IMRaD — Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion — is built around a specific research logic: state a question or hypothesis, describe how it was tested, report what was found, then interpret it. Qualitative research often runs on a different logic — iterative, interpretive, and oriented toward understanding meaning rather than testing a discrete hypothesis — and that mismatch shows up directly in how qualitative papers are structured. This guide walks through exactly how, section by section and tradition by tradition.
This is a deliberately narrow, deep treatment of one question. For a broader survey of how IMRaD flexes across disciplines (clinical medicine, engineering, systematic reviews, the humanities), see IMRaD Structure Variations by Academic Discipline. For a full walkthrough of what belongs inside the Methodology section specifically — research design, sampling, data collection, establishing trustworthiness, reporting checklists — see How to Write the Methodology Section of a Qualitative Research Paper. This page sits between the two: it’s about how the whole paper’s section-level architecture changes when the underlying research is qualitative, and how that architecture varies again across different qualitative traditions.
Why IMRaD’s logic doesn’t fit qualitative research
IMRaD reflects, in the words of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, “the process of scientific discovery” for a specific kind of study: one where a hypothesis or research question is fixed in advance, methods are applied to test it, and results are reported as a discrete, separable step before being interpreted. Qualitative research frequently doesn’t work that way. Data collection and analysis are often iterative rather than sequential — a grounded theory researcher moves back and forth between data and emerging categories; an ethnographer’s understanding of what’s significant develops over the course of fieldwork rather than being fixed at the outset. Interpretation is frequently inseparable from the reporting of what was found, because presenting a theme already involves interpreting what it means. Imposing a strict Results-then-Discussion split onto that kind of analysis can misrepresent how the knowledge was actually produced — which is why many qualitative papers restructure around a different logic instead of forcing IMRaD’s shape onto it.
How each IMRaD section changes in a qualitative paper
Introduction: recognizable, but the “gap” is framed differently
The Introduction of a qualitative paper still does familiar work — situating the study in prior literature and establishing why it matters — but the gap it identifies is usually framed as a gap in understanding or perspective (what is not yet known about how people experience, make sense of, or navigate something) rather than a gap that a hypothesis will close. Research questions in qualitative papers are typically open (how, why, what) rather than directional predictions.
Methods becomes Methodology, and it expands
Where a quantitative Methods section can often be compressed into procedural detail (instruments, sample size calculation, statistical tests), a qualitative Methodology section carries more interpretive weight: it has to justify the research design and paradigm, describe the researcher’s positionality and role in the analysis, and establish trustworthiness (the qualitative analogue to validity and reliability) through concepts like credibility, transferability, and reflexivity. This is substantial enough that CASRAI covers it as its own dedicated topic — see How to Write the Methodology Section of a Qualitative Research Paper for the full breakdown of what journals and reviewers expect in this section specifically.
Results becomes Findings — and reorganizes around themes, not hypotheses
This is the single most consistent structural signal that a paper is qualitative rather than quantitative: the section is usually labeled “Findings,” not “Results,” and it’s organized by theme, category, or pattern that emerged from the analysis rather than by hypothesis, variable, or outcome measure. A quantitative Results section typically walks through pre-specified outcomes in a fixed order; a qualitative Findings section typically walks through the themes the analysis surfaced, each illustrated with supporting quotations or excerpts from the data (interview transcripts, field notes, documents).
Discussion: often merged into a single “Findings and Discussion” section
Because presenting a qualitative theme and interpreting its significance are hard to fully separate, many qualitative papers merge what would be two IMRaD sections into one combined “Findings and Discussion” (or simply “Discussion”) section, moving directly from presenting each theme to situating it against prior literature and theory. Where a separate Discussion section does exist, it’s more likely to open with a synthesis of the findings as a whole before turning to implications, limitations, and directions for further research — a pattern also common in psychology and other social-science IMRaD variants, as covered in CASRAI’s cross-disciplinary IMRaD Structure Variations by Academic Discipline guide.
Structure varies again by qualitative tradition
“Qualitative research” is not one method with one structure — it’s a family of distinct traditions, each with its own analytic logic and, as a direct consequence, its own conventional way of organizing the paper that reports it. A structural comparison to quantitative IMRaD only gets you so far; the deeper structural variation is between these traditions.
Grounded theory: categories building toward a core theoretical model
Grounded theory analysis proceeds through open coding, axial coding (relating categories to one another), and selective coding (integrating everything around a core category), following the sequence set out by Strauss and Corbin’s constant-comparative approach, or the more constructivist variant developed by Kathy Charmaz. The Findings section of a grounded theory paper is typically structured around the categories the analysis produced, building toward the theoretical model or core category that ties them together — the paper’s structure mirrors the shape of the theory being proposed, not a fixed template.
Interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA): superordinate themes and subthemes
Phenomenological research, which asks how people make sense of a lived experience, typically organizes its findings around a small number of superordinate themes, each with supporting subthemes, moving from participant to participant or theme to theme depending on the analytic approach. The structure foregrounds the texture of individual experience alongside shared patterns across participants, rather than a single aggregate result.
Ethnography: narrative and thick description, often without a discrete Results section
Ethnographic accounts, built on sustained participant observation and fieldwork, are frequently structured as an extended narrative or organized around cultural themes or settings rather than a labeled Findings section at all — description (“thick description,” in the term associated with the anthropologist Clifford Geertz) and interpretation are woven together throughout rather than separated into distinct sections. This is the qualitative tradition that departs furthest from IMRaD’s section-by-section logic; some ethnographic monographs and articles read closer to narrative nonfiction than to a structured empirical report.
Case study research: within-case description, then cross-case comparison
A qualitative case study — an in-depth examination of one bounded case, or several cases studied for comparison — commonly structures its Findings around each case individually first (within-case description), followed by a cross-case analysis section identifying patterns and differences across cases, when more than one case is involved. A single-case study may instead be organized chronologically or thematically within that one case.
Narrative inquiry: a chronological or storied structure
Narrative inquiry, which treats participants’ stories themselves as the primary data, often structures the Findings section around the arc of the story being told — chronologically, or around key turning points — rather than around themes abstracted away from any individual account. The researcher’s own interpretive commentary typically frames the narrative rather than replacing it.
Discourse and conversation analysis: extract, then analysis, repeated throughout
Discourse analysis and conversation analysis typically structure the Findings section as a series of data extracts (transcribed talk, text) each followed immediately by close analytic commentary on that specific extract, repeated across the section, rather than a summary of themes followed by a separate block of interpretation. The fine-grained, extract-by-extract structure is itself a signal of the analytic method being used.
What reporting standards actually require — and don’t require
The main qualitative reporting checklists do not mandate an IMRaD-shaped structure; they specify content that must be reported somewhere in the paper, not a fixed section order or fixed section labels. COREQ (Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research), a 32-item checklist most common in health and clinical qualitative research, focuses on interview and focus-group studies and covers items like researcher characteristics, sampling strategy, and saturation. SRQR (Standards for Reporting Qualitative Research), a 21-item checklist applicable across qualitative designs generally, covers a broader range of traditions including grounded theory, ethnography, phenomenology, and case study. ENTREQ applies to qualitative evidence synthesis (meta-synthesis of existing qualitative studies) rather than primary studies. All three are endorsed by the EQUATOR Network. None of them requires a paper to use “Results” instead of “Findings,” or to keep Findings and Discussion as separate sections — they’re checklists for completeness of reported content, compatible with any of the structural variations described above.
When a journal still expects an IMRaD-shaped qualitative paper
Despite all of the above, some journals — particularly in health services research, nursing, and medicine, where qualitative studies are often published alongside quantitative ones in the same journal — impose a standard IMRaD template on every submission regardless of design, sometimes via a manuscript-preparation checklist or submission system that hard-codes “Results” and “Discussion” as separate required fields. When that’s the case, house style overrides the conventions described in this guide: a qualitative paper submitted to such a journal may need to use “Results” as the section label even though “Findings” better describes qualitative output, and to keep Results and Discussion formally separate even where a combined section would read more naturally. Always check the target journal’s author guidelines and recent published qualitative articles in that journal before finalizing structure — the safest default, absent specific guidance, is IMRaD’s separate-sections pattern with “Findings” substituted for “Results,” which reads as a deliberate, informed structural choice rather than either extreme.
A practical structure checklist for a qualitative manuscript
- Decide whether the target journal’s author guidelines or a mandatory submission template requires IMRaD-labeled sections — if so, that requirement overrides the conventions in this guide.
- Identify which qualitative tradition (or combination) the study uses — grounded theory, phenomenology, ethnography, case study, narrative inquiry, discourse analysis, or a generalist thematic analysis — since that determines the natural shape of the Findings section, not a generic qualitative template.
- Decide whether Findings and Discussion should be merged into one section or kept separate; check whether recent articles in the target journal do one, the other, or both.
- Confirm the applicable reporting checklist (COREQ for interview/focus-group studies, SRQR more generally, ENTREQ for qualitative synthesis) and make sure every required item is reported somewhere, even if the checklist doesn’t dictate section labels or order.
- If the study is part of a mixed-methods or multi-study paper, decide how the qualitative strand’s structure relates to the quantitative strand’s — reported as fully separate Findings sections, or integrated into a combined account.
Frequently asked questions
Is “Findings” required, or can a qualitative paper still use “Results”?
“Findings” is the more common qualitative convention and better reflects what qualitative analysis produces, but it isn’t a universal requirement. Some journals — especially those that publish both quantitative and qualitative work under one editorial template — require “Results” for every article regardless of design. Check the target journal’s own guidance and recently published qualitative articles rather than assuming either label is safe by default.
Should Findings and Discussion always be merged in a qualitative paper?
No. Merging is common, especially where thematic interpretation is hard to separate from presenting the theme itself, but plenty of qualitative papers keep the sections distinct, particularly in journals with a fixed IMRaD-style template. Follow the target journal’s convention rather than treating either pattern as the only correct one.
Does a qualitative paper still need a separate Methods or Methodology section?
Yes, and it typically carries more interpretive weight than a quantitative Methods section — research design justification, positionality, and trustworthiness all need to be established there. See CASRAI’s dedicated guide on writing the methodology section of a qualitative research paper for what belongs in it.
Does COREQ or SRQR require a specific section structure?
No. Both are content checklists — they specify what must be reported (sampling strategy, saturation, researcher characteristics, and so on) without mandating particular section labels or ordering. A paper can satisfy COREQ or SRQR fully while using any of the structural patterns described in this guide.
What if the qualitative component is part of a larger mixed-methods paper?
Mixed-methods papers commonly report quantitative and qualitative Findings/Results as separate subsections placed side by side, followed by a combined Discussion that explicitly addresses how the two strands relate — an extension of IMRaD’s logic to a design it wasn’t originally built for, rather than a departure from it. See IMRaD Structure Variations by Academic Discipline for more on multi-study and mixed-methods structuring.
Related CASRAI resources
- IMRaD Structure — the canonical definition of the four-section pattern this guide departs from.
- IMRaD Structure Variations by Academic Discipline — how IMRaD flexes across clinical medicine, engineering, social science, systematic reviews, and the humanities.
- How to Write the Methodology Section of a Qualitative Research Paper — full detail on research design, sampling, trustworthiness, and reporting checklists.
- Qualitative Research vs. Quantitative Research — how the two paradigms differ beyond structure.
- Qualitative Research — operational definition and examples.
