Final answer:
In psychology, scientific journal articles typically start with a brief description known as an abstract. This abstract summarizes the purpose, methods, and findings of the research. It helps readers quickly understand the article's relevance and decide its applicability to their research.
Step-by-step explanation:
In psychology, scientific journal articles generally begin with a brief description of the entire article, known as an abstract. This concise summary encompasses the purpose, methods, and key findings of the research. The abstract allows readers to quickly grasp the topic and scope of the article, ensuring they understand its relevance to the overarching research project. It is critical in a scientific paper that the abstract provides a clear and accurate representation of the contents without revealing the entire details of the work, serving as an effective overview for readers to decide if the article is relevant to their interests.
The abstract is typically positioned at the beginning of the paper, preceding other specific sections which are structured in the IMRaD format, comprising Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, and Discussion. Citations are necessary in the introduction and throughout the paper to avoid plagiarism, as it refers to previously published scientific work by others.