Every format on OrbitSub is a structure that real academic work already uses. Picking one gives you its sections as a starting template and a short prompt under each heading, so you always know what belongs where. Orbit AI reads the same structure when it helps you. Here is when each one fits.
Empirical Study: you collected data
Choose an Empirical Study when you ran a survey, an experiment or an analysis and want to report what you found. It follows the journal-article structure known as IMRaD: Abstract, Introduction, Literature Review, Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion and References. Write the Methods so someone else could repeat the work, and save interpretation for the Discussion.
Literature Review: you read widely
Choose a Literature Review when your contribution is making sense of what others have published. After the Introduction you set out your Scope & Approach, then group your sources into Themes in the Literature, by theme rather than paper by paper. The Discussion says where the field agrees, where it disagrees and what is still open.
Systematic Review: you searched by the rules
Choose a Systematic Review when you followed an explicit, PRISMA-style search strategy and want the review to be reproducible. The Methods section carries the weight: the search strategy, the databases, your inclusion and exclusion criteria, and how studies were screened and appraised. The Results report how many studies you found and included, then what they show together.
Thesis / Dissertation: you are writing for a degree
Choose Thesis / Dissertation for the five-chapter structure: Introduction, Literature Review, Methodology, Results & Findings, and Discussion & Conclusion, followed by References. It is the empirical structure expanded into full chapters, with room to justify every choice you made.
Case Study: you looked closely at one case
Choose a Case Study for an in-depth look at a single case, problem or instance, as is common in medicine, business, engineering and policy. You give the Background, describe the case factually in the Case Presentation, then explain what it teaches in the Analysis and Discussion.
Theoretical / Argumentative: you are making a case
Choose Theoretical / Argumentative when you advance an argument or a framework through reasoning rather than new data, as in the humanities, law and philosophy. The Argument section builds your case one step at a time, and Counterarguments answers the strongest objections honestly.
Changing your mind
You can change the format from the research room while you work. Switching never edits your text: the section guide and its prompts follow the new format, and everything you wrote stays as it is. Whichever you choose, the published piece reads like a journal paper, with the abstract set apart, numbered sections and the references at the end.