A Comparative Analysis of Three Main Sections of Research Articles
Giorgio Ciofalo, M. R., and Sánchez, M. F.
Universidad CAECE
When writing academic papers writers must take into account certain requirements established by the discourse community. Swales and Feak (1994) claim that, in academic writing “Information is presented to readers in a structured format. Even short pieces of writing have regular, predictable patterns of organization” (p. 10). According to Hengel and Gould (2002), “a Research Article (RA) has a required structure and style, which is by international consensus known as "Introduction Methods Results and Discussion" or IMRaD” (p. 1). Many authors have written books to help researchers write RAs that respect academic conventions. However, there is very little research on how those conventions are displayed on RA from different areas. The aim of this paper is to compare the results, discussions and conclusion sections of two RAs from medicine and education fields and to show how these differences might or not affect their credibility in the appropriate discourse community.
The results section in Gregg et al.´s article (2014) is isolated from the discussed section. According to Swales and Feak (1998) “the results section of a Research Paper (RP) should simply report the data that has been collected” (p. 170). Gregg et al. (2014) devote this part of the RA to present the main finding of the research which is that “rates of all five major complications in the population of adults with diabetes declined significantly between 1990 and 2010” ( p.1516).
As regards the characteristics of this section, it can be stated that, there is a repetitive use of the simple past tense, which shows that the researchers have respected how outcomes are described in RA results sections. Moreover, there are three tables and one figure which summarize the information in the section. In the case of the tables, they respect most of the basic rules established by the American Psychological Association (2007) becoming key sources when showing the present results. They are appropriately numbered and have an individual title, presented with each word capitalized, e.g. “Table 1. Age-Standardized Rates of Diabetes Complications among U.S. Adults with Diagnosed Diabetes” (Gregg et al., 2014, p 1517). Horizontal lines are used to separate data. Tables are correctly referenced in the text of the paper, e.g. “(Table 2 and Fig. 1B)” (Gregg et al., 2014, p.1518) . Every column has headings “Variable” “Year” “Change, 1990–2010” “P Value” (Gregg et al., 2014, p. 1517). However, titles are not italicized, one of the tables does not begin on a separate page and elements are not doubled spaced. In the case of the figure, it is a line graph. It correctly includes a caption and legend below the figure. “Figure 1. Trends in Age-Standardized Rates of Diabetes-Related Complications
among U.S. Adults with and without Diagnosed Diabetes, 1990–2010. For rates of myocardial infarction, stroke, and leg amputation (...)” (Gregg et al., 2014, p. 1518). Nevertheless, the word figure and the number are not italicized.
In the case of the RA from the field of education, the word results is not presented in the paper to make the reading smoother. The main findings of the research are presented in Baralt et al.’s (2011) article under the titles “Action Research Stage 2: Data Collection” and “Action Research 3: Qualitative Evaluation of the effects of wordle” (pp. 16 - 19). “Both the instructor and students had positive perceptions of wordles, confirming the instructor’s hypothesis that wordles could be an effective tool for improving student writing” (p.20).
In this RA, researchers use the simple past tense, which is a feature of results sections, e.g. “For the writing component, students wrote four compositions throughout the semester (...)” (Baralt et al., 2014, p. 15). There are three figures in this RA. The word figure and the number is italicized and it is followed by a caption, e.g. “Figure 1. Example word cloud from Wordle.net (created by the authors)” (Baralt et al., 2011, p. 13). There are no legends.
Discussion sections describe, compare and give explanation for the differences found in the results sections. They might include a conclusion or they might be isolated. They show and contrast with other previous results and give suggestions for supplementary research.
Baralt et al. (2011) discussion section is presented under the word discussion, all in capitals and in bold. This section clearly states the aim of the designed project and it most important findings. Among the main results the authors show that “The incorporation of wordless (…) resulted in students using more varied vocabulary, more verb tenses, and more accurate grammar in their writing” (Baralt et al., 2011, p. 20). This segment also displays the positive feedback researches received after using wordles for writing from FL students and instructors. A sub- heading follow the named section: “Other Uses of Word Clouds in FL Classroom”. The authors claim further uses and they also suggest other purposes for using wordles. Each of these suggestions for FL instructors are introduced with a header in bold and italics and briefly described.
The medicine RA shows no clear distinction between the discussion and the conclusions. Both of them are under the heading discussion written in capitals and centered. In this section Gregg et al.’s (2014) state the key findings and explain the causes and effects of many other variables found while researching. As the aim of the article was “to examine how the spectrum of diabetes complications has changed in the past 30 years” (Gregg et al., 2014, p. 1515), the discussion section illustrates several trends causing this such as: reduction in the cardiovascular disease, renal disease, infarction, stroke and amputation. Authors state that the findings are a reflection of “a combination of advances in acute clinical care, improvements in the performance of the health care system and health promotion efforts directed at patients with diabetes” (Gregg et al., 2014, p.1521). In addition, the researchers enumerate all the causes they have found which influence the declining rates of diabetes complications such as management and improvements in blood, advances in medical procedures, social changes and eating habits. However, Gregg et al. (2014) assert that there is no clear evidence for comparing rates according to age, complications of type 2 diabetes, since they lack national data to examine the trends.
Conclusions tend to refer to the introduction and hypothesis formerly stated, they illustrate main findings and the effect of those on the area of research. They also try to persuade the reader expressing why this research might be of some importance for the field and recommend some issues.
In the educational RA, the conclusion is announced under the heading: “Conclusion, limitations and suggestions for further research”, all in capitals and bold. This section asserts how wordless helped instructors, students and contributed on relating emerging technology and FL learning. In a second paragraph, authors declares the limitations of their findings such as “lack of generalizability”, “a Java- enabled web- browser” and “the algorithm used by wordle that automatically eliminates `common words´” (Baralt et al., 2011, p. 21). In the last paragraph of the conclusion, researchers suggest “the implementation of word clouds as well as other visualization tools in the classroom”; on the other hand, they declare the need for further research and projects on the area in a variety of contexts and language.
The medical RA states a straightforward conclusion on the first page of the paper after the abstract and methods in only one clear sentence while other minor concluding statements are included in the discussion section. In the last paragraph of the RP researchers conclude that there have been encouraging reductions in rates of diabetes-related complications; however, the total burden of patients with diabetes has highly increased due to many factors. Authors agreed on that these latest rates “will probably continue to increase in the coming decades” (Gregg et al., 2014, p. 1522). Neither pieces of advice nor suggestions of further research are included in this section. Although, authors do not induce readers why this research is significant, they have stated throughout the discussion why investigation in this area is of utmost importance.
All in all, it can be stated that both RAs respect RP´s basic functions which is “to transfer a new knowledge on a research topic” (Hengl & Gould, 2002, p 6). Also, they may be considered credible papers because they are:
Clear, coherent, focused, well-argued and use language that does not have ambiguous or equivoque meaning. However, it is not only the message that is important. The RA must have a well-defined structure and function in serve like a cook-book, so the others can reproduce and repeat explained experiments. (Hengl & Gould, 2002, p.6)
Both articles respect the order of the IMRaD sections and they also express their limitations while doing research in the conclusion section. Although both papers do not fully accomplish RA requirements while signalling sections and the introduction of charts does not follow all APA style rules, the analyzed RAs can be considered as part of the discourse community due to their clear statements, hypothesis treatment and results evaluation.
References
Baralt, M., Pennestri, S., Selvandin, M. (2011) Using Wordles To Teach Foreign Language Writing. Language Learning & Technology Journal, 15, 2. retrieved fromhttp://llt.msu.edu/issues/june2011/actionresearch.pdf
Gregg, E. D., Li, Y., Wang, J., Burrows, N. R., Ali, M. K., Rolka, D., Williams, D. E., & Geiss, L. (2014) Changes in Diabetes-Related Complications in the United States, 1990-2010. The New England Journal of Medicine. Retrieved from http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMoa1310799
Hengl, T. & Gould, M., (2002) Rules of thumb for writing research articles. International Institute of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation. Retrieved from http://www.itc.nl/library/papers/hengl_rules.pdf
Swales, J.M., & Feak, C.B. (1994). Academic writing for graduate students: Essential tasks and skills. Retrieved from http://sharif.edu/~hatef/files/Academic%20Writing%20for%20Graduate%20Students-Essential%20Tasks%20and%20Skills%20-%20For%20Nonnative%20Eng%20Speakers.pdf
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