📝 Introduction — Establishing the gap
"Despite extensive research on [topic], the relationship between [X] and [Y] remains poorly understood."
Use to identify the gap your paper fills
"To the best of the authors' knowledge, no study has investigated [specific aspect]."
Strong claim of novelty — only use if truly accurate
"The objective of this study is to [verb: investigate / develop / evaluate / propose] ..."
State your aim directly — never say "The objective of this study is to make a research about"
🔬 Methodology — Describing your process
"The experimental setup consisted of [description]."
Open the methodology with a clear overview
"Measurements were taken at [intervals/conditions] under [controlled conditions]."
Passive voice is standard for methodology — do not write "We measured"
"The parameters were selected based on [criteria/prior work/constraints]."
Justify every design choice — reviewers will ask why
"This approach was adopted to minimize [error/variability/cost] while ensuring [accuracy/reproducibility]."
Explains trade-offs — shows engineering judgment
📊 Results — Presenting your findings
"The results indicate that [finding]."
Use "indicate" not "prove" — science rarely proves, it supports
"As shown in Figure [X], [observation]."
Always reference your figures explicitly
"A [statistically significant / notable] improvement of [X%] was observed when [condition]."
Quantify everything — vague results are rejected
"These findings are consistent with [prior work / theoretical expectations]."
Situate your results in the existing literature
💬 Discussion — Interpreting your results
"This result can be attributed to [explanation]."
Explain causality — do not just describe, interpret
"In contrast to [prior study], the present work demonstrates [difference]."
Compare to existing work — this is what makes discussion sections strong
"It should be noted that [limitation], which may have influenced [outcome]."
Acknowledge limitations before reviewers flag them — shows scientific honesty
✅ Conclusion — Summarizing and closing
"In conclusion, this study has demonstrated that [main finding]."
Restate the most important result — one sentence only
"The proposed [method/system/approach] offers a viable solution to [problem] with [specific advantage]."
State the practical value clearly
"Future work will focus on [extension/limitation to address]."
End by opening the door for further research — reviewers like forward-thinking
Before and after: what the difference looks like
❌ Weak version
"We did an experiment to see if the algorithm works better. The results showed it was good and faster than the other method."
✅ Strong version
"An experiment was conducted to evaluate the computational efficiency of the proposed algorithm. The results indicate a 38% reduction in processing time compared to the baseline method, as shown in Figure 3."
The strong version has passive voice, a specific percentage, a figure reference, and no vague words like "good." That is what reviewers and editors expect to see.
For hundreds more research paper phrases organized by section, bookmark phrasebank.manchester.ac.uk — it is the best free academic English resource for researchers.