Scientists Reveal How to Write the Background Section of a Study

Writing a scientific article is often imagined as a struggle with data and statistics, but according to a new practical guide published in Chiropractic & Manual Therapies, the real battle is usually lost or won much earlier, in the Background section. The article, authored by Charlotte Leboeuf-Yde and Claire Gudex and published on 1 September 2026 as the first instalment of a three-part series, lays out a step-by-step framework for structuring the opening of clinical and epidemiological papers. Its central argument is deceptively simple: a manuscript that is easy to read is one that is built in a logical order, deals with one thing at a time, and contains nothing superfluous.

The authors draw on their professional experience as readers, writers, supervisors and educators to describe what they call unwritten rules of scientific writing. Poorly structured articles, they note, tend to contain irrelevant passages, arguments presented in an illogical order, and missing concepts, and reviewers and readers can lose the ability to decode the main messages after as few as two or three re-reads. Their remedy is a planning process in which the entire article is organised around a single anchor: the research objectives.

Those objectives, the guide argues, constitute a contract with the reader, a promise to report on specific findings and nothing more or less. Because the objectives drive what must be explained in the Background, how the study is designed, what goes into the Methods, and which results are reported and discussed, the authors treat them as the most important element of any manuscript. They recommend writing the objectives jointly with the whole research team, in as much detail as possible, and crucially before data collection begins. A serious structural failure they highlight is the mismatch between objectives as advertised in the Background and the findings actually presented in the Results, whether through too much information or too little.

To help authors construct informative objectives, the guide offers seven practical tips. Authors should either begin with a general study aim followed by specific objectives or move directly to a list of objectives; they should settle on consistent terminology, since aim, purpose, research question and null hypothesis are often used interchangeably; the study design should be evident from the wording; the condition, context or intended study population should be stated; each objective should map onto one analysis or set of analyses that can actually be answered; the variables of interest should be specified; and any intervention and control groups should be indicated. Formatting matters too: objectives belong in the future tense in a research protocol but must shift to the past tense when a completed study is reported, repetition can be avoided by placing frequently used words at the start of each objective, and statements should not be mixed with questions that end in a question mark.

With the objectives fixed, the Background section itself can be planned. The authors identify four typical elements: a justification of the study topic, sufficient information for readers to understand the research project, a presentation of the research gaps that justify the objectives, and the objectives themselves. The section is usually relatively short, written in a narrative style that tells a story, and it should open by introducing or defining the topic before explaining what is known and what is not. Two common ordering models are described. In the simplest, all factual details are presented first, followed by all the gaps and then the objectives. More often, the text alternates: factual details for objective (a) followed by the gap for (a), then the same pattern for (b) and (c), ending with the full list of objectives.

The opening paragraph of a Background typically identifies or defines the topic, often a disorder such as shin splints or low back pain, and briefly justifies studying it on individual or societal grounds, citing suffering, the number of people affected or the costs involved. The authors add an important caveat: when a study tests a procedure, validates a method or is purely technical, this kind of justification is usually unnecessary, and a definition of the topic may suffice, particularly where the consequences are already well known. Authors are also advised to check whether their target journal imposes a word limit on the Background, since that may force decisions about which details matter most to the story.

The middle of the section, the relevant factual details, should contain only what the reader needs to understand the specific objectives. The guide illustrates this with an example: if the objective is to investigate the association between types of footwear and the development of shin splints in marathon runners, there is little reason to describe the epidemiology of shin splints in the general population, the range of treatment options or the history of marathon racing. The text must be written on a need-to-know basis, not a nice-to-know basis, and every keyword appearing in the objectives, including the variables of interest, should be at least mentioned in the background text so that readers encounter no surprises when they reach the objectives. Referencing receives particular attention: each factual statement should carry its own references placed directly beside the information they support, because clustering all citations at the end of a paragraph leaves readers unable to tell which source backs which claim. The authors also note that the Background describes the situation before the study was conducted, so work published on the same topic while the study is underway belongs in the Discussion instead.

Perhaps the most distinctive part of the guide is its taxonomy of research gaps, which the authors sort into four types common in clinical and epidemiological research. A jigsaw puzzle gap exists where evidence is available but patchy, with missing links that only require explaining the area around the gap. A ping-pong gap arises when the existing evidence is contradictory, with some studies finding a treatment useful and others not, allowing authors to list the studies on each side without excessive detail. A hole describes the situation where no previous evidence exists, perhaps because the diagnosis or treatment is new, and can be signalled with phrases such as to our knowledge, no previous studies, or by citing a systematic review that found no relevant work. A clinical myth, finally, is a concept or procedure generally accepted as truth on the basis of long-term clinical use but with little or no supporting research, a case that can be acknowledged with formulations such as in our experience. Validation studies, pilot studies and studies of technical advances often have no classifiable gap at all. The authors stress that relevance and gaps cover two different aspects of justification: an irrelevant topic makes the study worthless no matter how compelling the gaps, and a relevant topic without compelling gaps is equally unpublishable, a mistake that typically occurs when a literature review has overlooked important previous research.

The final element is the placement of the full research objectives at the end of the Background, sometimes introduced by a short linking sentence or an overall aim. The authors advise keeping a copy of the structured plan, because objectives may be added or removed during peer review, and any change requires corresponding adjustments to the factual details and gaps elsewhere in the section. The guide closes with a sober assessment of artificial intelligence in academic writing. Drawing on a recent systematic review, the authors report that AI can save time, generate ideas, assist in searching and synthesising information and produce audience-adapted text, but that its risks include biased and incomplete searches, inadequate referencing, hallucinated but plausible information, omitted nuances, legal concerns since a chatbot cannot be held responsible for text, plagiarism risks, and loss of ownership when material entered into a chatbot enters the public domain. They recommend using AI only as a support after the author has structured the section, listed keywords and placed references, and they point to a literature review by Ganjavi and colleagues that found a lack of consensus on how AI use should be reported, along with practical guidance: check the journal’s policy, remember that authors remain responsible for the published text, and never list the AI as an author. A classification framework published in September 2025 by the International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers, listing nine approaches to using generative AI in manuscript preparation, is highlighted as a useful reporting aid. The overall message is that careful planning, disciplined objectives and honest reporting remain skills that no machine can substitute for.

Subject of Research: A practical guide to structuring the Background section and research objectives of clinical and epidemiological research articles.

Article Title: Practical guide to structuring the Background section in clinical and epidemiological studies

Article References: Leboeuf-Yde, C., & Gudex, C. (2026). Practical guide to structuring the Background section in clinical and epidemiological studies. Chiropractic & Manual Therapies, 34(1), Article 43. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12998-026-00643-1

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s12998-026-00643-1

Keywords: scientific writing, Background section, research objectives, epidemiology, clinical research, research gaps, manuscript structure, academic publishing, artificial intelligence, peer review, referencing, study design