Types of Research Article

a) Original Research: Traditional research articles describing any substantive contribution to knowledge and understanding in plant computational biology.

 An article is considered original research if…

• it is the report of a study written by the researchers who actually did the study.
• the researchers describe their hypothesis or research question and the purpose of the study.
• the researchers detail their research methods.
• the results of the research are reported.
• the researchers interpret their results and discuss possible implications.

b) Technical Advances: Papers presenting exciting new research tools, methods, and techniques.

Technical advance articles should present a new experimental or computational method, test or procedure. The method described may either be completely new, or may offer a better version of an existing method. The article must describe a demonstrable advance on what is currently available. The method needs to have been well tested and ideally, but not necessarily, used in a way that proves its value.

c) Reviews: Summarized content and suggesting future research directions. A review article surveys and summarizes previously published studies, instead of reporting new facts or analysis. Review articles are sometimes also called survey articles or, in news publishing, overview articles.

Review articles teach about:

• the main people working in a field
• recent major advances and discoveries
• significant gaps in the research
• current debates
• ideas of where research might go next

d) Opinion: Opinions are a review or re-analysis that challenges prevailing views on a topical issue. It is a written prose piece typically published by a newspaper or magazine which expresses the opinion of the periodical.

e) Editorials: Editorials are short invited opinion pieces on topical issues. An editorial, is an article written by the senior editorial people or publisher of a newspaper, magazine, or any other written document, often unsigned.

Editorials are typically published on a dedicated page, called the editorial page, which often features letters to the editor from members of the public; the page opposite this page is called the op-ed page and frequently contains opinion pieces (hence the name think pieces) by writers not directly affiliated with the publication. However, a newspaper may choose to publish an editorial on the front page.

f) Letters to the Editor: Letters are short articles that pertain directly to an article published in the journal.

g) Commentaries: Short discussion of topical issues such as a recently published article, policy, science and society or scientific issues.

Bonus:

Original research, technical advance, review, and opinion articles should include a maximum 250-word abstract, and up to 8000 words in text, 50 references, and 10 figures. Concise presentation is preferred with additional information/detail included in supplementary material. Editorials, letters to the editor, and commentaries should be no longer than 1000 words, with a maximum of 10 references and 2 figures. These article types do not have abstracts.