How a Research Paper in Astronomy is Written


After an astronomer, or a group of astronomers, make a new discovery or contribution to our knowledge, they have to convert their months-long or sometimes even years-long research project into a final, published document. In this page, I will introduce you to what a research paper looks like in astronomy, and I will also embed within the document a variety of hotkeys which will examine a number of issues that come up while a paper is being written. Because I can provide such in-depth commentary on my own research, I have chosen a paper that I wrote some years ago, and which was published in the Astrophysical Journal on July 15, 1987 : volumn 318, pages 702-711. This particular research paper consisted of the following sections which you can click on to bring up the relevant text and embedded hotkeys: First, you might want to read a short HISTORY explaining why I wrote the paper and what got me interested in this topic.

Title
Author List
Affiliations
Abstract
Introduction
Observations

Analysis
Discussion
Conclusions
Acknowledgments
Errata


This next section tells about submitting the paper, dealing with referee's and what finally became of the paper

Comments by the Referee
The Citation History


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