The introduction, methods, results, and discussion (IMRAD) structure: a fifty-year survey.

Abstract

The scientific article in the health sciences evolved from the letter form and purely descriptive style in the seventeenth century to a very standardized structure in the twentieth century known as introduction, methods, results, and discussion (IMRAD). The pace in which this structure began to be used and when it became the most used standard of today's scientific discourse in the health sciences is not well established.