A: The best place to start is to use another article as your guide. Find an article on a similar topic and/or in the journal to which you are submitting. Then, start with an outline organized along the sections of the manuscript. Here are certain key questions that you can ask yourself at each point to help you stay on track:

Abstract
Although the abstract is often the first place a reader goes, it's usually the last piece written. The abstract needs to be concise while still providing the purpose of the study and a summary of the main findings.

• Does my abstract convey the most essential aspects and findings of my study?
• Will it attract the readers who could benefit the most from its findings?

Introduction and Literature Review
The manuscript should begin with a statement of the problem or concept being investigated along with an explanation as to why the study is important. Your introduction should clearly state the hypotheses under investigation and the variables that will be manipulated.
The literature review should be comprehensive but doesn't need to include every article on the topic. Focus on the articles that are most relevant to your present research and clearly show how your study relates to previous research and contributes to the field.

• Have I provided enough background of existing research and theory related to my topic that it is clear (a) I am familiar with existing knowledge relevant to my research area, and (b) my study addresses an important gap in the literature?

Methods
In this section you will describe how the study was conducted. You may choose to use subheadings such as Study Design, Sample, Procedures, Measures, and Data Analysis to help readers follow along. Subheadings will also help you remember what needs to be covered.

• Have I described the study well enough that the reader can replicate my procedures?
• Does the reader have enough information to come to his/her own conclusions about the strengths and limitations of the findings?

Study Design

• Have I provided enough detail so that readers can evaluate the validity of my study and the usefulness of the results?

Sample

• Can a reader reconstruct the steps I used to obtain my sample?
• Is it clear from the description of my sample, to whom my study findings can be generalized?

Procedures

• Can an interested reader replicate the steps I took to implement my study, including my data collection procedures and my treatment protocol?

Measures

• Have I provided details about scale items I used and given examples or summaries of the kinds of questions asked?
• If applicable, did I explain how items were combined to generate a scale score?
• Have I given psychometric information such as reliability coefficients from analyses of my data for all the measures used in the study?

Data Analysis

• Have I included the research question or hypothesis that guided each analysis?
• Have I explained any less common statistical procedures and why they were chosen?

Results
This section summarizes the collected data and the statistical analysis of that data. This is not the section for discussing implications of the results. Also, don't try to share all your raw data. Focus instead on summarizing the data for your readers in a way that is easily read and understood.

• Have I reported the results as succinctly as possible?
• Have I avoided interpreting the results?
• Have I followed the order of the analyses as presented in the analyses section?
• Are the tables and graphs clear?

Discussion
Here you have an opportunity to discuss your findings and to present and interpret their implications. Your discussion should refer to your original hypothesis or purpose of the study and should convey to the reader exactly what you found and what it contributes to the literature.

• Have I returned to the major points and promises of my Introduction and Literature Review?
• Have I devoted attention to each of the major findings detailed in the Results section?
• Have I adequately tempered my claims with a fair summation of the limitations of the study?
• Have I seriously considered the range of implications of my study?