acknowledgements

This work was funded predominantly by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) (grant no. 2017/RND012). This work was also supported by the Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics (ACAP) programme funded by the Australian Government through ARENA, the Australian Research Council Center of Excellence in Exciton Science (grant no. CE170100026), Australia-India Strategic Research Fund (AISRF) (grant no. AISRF75426), L.W.T.N. acknowledges a Nanyang Technological University (NTU) College of Engineering International Postdoctoral Fellowship. The authors acknowledge the assistance received from Dr Aaron Seeber with the analysis and interpretation of XRD results and CSIRO Manufacturing’s Materials Characterisation and Modelling (MCM) team for SEM.

Author information

These authors contributed equally: Hasitha C. Weerasinghe, Nasiruddin Macadam, Jueng-Eun Kim.

Authors and Affiliations

Flexible Electronics Laboratory, CSIRO Manufacturing, Clayton, VIC, 3168, Australia

Hasitha C. Weerasinghe, Jueng-Eun Kim, Luke J. Sutherland, Dechan Angmo, Leonard W. T. Ng, Andrew D. Scully, Fiona Glenn, Regine Chantler, Anthony S. R. Chesman, Mei Gao & Doojin Vak

Cambridge Graphene Centre, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB3 0FA, UK

Nasiruddin Macadam, Leonard W. T. Ng & Tawfique Hasan

Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Monash University, Clayton, VIC, 3800, Australia

Jueng-Eun Kim, Luke J. Sutherland & Jacek J. Jasieniak

School of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), 50 Nanyang Ave, Block N4.1, Singapore, 639798, Singapore

Leonard W. T. Ng

School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia

Nathan L. Chang, Mohammad Dehghanimadvar, Lei Shi, Anita W. Y. Ho-Baillie & Renate Egan

Foshan Xianhu Laboratory of the Advanced Energy Science and Technology Guangdong Laboratory, Foshan, China

Sydney Nano and School of Physics, Faculty of Science, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia

Anita W. Y. Ho-Baillie

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Contributions

H.C.W., N.M., and J.-E. K. contributed equally. H.C.W., J.-E.K., L.Sutherland, D.A., F.G. and D.V. fabricated cells and modules. N.M., L.W.T.N. and T.H. developed printable carbon pastes. D.V. developed automatic fabrication and testing system. A.S., L.Shi, A.W.Y.H.-B and A.S.R.C. performed characterisation of films and devices. N.C., M.D., R.E., R.C. and D.V. developed cost models and performed cost calculations. A.S.R.C., M.G., J.J.J., T. H. and D. V. coordinated and supervised this work.

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Correspondence to Jacek J. Jasieniak , Tawfique Hasan or Doojin Vak .

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Weerasinghe, H.C., Macadam, N., Kim, JE. et al. The first demonstration of entirely roll-to-roll fabricated perovskite solar cell modules under ambient room conditions. Nat Commun 15 , 1656 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-46016-1

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Received : 25 June 2023

Accepted : 12 February 2024

Published : 12 March 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-46016-1

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