A thorough analysis of an article’s results section

Members of a discourse community who aim to transmit their findings and conclusions should respect commonly agreed standards. For example, “Research Papers (R.P.) and Research Articles (R.A.) are composed of several parts: title, abstract, acknowledgements, introduction, literature review, methods, results, discussions, recommendations, references, and appendixes.” (Pintos and Crimi, 2010, p.27) Beckett, Peters, Fletcher, Staessen, Liu, Dumitrascu, et al. (2008) included four main sections in their publication: An abstract which briefly summarizes the main parts of the whole article, methods, results and discussion. Moreover, an appendix including committee members and investigators and the references list are included at the end of the publication. The following analysis will focus on the results section, which is supposed to present “the main findings of the research but it does not interpret their meanings.” (Pintos and Crimi, 2010, p.18)

Swales (1998, cited in Pintos and Crimi, 2010) suggests that the results section should outline the collected information by means of text, and/or figures and should follow the same order as the methods section does. There is a short account of the origin of the participants, who are called patients throughout the article since they are part of an investigation about treatment of hypertension. A detailed description of both, the way in which the research was done and a summary of the data which were collected after each step illustrates the outcomes. According to some characteristics, most researchers accept, the process is supposed to be developed in the methods section (Pintos and Crimi, 2010a). Thus, this article may not strictly follow what theory on research writing states for the results section because it includes details about the origin and age of the participants.

Understandable data are acquainted through the introduction of figures and charts. Figure 1 is a flow chart (Beckett, et al., 2008) and Figure 2 (Beckett, et al., 2008) and Figure 3 (Beckett, et al., 2008)  are two line graphs which make the complex procedures and results readable since they “supplement the information presented in the body of the paper.” (Pintos and Crimi, 2010b, p.28) Both figures are properly numbered and have a title with a legend and a caption. In Table 1 (Beckett, et al., 2008) and Table 2 (Beckett, et al., 2008) every column has a column heading and concise definitions of the terms used in each table are explained below it. Conversely, these tables do not follow APA guidelines (2007, cited in Pintos and Crimi, 2010b) because their title is not italicized and columns do not report comparable values down all rows.

All in all, the investigation results and obtained data appear to be neatly arranged in charts, graphs and tables. Furthermore, conclusions for some steps of the process are summarized so that the reader can easily follow the development of the research study. Conventions are mainly respected and the use of suitable lexis and passive voice contribute to provide the publication the necessary requirements to belong to the literature available for the discourse community in the field of medicine.

 References

Beckett, N. S., Peters, R., Fletcher, A. E., Staessen, J.A., Liu, L., Dumitrascu, D., et al. (2008). Treatment of hypertension in patients 80 years of age or older. The New England Journal of Medicine 358 (18), 1887/1898. Retrieved May 19, 2010 from http://caece.campusuniversidad.com.ar/mod/resource/view.php?id=5754

Pintos, V., & Crimi, Y. (2010a). Lengua Inglesa Especializada II. Unidad 2. Buenos Aires. Universidad CAECE. Retrieved April 3, 2010, from

http://caece.campusuniversidad.com.ar/mod/resource/view.php?id=4691

Pintos, V., & Crimi, Y. (2010b). Lengua Inglesa Especializada II. Unidad 3. Buenos Aires. Universidad CAECE. Retrieved April 25, 2010, from

http://caece.campusuniversidad.com.ar/mod/resource/view.php?id=4692

How should abstracts be written?

A large number of recommendations have been published and may be followed to produce attractive abstracts. Moreover, researchers may write their abstracts once they have prepared the rest of their paper in order to –in a clear and concise way, try to lead readers continue exploring the publication. However, in some cases, some features may be neglected. Thus, a deep evaluation of abstracts characteristics contrasted with reliable theory may be useful to detect strong and weak issues and see how they may affect potential readers.

The present work attempts to analyze four abstracts considering Pintos and Crimi’s (2010) compilation of academic conventions and APA guidelines. The examined texts deal with diverse topics namely, the knowledge of the technological resources in professors (Almerich et al., 2005), non-invasive cardiac stress testing (Wijeysundera et al., 2009), the use of antidepressants (Martinez, Assimes, Mines, Dell’Aniello, and Suissa, 2009) and the treatment of hypertension in elderly patients (Beckett et al., 2008).

Abstracts are “brief summaries of the major points made by an author in a book or article” (Hubbuch, 1996, as cited in Pintos and Crimi, 2010, p.11) and they are supposed to respond to broadly accepted academic guidelines. In brief, abstracts should express the major ideas of an argument and the ways these ideas are related to each other (Pintos and Crimi, 2010). Additionally, abstracts can be classified according to their structure and content and, analyzed with regard to their linguistic features and approach to writing.

Concerning the organizational format, Almerich et al. (2005) decided to publish an unstructured abstract which consists of one long, unbroken paragraph which hardly respects the maximum of 150 words (Swales, 1990, cited in Pintos and Crimi, 2010) because it includes 151 units of language. In turn, the content seems to follow IMRAD (Introduction-Methods-Results-And-Discussions) formula with a balanced distribution of sentences for each section. In general, this work denotes effectiveness since it looks condensed and clear.

Language choice appears to add strength to Almerich et al.’s (2005) abstract. Full sentences with impersonal passive for the introduction and conclusion and, past simple for results match Swales’, (1990, cited in Pintos and Crimi, 2010) statements. In contrast, apparent inaccurate translation may reduce reliability in the last sentence where it should say “they must be considered to carry out”. All in all, the RP summary approach consisting of “one -or two –sentence synopses of each of the four sections” (Swales and Feak, 1994, as cited in Pintos and Crimi, 2010, p.14) can lead the reader to grasp an idea of the whole paper.

In their medicine paper, Wijeysundera et al. (2009) presented bolded headings for their structured abstract where the headings do not identify the main sections of the paper. Furthermore, the expanded IMRAD formula covering too many unnecessary details should have been avoided by omitting some sections such as design, setting, participants, interventions, and main outcome measures and the supplementary figures included in the results section. This entangled data can confuse and prevent the reader from delving into the whole publication.

Apart from including extra details and figures, Wijeysundera et al. (2009) ignored the generally accepted specifications in relation to writing full sentences (Swales, 1990, as cited in Pintos and Crimi, 2010) but the language choice makes the text comprehensible since the noun strings are simple and the abbreviations are properly explained. Past tense active voice and passive voice for results and for the explanation of the collection of data allow the reader follow the actions of the paper summarized in an RP summary approach.

The abstract proposed by Martinez et al., (2009) is also structured and although IMRAD formula items are present, conventions are neglected due to the incorporation of unrequired headings which give rise to a long summary. Participants and results sections abound in details about the procedure of investigation which could induce readers to lose the main point of the paper. Thus, the reduction of the participants and the results section to the length of up to two full sentences for each part would enhance effectiveness.

Appropriate linguistics features and standards should have provided Martinez et al.’s (2009) work with the necessary characteristics to enable readers to appreciate the authors’ thoughts and rely on their findings. The use of the impersonal passive and the recently APA adopted collective “we” in co-authored papers (Pintos and Crimi, 2010) show a respectable production and the use of the past simple tense gives continuity. Nevertheless, the use of a negative sentence and some names of specific drugs as well as jargon related to cardiac affections may dilute the main objective of this piece with RP summary approach to writing.

In turn, the synopsis that Beckett et al. (2008) produced is structured and holds IMRAD formula through four main unbalanced sections which result in a long abstract. The Results section embodies obtained percentages and collected data between parentheses that may probably dissuade the academic community members from deeper analysis of the paper. However, concise information is pinpointed by means of one or two sentences in the introduction and conclusions section.

Regarding the lexicon selection, Beckett et al. (2008) should have avoided jargon related to specific drugs and their effects since that precise information augments the probability of average readers to fail to master the general idea of the paper. As in the abstracts analyzed above, the past simple tense, the impersonal passive and the collective “we” are applied following APA guidelines which offer reliability to the text. Moreover, there is avoidance of the negative and the entire section also shares characteristics with RP summary approach to writing.

Correspondingly, the four studied abstracts prove to be informative given the fact that they provide readers with the main findings and data, look to the past and describe what researchers did (Swales and Feak, 1994, cited in Pintos and Crimi, 2010). Only Almerich et al. (2005) can be indicated as having attempted to achieve an effective abstract which strives to respect generally accepted standards since the features correspond to the expected length, structure and usage of linguistics features.

Ultimately, a good abstract should “compress the maximum amount of information into the minimum amount of space, typically between 150 and 250 words” (Pintos and Crimi, 2010, p. 14). Therefore, close attention should be paid to what tense to use so as to avoid confusion. Moreover, as suggested by Pintos and Crimi (2010), authors should avoid wordiness, colloquial expressions, pronouns, comparisons, and redundancy and employ the words which convey what they want to mean. Thereupon, writers should work with their abstracts until they get their best possible piece.

 References

Almerich, G., Suárez, J. M., Orellana, N., Belloch, C., Bo, R., et al. (2005). Diferencias en los conocimientos de los recursos tecnológicos en profesores a partir del género, edad y tipo de centro. RELIEVE, 11(29) 127-146. Retrieved May 19, 2010 from http://caece.campusuniversidad.com.ar/mod/resource/view.php?id=5750

Beckett, N. S., Peters, R., Fletcher, A. E., Staessen, J.A., Liu, L., et al. (2008). Treatment of hypertension in patients 80 years of age or older. The New England Journal of Medicine 358 (18), 1887-1898. Retrieved May 19, 2010 from http://caece.campusuniversidad.com.ar/mod/resource/view.php?id=5754

Martinez, C., Assimes, T. L., Mines, D., Dell’Aniello, S., & Suissa, S. (2009). Use of venlafaxine compared with other antidepressants and the risk of sudden cardiac death or near death: a nested case-control study. BMJ, 2010; doi: 10.1136/bmj.c249.

Pintos, V., & Crimi, Y. (2010). Lengua Inglesa Especializada II. Unidad 4. Buenos Aires. Universidad CAECE. Retrieved April 24, 2010, from

http://caece.campusuniversidad.com.ar/mod/resource/view.php?id=4693

Wijeysundera, D. N., Beattie, W. S., Elliot, R. F., Austin, P. C., Hux, J. E., et al. (2009). Non-invasive cardiac stress testing before elective major non-cardiac surgery: population based cohort study. BMJ, 2010; doi: 10.1136/bmj.b5526.

Research Articles: Comparative analysis

Little research -or even none at all may be found about the contrastive analysis of academic writing in the fields of medicine and education. Comparing both writing styles may appear to be worthless. However, it may be truly interesting to study two papers from different areas of study to establish if they follow academic requirements and see how the transmission of information is achieved.

This present study is aimed at examining two research articles which deal with descriptive research since they focus “on measuring the characteristics of a particular phenomenon.” (Sampieri, Collado & Lucio, 1998, as cited in Pintos & Crimi, 2010a, p.11) and are “used to obtain information concerning the current status of the phenomena to describe ‘what exists’ with respect to variables or conditions in a situation” (Key, 2002, p.1, as cited in Pintos & Crimi, 2010a, p.11).

Two articles have been considered for this work. The first research article develops the findings about the effects of Internet use on health and depression (Kraut, 2010) while the second one deals with a ranking of journals for online educators (Elbeck & Mandernach, 2009). Both articles follow a research design with a non-experimental method because they do not manipulate variables deliberately.

The researchers “observed the phenomenon they were interested in (with no intervention) and then analyzed it. (…) [Moreover,] they did not look for causes but attempted to measure and describe a phenomenon” (Pintos & Crimi, 2010a, p.14). All in all, these research papers were “supposed to show understanding of a topic, critical thinking and writing skills all in one single piece of art” (Pintos & Crimi, 2010a, p.19)

According to Pintos and Crimi (2010b), “Research Papers (RP) and Research Articles (RA) are composed of several parts: title, abstract, acknowledgements, introduction, literature review, methods, results, discussions, recommendations, references, and appendixes. (…) C.A.R.S. Model has been created under the principle that writers use organizational patterns to present their introductions.” (p.27)

Furthermore, the organizational patterns of introductions contain three moves: creating a research space, establishing a niche, and occupying the niche. (Pintos and Crimi, 2010b). These three moves are present in the introduction of both articles. While the medicine publication illustrates previous studies with concrete figures, the education article only gives a general concept of prior research work.

Once the previous findings are described as being little or not reliable enough to describe the situation of the subject matter in question, writers include a sentence starting with a negative connector. Finally, the reasons for the study are established. Both papers include subsections for further explanation of current knowledge of the topic and the presentation of theoretical background.

In the medicine paper, simple past is used to refer to the purpose of study, which may lead the audience to predict the study offers concrete results. However, in the education paper, the purpose of the study is introduced with infinitive verbs which show what researchers intend to find out after the investigation and what readers will be able to know throughout the paper.

Acknowledgements in the medicine article do not follow APA style since a number in square brackets lead the reader to find sources information in the reference list at the end of the article. In turn, references in the education article are properly cited according to APA style though only the paraphrasing format of in-text citations is used, which may make the style look monotonous.

As Pintos and Crimi (2010b) suggest, methods sections are generally divided into three subsections a) participants, b) materials, and c) procedure. While Bessière, Pressman, Kiesler, and Kraut (2010) respected the conventional subsections and added a statistical analysis, Elbeck and Mandernach (2009) opted to introduce each subsection with original subtitles, which may make the work lose authority.

Still, the methods sections in both articles appear to be easy to follow since the medicine study offers a chronological order of the steps and concise descriptions. In turn, the education paper seems to provide an understandable panorama of what has been done through brief definitions; however, there are some definitions with theoretical background which may sound unnecessary and could confuse the reader.

Regarding the results section, Bessière, Pressman, Kiesler, and Kraut (2010) offer a balance between tables and paragraphs which provide clarification of some figures, whereas Elbeck and Mandernach (2009) presented fairly complete tables which may be intended to provide data so that readers can arrive at their own conclusions. Moreover, brief paragraphs about how results were calculated precede the tables.

With respect to verb tenses, the mostly used tense in the medicine article is past passive voice, and first-person-plural past active voice, which may strengthen the active role of the researchers. Conversely, in the article on journals no first-person is used at all; only passive voice is used when referring to the researchers, which is the most recommended structure in academic writing.

All in all, both research articles seem to have accomplished the aim of informing what has been done in both studies but they do not strictly respect APA style recommendations for academic writing. Standards should be regarded as essential guidelines to follow in order to gain respect and recognition by the members of a given discourse community. 

  

 References

Elbeck, M., & Mandernach, B.J. (2009). Journals for computer-mediated learning: Publications of value for the online educator. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 10(3), 1-20. Retrieved February 22, 2010 from http://caece.campusuniversidad.com.ar/mod/resource/view.php?id=4188

Bessière, K., Pressman, S., Kiesler, S., & Kraut, R., (2010). Effects of Internet use on health and depression: A longitudinal study. Journal of Medical Internet Research. 12(1). DOI: 10.2196/jmir.1149. Available at  http://www.jmir.org/2010/1/e6/

Pintos, V., & Crimi, Y. (2010a). Lengua Inglesa Especializada II. Unidad 1. Buenos Aires. Universidad CAECE. Retrieved April 3, 2010, from

http://caece.campusuniversidad.com.ar/mod/resource/view.php?id=4690

Pintos, V., & Crimi, Y. (2010b). Lengua Inglesa Especializada II. Unidad 2. Buenos Aires. Universidad CAECE. Retrieved April 3, 2010, from

http://caece.campusuniversidad.com.ar/mod/resource/view.php?id=4691

Research articles: Do they meet APA style requirements?

Much may be published about different academic writing styles but very little might be available about the contrastive analysis of publications from different fields. However, it may be enriching to study two papers which do not belong to the same field and see if they follow the corresponding style guidelines. Thus, the thorough study could help professionals become aware of certain characteristics their papers should have in order to achieve successful transmission of information.

Therefore, the two publications are expected to share similar characteristics, respect academic standards and adhere to what Pintos and Crimi (2010) suggest:

Results and Discussions sections are descriptive in nature. Writers tend to compare results and give explanations for the differences. In general, they also critique assumptions. The Results section presents the main findings of the research but it does not interpret their meanings.

The present work is aimed at examining and evaluating the results, discussions and conclusions sections in two research articles, one about the reduction of breast cancer mortality (Jorgensen, Zahl & Gotzsche, 2010) contrasted with one related to a ranking of online journals for computer-mediated learning (Elbeck & Mandernach, 2009). The design, the content development and the language choice will be deeply analyzed and critiqued following Swales and Freak’s (1994, cited in Pintos & Crimi, 2010) recommendations and APA guidelines.

As for the design, the medicine paper seems to present a section pattern, which adheres to what Pintos and Crimi (2010) express concerning that “writers may choose to write three separate sections or blend them into two sections” (p.20). Thus, the medicine article contains two sections: Results and Discussion while the education article includes four sections: Results, Discussion, Limitation of this study and Conclusions. Although both publications have a different number of sections with subtitles, they offer an easy-reading format.

The general design of the papers provides information through the text, tables and graphs. As regards the breast cancer-related data, the results of the three analyzed age groups are clearly explained in the text which is supplemented with two tables and a line graph. In turn, the collected information about online journals is presented in six tables -four of them being too long and, although they seem simple, the stated data may be regarded as unnecessary. Furthermore, all tables and figures respect APA style because they have the correct format, titles, headings and, notes.

The interpretation of the results is reported in separate sections. The medicine research paper contains a discussion section which is subdivided into five parts with balanced paragraphs -the last one being the conclusions paragraph. Two line graphs may help the reader understand the changes produced in the periods of the study. On the other hand, the education paper presents the elucidation of the collected data in unbalanced paragraphs. No tables or graphs are included given the fact that there are no further results to be shown in that fashion to make the text understandable.

Regarding arrangement of information and content choice, both articles seem to depict the results of the investigations since the complete record of data is mainly summarized in plain language in paragraphs, tables and graphs. In the medicine article the totals are organized in tables and in a line chart while the percentages are detailed in the paragraphs. On the other hand, the results section in the education article presents the criteria and conditions for collecting data, a brief explanation of the computed percentages and the general outcome of that part of the study.

Although the medicine and the education publications may well be understandable to any professionals, some difficulty may arise when trying to interpret facts and conclusions. Jorgensen, Zahl and Gotzsche (2010) tend not to use much complex technical jargon while in their article about the electronic journals ranking, Elbeck and Mandernach (2009) utilize some technology words related to the investigation. Therefore, professionals may need to have knowledge about internet terms namely search engines, in-link count, incoming links, and home page.

The choice of language grammar is also crucial when writing a research paper. As Pintos and Crimi (2010) point out, “using highlight statements, modal auxiliaries, weaker verbs, generalizations and so on can help academic writers to improve the expression of their findings [since they] cannot be totally sure about the results and outcomes” (p.38). Consequently, the conclusions of the medicine investigation include “likely” and “it is time to question whether”, while in the education paper hedging is used when showing that a result may experience some change overtime.

Furthermore, although Elbeck and Mandernach (2009) place some hedging to state possibility in “one can challenge the operational definition” (p.15), they use categorical language to talk about their investigation and state “This study will undoubtedly generate varying perspectives” and “The challenge is evident as witnessed by the demise of over 5% of the journals” (p,15). These researchers also predict that “a generally accepted list and ranking of scholarly CML journals will evolve over time” (p.15) which may be impossible to prove beforehand. On the other hand, no strong language is observed in the medicine paper.

Results section in the breast cancer article contains present simple tense to introduce what information is included in a table and past simple to describe how figures changed during the period of the investigation. Conversely, present simple in the article about journals reports the interpretation of the results the tables show and express permanent states by means of a varied number of verbs, such as show, to be, represent, report, describe, contain, rank, offer, present, and refine. Passive voice is also used in both papers for explaining the steps of the investigation.

However, past simple active voice is mainly used to describe actions carried out by the participants in the medicine research article whereas a combination of active and passive voice can be seen in the limitations section and the conclusions section in the education paper to describe what the study offers and illustrates. In brief, the use of active voice may have been used to either simplify the structure of sentences or to emphasize who carried out the actions. In both papers, the use of “we” can be said to be acceptable.

All in all, although there are still many aspects which could be considered to compare and contrast these two research papers, the analyzed characteristics of the design, the content and the language choice show that both publications vastly meet academic standards. Therefore, professionals may highly respect the provided information on the investigations and consider it as useful literature for further publications. Thus, this analysis may prove to be beneficial for researchers who want to identify the features their papers should respect to achieve the desired effect.

References

Elbeck, M., & Mandernach, B.J. (2009). Journals for computer-mediated learning: Publications of value for the online educator. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 10(3), 1-20. Retrieved February 22, 2010 from http://caece.campusuniversidad.com.ar/mod/resource/view.php?id=4188

Jorgensen, K.L., Zahl, P. & Gotzsche, P.C. (2010). Breast cancer mortality in organized mammography screening in Denmark: Comparative study. BMJ, 340:c1241. doi: 10.1136/bmj.c1241. Retrieved May 15, 2010 from http://caece.campusuniversidad.com.ar/mod/resource/view.php?id=5752

Pintos, V., & Crimi, Y. (2010). Lengua Inglesa Especializada II. Unidad 3. Buenos Aires. Universidad CAECE. Retrieved April 24, 2010, from

http://caece.campusuniversidad.com.ar/mod/resource/view.php?id=4692