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