In my research paper I used the phrase "this paper" to refer to the one I am writing and sometimes I write "the [other] paper" to refer to some other paper. The editor replaced "paper" with "study".

(Edit: The editor is not from a publisher. It is a service that checks my punctuation and spelling, before I submit my paper for peer-review.)

I thought that "study" refers to research in which one "goes out into the world, collects data and draws conclusions from that". That is NOT what I am doing, because I am writing a math paper. My main contribution is the theory not the experiments, which are case studies of my methods. (See what I did there? In the experiments section I do indeed use the word "study".) So, what I opted in for now is, to call other people work "literature" and my own work "this work".

Is the word "paper" bad style in scientific writing? I could also use the word "article" if that is better.

I [understand](https://www.letpub.com/author_education_Research_vs_study) that "research" refers to the entire body of publications on a topic, while "study" only refers to a single publication. But then again I could also say, "other's research [11]", while citing a specific paper, right?

When should I use which word:

* paper,
* study,
* article,
* literature,
* research,
* publication,
* work?