Descriptive Review for Research Paper Format

Abstract

Publishing research paper across the Internet is getting easier comparing to 20 years ago. There are many open platform publishers such as ResearchGate, Academia.edu, IEEE Spectrum, etc. to choose from. However, each publishers has its own research paper format. As for open platform publishers, there are none. Hence, there is a problem in choosing a most compatible format for paper write-up. This gives the main objective of this research: to find the closest and most compatible format for writing research paper. To approach the problem, this paper reviewed the current research practices and the existing and available paper formats. Once the base data is available, analysis and unification process are done across each of the formats and approaches. Then, an unified format is consolidated and produced. This paper also discussed the problem with all the formats and how it limits the unified format from reaching its objective and lastly concluded the use of the unified format.

Full text

Descriptive Review for Research Paper Format
Chew, Kean Ho
[1]
[1]
ZORALab Enterprise
kean.ho.chew@zoralab.com
May, 2019, 2nd Issue
Abstract
Publishing research paper across the Internet is
getting easier comparing to 20 years ago. There are
many open platform publishers such as
ResearchGate, Academia.edu, IEEE Spectrum, etc. to
choose from.
However, each publishers has its own research paper
format. As for open platform publishers, there are
none. Hence, there is a problem in choosing a most
compatible format for paper write-up. This gives the
main objective of this research: to find the closest
and most compatible format for writing research
paper.
To approach the problem, this paper reviewed the
current research practices and the existing and
available paper formats. Once the base data is
available, analysis and unification process are done
across each of the formats and approaches. Then, an
unified format is consolidated and produced.
This paper also discussed the problem with all the
formats and how it limits the unified format from
reaching its objective and lastly concluded the use of
the unified format.
1. Introduction
Publishing research paper across the Internet is
getting easier with today’s technologies and various
platforms like ResearchGate, Academia.edu, IEEE
Spectrum, etc. Anyone can publish his/her paper via
the self-help portal.
However, apart from having academic paper writing
discipline such as references and plagiarism
checking, there is no single and global standard
when it comes to research paper format and style. For
conventional journalism paper submission path,
many paper writing requires adherence to the
publisher’s chosen format; As for open platform
however, there can be confusion.
Also, any writer would want to write a research paper
compatible to as many publishers as it could while
maintaining reader friendly. Therefore, the writer
needs to know what are the available format and best
practices before writing one.
In this paper, I reviewed the existing research paper
writing format, current best practices, available
options, existing samples, and existing rules. These
practices were either adopt-and-modify or discards
depending on its purpose until a unified, and
purposeful format is found. Lastly, I then discuss the
format with my peers for its feasibility and conclude
the format as the new adoption.
2. The Problem
Before writing a paper, we always look into the best
practices and publisher’s writing requirements before
proceeding to writing. In such case, we should never
assume that a publisher’s format is always compatible
with another publisher. These were the 3 main causes
that triggered this research.
2.1. Non-Unified Format
The first problem is that there is no unified research
paper format to comply with. Some has stringent
paper structure
[1]
, some requires the use of passive
voice
[2]
, some has font and styling restriction
[3]
, and
some has publisher’s specific format like
Elsevier-Typeset
[4]
vs. the LaTeX format
[5]
.
Hence, there is a need to find out a format that
facilitates quick change or tweaks, allowing quick
compatibility with different publishing platforms.
This way, it allows researcher to focus on working
with the actual tasks instead of working on meta
work like this paper did.
2.2. Publishers Influences
Another problem is the publishers’ direct influences
to the paper format. Writer must perform a format
query from the publisher before starting the write-up.
1

Otherwise, the efforts can be wasteful if the paper is
either rejected for re-write/format compliance or
rejected completely.
Hence, we need to find out these known format and
learn their reasoning behind each of them. Then, we
can adopt and modify over the unified format
produced from this paper.
2.3. Technological Advancements
Research paper writing software are no longer limited
to only Microsoft Office, especially Microsoft
Word
[6]
. Today, there are many other competitors
such as Google Drive’s Google Doc
[7]
, LibreOffice
[8]
,
etc. All of the have in common is that they are “What
You See Is What You Get” (WYSIWYG) editor type,
which allows writers to see and edit the paper based
on the end results. More sophisticated paper editor
would be LaTeX codes
[5]
.
With many available and variety of new software, we
have to make sure that the adopted format is
compatible with all types of editors, especially all
WYSIWYG editor types. These WYSIWYG editors
are the most commonly used document editors in the
globe.
For this paper, I primarily focused on Google Drive
support as it is the widely used free editor, next to the
paid version Microsoft Office.
2.4. Quality Metrics
There is no straightforward way to measure a research
paper quality. This is mainly because it is perspective
and objectives depending on role (e.g. reader, editor,
publisher, etc.), content (e.g. relevancy, data richness,
presentation, accuracy or integrity, consistency, etc.),
and purpose.
Example, given a rich content research paper with
excellent data richness with great presentation but
presented in the format incompatible with Publisher
A, these can generate a list of quality opinions:
1. The publisher rates it as average quality due
to the format incompatibility.
2. The content expert readers rates it as high
quality paper due to its content richness and
great presentation.
3. The average or public readers may read it
due to its great presentation.
Hence, we need to study and generate a form of
metrics to measure the format quality based on:
1. Objective
2. perspective management
Afterall, if the publisher does not accepts the paper, it
would not capture the intended audience as well.
2.5. My Approach
Based on the problems I presented, the goal is clear:
1. Study the current research paper format and
practices
2. Study the objective and perspective
management for measuring research paper
quality.
3. Generate the unified format that carries large
format compatibility and serving an
objective or purpose.
By understanding the current research paper format
and practices, we can get the foundation of where the
research world is currently in, the best practices, do
and don’ts, etc. This provides a boundary limit to
ensure this research does not drift too far from its
objectives.
By analyzing and gather the necessary factors,
perspective, and objective managements, it provides
a mean to control during the development of the
unified format. That way, we can at minimum,
measure the format leading to the necessary quality.
Lastly, this is to generate the unified research paper
format. The goal is not to replace any existing paper
formats but to minimize the format editing efforts at
start. This is the final output.
In the following sections, I present the data gathered
from this research, my analysis outcomes, the
proposed format, and some discussions.
3. Overview - Research Practices
In this section, I reviewed the current industrial
research practices, standards, and management. I
started off with reviewing the a research paper’s
purposes in order to understand the objectives and
focus.
The next part would be reviewing the publication
channels like types of publishers, their roles, and
2

processes. This provides an outcome end-in-mind for
a research paper.
The last part would be reviewing the referencing and
bibliography practices in research paper. This is to
ensure that I understand the existing practices for
respecting intellectual properties rights and how to
form a references list or bibliography across multiple
styles.
3.1. Paper Purposes
Research paper’s purposes are:
1. to present a researcher’s research efforts to
his/her peers
[9][ 10]
,
2. to archive the efforts into a repository
[9][ 10]
,
3. to keep the researcher focus to the research
objectives
[9][ 11]
, and
4. to give perspective of a different approach
to a research problem
[10]
.
The target audience is broad and wide but primarily
for other peer researchers
[10]
.
Based on the purpose and target audiences data, I
confirmed that the research paper format must
comply to the original research paper’s main and
other purposes, serving the specific target audience.
Otherwise, it is useless.
3.2. Publishers
Publishers’ role is to print, to distribute, to archive,
and to publish the research paper written by the
researchers
[12]
. They help the researcher to gain
scientific visibility, wider audiences, via their
respective publication channels like journals,
conferences, etc.
3.2.1. Trustworthy vs. Predatory
Due to monetary business aspects of publishers, there
are generally 2 types of them:
1. Trustworthy
[13]
2. Predatory
[13][ 16][17]
Predatory publishers are pseudo-science publishers
that offer empty service or benefit like non-existing
promised peer reviews, fake impact factors, fake
editors, and misleading journal names
[13][ 16][17]
. They
also charge excessive fees high enough to raise
conflict of interest for publication
[16][ 17]
.
Trustworthy publishers however, is the genuine
publishers that are deeply committed to quality
knowledge transfer with proper quality control
processes
[13]
.
Researchers should always reach out to trustworthy
publishers to avoid losing not only efforts by paper
disappearance, receiving sub-par or no peer review,
making the paper hard to find, as well as monetary
values as well
[13][ 16][17]
. There are facilities like Think,
Check, Submit
[13][ 14]
, and List of Predatory
Journals
[15] for researchers to check a chosen
publisher’s integrity.
Based on the data above, I learnt that while
abstracting a particular paper format from a publisher,
I need to review the publisher’s integrity and discards
predatory publishers’ version. It is better to establish
obscurity with these publishers to add additional
thinking triggers for the research writer.
3.2.2. Publishing Process
Publishing a research paper for a publisher is specific
to the publisher itself. Each publishers has its own
process to comply. However, from the writer’s they
are generally similar steps. Figure 3.2.2-1 illustrates
the process flow in the graphical manner.
Figure 3.2.2-1 - Publishing Process
3

The first step is to perform self-check over the
original work before considering publishing
[18][ 19]
.
The process should not be rushed
[18]
, and must be
proactively re-read and be churned iteratively at
different places and time to reduce shortcomings in
the manuscript
[17]
. Also, the writer can consider
individual peer reviews among colleague to
proofread the manuscript
[17]
.
Upon completion, the next step is to perform a
publication outlet search
[18]
. This step is to search for
an appropriate publicatio channel (e.g. journal) from
a trustworthy publisher
[18]
. This is also the step where
research make use of facilities like Think, Check,
Submit
[13][ 14]
, and List of Predatory Journals
[15] from
previous subsection to reduce the risk of engaging
with a predatory publisher.
The next step is to query the paper guidelines from
the publishers
[18][ 19]
. Here, the writer performs the
necessary format editing
[18][ 19] in order to comply
with the publisher’s requirements. Also, the writer
can improve the title and the abstract to make a good
first impression to the publisher
[18]
. The abstract
should have the overall contents from aim and scope
of the study, key problems and theory, methods used,
data set, key findings, limitation and implications of
the research
[18]
.
Once done, the next step is to submit the
manuscript
[18][ 19][20]
. It is good practice to submit a
cover letter to present the worthiness for the
publisher to review the writer’s manuscript
[18]
. It is
worth noted that the writer must submit the paper to
only 1 publisher at a time
[19]
. After the submission, if
the manuscript is worth reading, the publisher’s
editors trigger the peer-review automatically.
The next step is to work with the editors to revise the
manuscripts upto their quality standards
[18][ 19][20]
.
This step is iterative until the required quality is
achieved
[18][ 19]
. The outcome of this step can be either
accepted or rejected
[19]
. If the manuscript is rejected,
the writer can either rework the entire manuscript
into a fresh version and start over again with the
same publisher
[19] or approach the next publisher.
Either way, the process restarts itself from the
beginning.
If the manuscript is accepted, it will undergo one
final review with the writer before copyedited into
the publication. Once done, the process ended
successfully
[18][ 19][20]
.
Based on the general publication process, the unified
paper format should be disrupting the existing
process flow. In fact, the objective of the unified
format is to reduce the reformatting efforts for
publisher’s format compliance.
3.3. Referencing
This section studies the existing paper referencing
mechanism in the academic industry. All research
papers require proper referencing to avoid
plagiarisms or copyright infringement. It is all about
respecting copyrights among each others in
academic researches.
3.3.1. Purposes
Referencing primary purpose is to give credits,
contribution acknowledgement, respecting original
authors’ intellectual properties rights, and to
appreciate efforts done by others
[21][ 22][23]
.
Referencing allows a researcher to provide other
researchers’ efforts as exhibits evidences in his/her
paper without copyright infringement and
plagiarism
[21][ 22][23]
. This is useful for demonstrating
the breath of the research, provides stronger
argument points, showing the information integrity
(source determination), and allow readers to verify
the information
[22][ 23]
.
3.3.2. Referencing Styles
There are many referencing styles depending on
location and the university or publication practices.
There are:
1. Chicago Turabian Style
[24]
2. Harvard Referencing Style
[28]
3. Modern Language Association Style
[25]
4. American Psychological Association
Style
[26]
5. IEEE Style
[27]
Each styles has their pros and cons and has its own
techniques and influences across the research papers.
However, they are all arranged in a single, unified list
of referencing source components; the only
difference is the way of writing the
references
[24][ 25][26][27][ 28]
.
Generally speaking, all referencing styles wants to
achieve the same goal in their own way: to leave a
trail of evidence for reader to verify the
4

information
[21][ 24][25][26][ 27][28]
. Hence, there must be a
common pattern among them, in each styles.
All of them has 2 components:
1. The in-text citation that indicates a
reference
2. The referencing bibliography where the full
reference details reside.
I need to abstract each of the referencing styles and
forms a unified pattern. The idea is that depending
on the source’s meta information, the researcher can
fill in the data fields accordingly while removing
those that are missing. Fields are indicated by the
square brackets with its name inside. Example:
[ Full name / Last Name ] - means replace     
the field with a full name or just the last name. If
there is a double square brackets ( [[ … ]] ), it  
means the field is accompanied by a set of square
bracket.
If there is any formatting, such as parenthesis (
(...) ), italic text , UPPERCASE TEXT, and quote (
“...” ), it means apply the formatting to that field.
Examples are in Figure 3.3.2-1.
Pattern:
[[ID]] - [FULL NAME], [Year], “[Title]”,
[Collection Name] , [Series Name], [Volume ID /
Version ID], [Issue Number], [DOI Number], [Video
/ Audio Start Time], [Published Year / Last
Modified Date], [Publisher Name], [Accessed
Date], [Source URL Location]
Given:
ID: 2
Full name: John Smith
Year: 2019
Title: Hello World”
Volume ID: Vol. 15
Got:
[2] - JOHN SMITH, 2019, “Hello World”, Vol. 15
Figure 3.3.2-1 - Example pattern implementation
Hence, I abstracted each of the listed referencing
styles. Chicago Style has the pattern structure shown
in Figure 3.3.2-2
[24][ 29]
, Harvard Referencing Style
has the pattern structure shown in Figure 3.3.2-3
[28]
,
Modern Language Association Style has the pattern
structure shown in Figure 3.3.2-4
[25][ 30]
, American
Psychological Association Style has the pattern
structure shown in Figure 3.3.2-5
[26]
, and IEEE Style
has the pattern structure shown in Figure 3.3.2-6
[26]
.
Inline Citation:
([Last name of each authors] [Published Year],
[Page] - [Line Number])
Reference Body:
[Note / Duplicate Note / Bibliography] [Last
Name] [First Name], “[Title]”, [Collection Name] ,
[Series Name], [Volume ID / Version ID], [Issue
Number], [DOI Number], [Video / Audio Start
Time], [Published Year / Last Modified Date],
[Publisher Name], [Accessed Date], [Source URL
Location]
Figure 3.3.2-2 - Chicago Style Reference Pattern
Inline Citation:
([Last name of each authors] [Published Year],
[Page Number])
Reference Body:
[Last Name], [First Name], [Published Year / Last
Modified Date], “[Title]”, [Collection Name] ,
[Series Name], [Volume ID / Version ID], [Issue
Number], [DOI Number], [Pages / Video Start Time
/ Audio Start Time], [Publisher Name], [Accessed
Date], [Source URL Location]
Figure 3.3.2-3 - Harvard Referencing Style Reference
Pattern
Inline Citation:
([Last name of each authors] [Published Year],
[Page Number])
Reference Body:
[Last Name], [First Name], [Published Year / Last
Modified Date], “[Title]”, [Collection Name] ,
[Series Name], [Volume ID / Version ID], [Issue
Number], [DOI Number], [Pages / Video Start Time
/ Audio Start Time], [Publisher Name], [Accessed
Date], [Source URL Location]
Figure 3.3.2-4 - Modern Language Association Style
Reference Pattern
5

Inline Citation:
([Last name of each authors] [Published Year],
[Page Number])
Reference Body:
[Last Name], [First Name], ([Published Year / Last
Modified Date]), “[Title]”, [Collection Name] ,
[Series Name], [Volume ID / Version ID], [Issue
Number], [DOI Number], [Pages / Video Start Time
/ Audio Start Time], [Publisher Name], [Accessed
Date], [Source URL Location]
Figure 3.3.2-5 - American Psychological Association
Style Reference Pattern
Inline Citation:
[Reference ID]
Reference Body:
[[Reference ID]] [Last Name], [First Name],
([Published Year / Last Modified Date]), “[Title]”,
[Collection Name] , [Series Name], [Volume ID /
Version ID], [Issue Number], [DOI Number], [Pages
/ Video Start Time / Audio Start Time], [Publisher
Name], [Accessed Date], [Source URL Location]
Figure 3.3.2-6 - IEEE Style Reference Pattern
Notice that Figure 3.3.2-2 to Figure 3.3.2-5, we have
a unified version of reference body pattern shown in
Figure 3.3.2-7. The inline citation however, must
comply the the respective styles.
Reference Body:
[[Reference ID]] [Last Name], [First Name],
([Published Year / Last Modified Date]), “[Title]”,
[Collection Name] , [Series Name], [Volume ID /
Version ID], [Issue Number], [DOI Number], [Pages
/ Video Start Time / Audio Start Time], [Publisher
Name], [Accessed Date], [Source URL Location]
Figure 3.3.2-7 - Unified Style Reference Pattern
With the reference pattern found, we can proceed to
study the referencing source components in the next
subsection.
3.3.3. Source Components
There are many sources of information available for
referencing. Each of them is written in its own
manners. Here are the list of known sources
consolidated from all the listed
styles
[21][ 24][25][26][ 27][28]
:
1. A book in print
2. A book in electronics form (ebooks)
3. A book chapter
4. An article in print journal
5. An article in electronic journal
6. An article in print
7. An article in electronics form
8. A conference paper in print
9. A conference paper in electronics form
10. A conference proceedings
11. A technical report
12. A patent
13. A standard
14. A thesis in print
15. A thesis in electronics form
16. A website
17. An email
18. A mailing list
19. An audio recording in physical form
20. An audio recording in electronic form
21. A video recording in physical form
22. A video recording in electronic form
23. An embedded audio/video recording in a
website
24. Film
25. Photograph
26. Artwork (like art on physical canvas)
27. Electronics Artwork (like from website)
28. Database
Each sources provides different meta-information for
referencing. For example, a book regardless of its
forms, always provide its book name (also known as
collection of titles ), Issues Number (ISBN Number); a
journal always provide volume ID and issues ID; a
video/audio recording always provide a timing /
duration of viewing; an electronics and web sources
always provide a source URL location for downloads
or view
[21][ 24][25][26][ 27][28]
.
With these meta-information, researcher can then
follows the unified reference body pattern and fills
them in accordingly.
Based on the referencing patterns, I can ensure that
the unified paper format must contain the unified
reference body pattern in its referencing or
6

bibliography section. As for the inline citation, it
must comply to a chosen style format.
With the overview of the research practices, I can
now proceed to review the existing research paper
format.
4. Overview - Paper Format
It this section, I reviewed the formatting for the paper.
There are 2 parts:
1. The design for the existing paper format like
fonts, spacing, font size, etc.
2. The structure for a paper
These metadata facilities the required designs and
styles for the unified research paper format.
4.1.1. Basic Design
There is no strict rules related to the design of the
paper. The objective of applying a design is to ensure
the long paper does not bore out our reader. However,
many publishers has their own requirements
[32] so
when such requirements appear, the researcher should
comply to them.
The font style is always recommended as Times New
Roman
[31][ 34][35]
. The font size varies depending on
the context: a title is recommended 24 points, author
names at 11 points, normal paragraph at 10 points,
email address at 9 points, captions or references at 8
points
[34]
. However, other guides recommend keeping
all the font size at 12 points for good readability and
simplicity sake
[2][ 31][35]
.
Italic font usage should always comply to the native
English purpose: to highlight a point
[35] or indicate a
collection of something (e.g. book as a collection of
chapters).
For writing style, most format recommends the use of
active voice over passive voice
[2][ 35]
. The “less is
more” practice is highly recommended to ensure
professional presentation
[34]
.
For illustration, table, and diagram, only table’s
identification and its title is above the graphical
contents
[34][ 35]
. As for the others, they are at the
bottom of the illustrations
[34][ 35]
. For graph,
photograph, graphical illustrations, the title should
starts with Figure instead of Diagram
[34][ 35]
.
As for any unspecified designs such as bullet and
numbering is upto the researcher to decide while
building the paper’s contents.
Therefore, the unified format should comply to these
design requirements to reduce any unnecessary
modifications.
4.1.2. Content Structures
The content structure of a research paper heavily
depends on the paper’s intention. Generally, a
technical report paper has the following components:
1. Cover page
[31]
2. Title
[10][ 31][32][33]
3. Abstract
[31][ 32[33]]
4. Authors
[10][ 32]
5. Keywords
[32]
6. Acknowledgement
[32][ 33]
7. Remarks
[32]
8. Footnotes
[32]
9. Table of Contents
[33]
10. Content
[31]
a. Introduction
[10][ 31][33]
b. Research Objectives
[10]
c. Rationale of Study
[10]
d. Literature Reviews
[10]
e. Body paragraphs
[31][ 33]
f. Methodology
[10][ 33]
g. Findings / Results
[10][ 31][33]
h. Discussion
[10][ 31][33]
i. Implication of Study
[10]
ii. Suggestion to Study
[10]
i. Conclusion
[10][ 31][33]
11. License
12. Biography / Reference List
[10][ 31][32][33]
13. Appendix
[31][ 33]
Depending on the objectives of the papers, some
parts are not sensible to include in. Example, for
abstract article writing, it does not make any sense to
include literature reviews since itself is a literature.
To keep the paper simple, researcher is advisable to
keep the entire structures into 3 levels of
headings
[34][ 35]
. Each headings, depending on the
publisher’s requirements, should have its own
styling
[34][ 35]
.
Hence, the researcher should tune the paper structure
based on the paper main objectives and target
audiences accordingly.
7

4.1.3. Writing Practices and Tips
Each structure components’ has its own way of
formulation. Many researchers and style handbooks
offer their respective writing recommendations.
For formulating title, a great title is straight to the
point capturing the main idea of the writings,
compact, and unwieldy
[1][ 35][36]
. It is self-explanatory
and should not go more than 15 words
[36]
. It is at best
to avoid words without purposes, quotations,
jargons, and uncommon acronyms
[36]
.
As for abstract, it is the sales pitch of the paper
[36]
. Its
goal is to provide buy-in reasons for reader to read
the paper
[1][ 36]
, which summaries the entire paper in
less than 200 words
[1]
. Normally, the context of an
abstract should have
[36]
:
1. The overall context
2. The problem of significance
3. Research objective
4. Overall approach
5. Expected contribution of knowledge
6. Summary of outcome
7. Brief conclusion
For building a good introduction, its goal is to
provide a reason of significance to read the entire
paper
[36]
. Hence, it should
[1][ 11][31][36]
:
1. Contains the problem statement that set the
stage of the research.
2. Conveys an urgency to investigate the
problem.
3. Presents a clear research objective or
purpose.
4. Presents well-defined and formulated
research question.
5. Provides a convincing reason for why you
are the best candidate to undertake the
project.
6. Gives a foundation of understanding to
non-content-expert readers.
7. Writes from a reviewer’s perspective.
For building a good research objectives, it must have
these attributes
[9]
:
1. Concrete statements describing the outcome
the research trying to achieve
2. Grounded problem statement
3. Concise and precise
4. Logically and conceptually linked
5. Comprehensive, clear, and attainable
For building a good literature reviews, the content
should
[36]
:
1. Provides context for your proposed research
2. Demonstrates why the topic is important by
providing analysis data, identify gaps, and
facilitate understanding foundation.
3. Clarifies relationship between the
understanding foundation with the current
research.
4. Be defined by a guided concept.
There are some guidelines for literature reviews
[37]
:
1. Be convincing and data driven approach
like using evidences.
2. Be analytical, concise, focus, and balance.
3. Avoid reinventing the wheel.
4. Cite precisely and avoid over-citing.
5. Ensure the literatures are up-to-date and
relevant.
With these practices and tips, we can formulate the
paper structure closely based on these insights.
5. Discussion
In this section, I present my findings and discuss it
with my peers. These findings formulates the
attributes for the final format. I also present my
rationale to my findings and suggestions.
5.1. Referencing Patterns
After analyzing all the referencing styles and the
unified patterns, I suggest the use of IEEE inline
citation over the conventional English counterpart.
My rationale is that since citation purpose is meant
to provide exhibits and evidence to a statement, it is
better to use index indicator like the IEEE inline did
as it facilitates cleaner and simpler multiple sources
to support a single statement. If we do the same
purpose using the conventional English citation
manner, it increases the word counts dramatically.
My second rationale to support IEEE inline citation
is that it allows writer to make statement straight to
the point and allows reader to read unobstrively. If
the inline citation is long and repeating the
references, it obscures the reading experience and
undermine the reader’s intellect of using references or
bibliography section. The most important thing to do
is to have clear, traceable reference in the references
8

section and use unobstructive indicator to the
citation. The reader knows where to find the sources;
the writer can write freely. Also, it is much easier to
switch from reference indicator to old English
indicator instead of the other way round.
As for the referencing pattern, I suggest the use of the
unified pattern, since it is applicable across different
styles. This yielded the final reference pattern shown
in Figure 5.1-1. Additionally, the writer should keep
the pattern consistent (e.g. if one is using full name,
all should comply to full name instead of family
name, last name arrangement). The rationale is that
keeping consistency allows easier alteration across a
large reference list.
Inline Citation:
[Reference ID]
Reference Body:
[[Reference ID]] [FAMILY NAME, GIVEN NAME /
FULL NAME], ([Published Year / Last Modified
Date]), “[Title]”, [Collection Name] , [Series
Name], [Volume ID / Version ID], [Issue Number],
[DOI Number], [Pages / Video Start Time / Audio
Start Time], [Publisher], [Accessed Date], [Source
URL Location]
Figure 5.1-1 - Unified Reference Pattern
5.2. Design
As for design, I suggest the use of Times New Roman
font only, keeping the font at size 10 points for
normal paragraphs while 12 points for all 3 headers
levels. All headers should have numeric numbering.
My rationale is that keeping a single font makes the
document extremely simple and straightforward. The
reason behind using the same design across different
level of headers is that we’re using numeric
numbering to indicate the level already. There is no
point making those headers overly fancy.
The table should retains its title and numbering
position, which is on top of the illustrations. As for
the rest of the illustration types, the title and
numbering is at the bottom. That leaves the only
editing efforts to font changes. My rationale is to
ensure all illustrations are complying to all
publication requirements.
Emphasis in normal paragraph should use italic style,
complying to the native English convention instead
of bold. As for title or headers, the emphasis given to
them should be bolded instead. My rationale for this
is to maintain the native English convention,
allowing writers and readers to quickly adopt to the
common writing style.
5.3. Paper Structure
There should not be any differences from the
conventional research paper structure. The rationale
is not to reinvent the wheel when it comes to paper
structure and facilitate the conventional
understanding.
6. Conclusion
Research paper format is not as intimidating as I
initially thought. Each publishers has its own
formatting requirements and all the researcher should
do is always request and comply to them. To prepare
the paper with minimum formatting changes, a little
research effort is required.
Referencing and citation in various research paper
styles are unified under a single pattern. The
researcher has to perform a good understanding
about various types of referencing approach in order
to comprehend the unified pattern. However,
although the reference is unified, the inline citation
is not. The writer must refer to the publisher’s
requirement and alters accordingly. In my discussion,
I recommend the use of IEEE inline citation as it
facilitates a much simpler multi-sources citation.
Font across multiple styles and formatting should
stick to Times New Romans, 10 or 12 points
depending on the publisher’s requirement. In my
discussion, I suggest keeping every text to 10 points,
which headers complying to numeric numbering, set
with 12 points font size, bolded style.
As for illustrations, the title indexing and text should
be at the bottom of the illustration except table,
which should be at the top.
Lastly, the paper structure largely depends on the
paper’s objective. Hence, the writer should structure
the paper accordingly instead of following a single
structure blindly.
7. License
This paper is licensed under:
9

CC-BY
This license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and
build upon your work, even commercially, as long as
they credit you for the original creation. This is the
most accommodating of licenses offered.
Recommended for maximum dissemination and use
of licensed materials.
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