Thinking about Primary Literature

The original detailed reports of scientific and technical research comprise the major part of the primary literature. Some of these reports may be largely observational or descriptive, but the majority are accounts of experimental work with results and conclusions. The primary literature represents new scientific knowledge and hence the latest available information.

So what's the morphology of an article in the primary literature? Here's an example from a recent issue of Science, presented in a full-text electronic form that we'll see more and more and more of very soon.

You see the following:

1. Title
2. Abstract
3. Authors and locations
4. Introduction (with citations to the literature)
5. Details
6. Conclusions
7. Bibliography