How much should I allocate to each section of my research article? #PhDlife

Why am I making notes on this?

The journal I am aiming to submit my work to has a 3000 word limit. My first draft was around 8500 words. The second draft is around 5000. I then decided to look at how many words each section was taking to see which sections needed the most work.

• Introduction – 369
• Methods – 1252
• Results – 2450
• Discussion – 757
• Conclusion – 211

This made me think – what percentage of the word count should I allocate to each section so that I can have any chance of getting to the 3000 word limit? And should I think about submitting to a different journal?

What does the internet tell me?

I did a couple of internet searches: “percentages introduction methods results discussion conclusion” and “what percentage of word count should the results be”. This is a summary of what I found.

• The use of the Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion (IMRAD) structure was not universal and developed over time.
• The introduction of a thesis is suggested to be around 10% of the total word count at the Australian National University.
• This essay structure advice from the University of Northampton suggests 5-10% for the introduction and 5-10% for the conclusion. Advice from the University of Adelaide is similar (10% each for introduction and conclusion). If I follow this advice, that leaves 80-90% for the methods, results and discussion sections.

Structure to aim for

Based on the articles which I found, I’m going to aim for the following structure:

• Introduction – 10% (300 words)
• Methods – 15% (450 words)
• Results and discussion 65% (1950 words) or approximately 1000 words for each section. 😱
• Conclusion – 10% (300 words)

Conclusion

Now that I have a goal to aim for, I’ve got to get out the scissors and cut, cut, cut. Some of the information will need to be transferred to electronic supplements/appendices while maintaining the core message.