Tldr
- The purpose of journal article is to disseminate knowledge
- Knowledge = the best claim you can currently make
The purpose of a journal article
Most drafting slows down — or is difficult to get started — because you don’t really know what you’re aiming for. Yes, you know you need to write a journal article. But what does that actually mean? What is this thing you’re trying to build?
A journal article has one job: to contribute knowledge.
That sounds simple. But it immediately raises a harder question — what counts as knowledge? The answer to that question varies more than most scientists realise. It varies by field, by tradition, and by the kind of question being asked.
Knowledge contributions across fields
Different fields have different answers to what does it mean to know something?
In experimental biology, knowledge is a causal claim backed by controlled evidence. In clinical medicine, it’s about what works in practice. In mathematics, it’s proof. In the humanities, it can be interpretation.
None of these is more “real” than the others. They’re different answers to the same question: what kind of claim can we make, and how do we justify it?
This matters because a journal article is a vehicle for making knowledge claims — and the entire structure of the paper follows from which kind of knowledge claim you’re making.
What kind of knowledge does your paper contribute?
The type of knowledge a paper contributes is shaped by the question it’s trying to answer. And those questions tend to cluster into recognisable types, such as:
- Does X affect Y? — a causal claim, tested empirically
- How does X work? — a mechanistic explanation
- What is X? — a description or characterization
- How should we think about X? — a framework or theory
Knowing which question your paper is answering tells you what kind of knowledge you’re contributing — and that determines everything about how your paper should be structured.
See also: Knowledge contributions
Different knowledge contribution, same goal
No matter what type of knowledge claim you’re making, ultimately your goal remains the same: to convince your audience that your knowledge claim is accurate. And that requires trust.
Knowledge contributions are like movie genres
Think of it like film genres. A rom-com and a thriller set completely different expectations — and if you market one as the other, the audience isn’t just surprised, they’re disoriented (and probably annoyed). The same is true for journal articles.
Mismatches between what a paper signals it will contribute and what it actually delivers are one of the most common sources of reviewer frustration.
Same format, different expectations
The tricky thing with academic papers is that a lot of them follow the same format: Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion. Yet what section carries most weight, and how each section should be shaped, differs widely between the type of knowledge your paper is contributing.
For example, if you’re writing an applied ecology paper, your Discussion section will probably do most of the heavy lifting. Whereas if you’re writing a methods-driven paper, the most important section will be the Methods.
Why this matters
If you understand that knowledge isn’t facts but interpretation, it becomes easier to write the Discussion section. This section is almost entirely interpretation of facts, by extrapolating findings about a specific population to a more general one. That requires tolerating uncertainty, and that’s easier to do if you’re aware of this uncertainty.
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