A Methods Section of a Research Report

Methods

Participants

     Participants were 100 science professors of the National University of Mar del Plata in Argentina. Mar del Plata is one of the most important cities in this country as it is densely populated and the preferred seaside resort for  most Argentinian inhabitants. Besides, it is recognized by its university being one of its most important faculties the Natural Science Faculty. When 100 science professors of this university were asked to participate in our analysis of the nature and content of the conceptions of teaching and learning, they accepted without objection and showed to be collaborative. The range of the professors went from recently graduated to senior professors.

Materials

     In order to collect data, we considered a questionnaire could be an appropriate instrument. Thus, a dilemma questionnaire, consisting of 45 items to be answered, was implemented. Dilemma questionnaires are said to be adequate instruments as they can be easily administered to the participants who would find them interesting to solve. We adapted and validated this questionnaire for data collection purposes and, then, we administered it to the 100 professors (see Appendix A).

    

Procedure

     A descriptive study was performed on the variables “conceptions of teaching” and “consistency index”. The implied theories were used as a theoretical framework and a prospective ex-post-facto design.

     We administered the dilemma questionnaire to the 100 participants on the same week, first week of August 2013, and we explained to them that they would have two weeks to carefully go through it and complete it. Also, they had the possibility not to reveal their identity but a great majority preferred to write their names at the top of the front page. After a week had passed, we contacted the participants so as to confirm that they were solving it and assist them in case they were doubtful about some questions. Most of them stated they did not need any help, however, some questions were further explained to some of them both newly-graduated and senior professors. One of the senior professors argued that he should have preferred to undergo an oral interview. Also, he stated that he would have been able to explain his view in a more dynamic manner as it would have been advisable some kind of feedback while he were giving his answers.

    After the two weeks, that is to say at the beginning of the third week of August 2013, the 100 questionnaires were collected. The great majority manifested that they did not find difficult to answer the questionnaire and most of them added it had been an excellent opportunity to consider and, also, rethink some of the practices that they implemented in their classes. After collecting the questionnaires, five days were devoted to deeply analyze the results and come to definite conclusions. We found that: only 58 professors have answered the dilemma questionnaire completely, 15 answered the majority of the items and 27 answered less than 50 % of the questionnaire.

References

Mateos-Sanz, M.d.M., García, M.B., Vilanova, S.L. (2011). Las concepciones sobre la enseñanza y el aprendizaje en docentes universitarios de ciencias, vol.2 (3). Vilanova.

Comparative Analysis of four Abstracts in Specialized Journals

        Research Articles (RA) are composed by several parts. Each part has its own characteristics in relation to structure and language. Abstracts are the first part included in any RA, between the main title and the rest of the paper, but the last part written by researchers. They are defined within the meta-textual nature of genres as they describe the main text. Therefore, they are formal summaries of a finished RA meant to attract the readers’ attention. Hubbuck (1996) defines abstracts “as brief summaries of the major points made by an author in a book or article” (p. 126). Similarly, Swales and Feak (1994) explain that abstracts consist of one paragraph made of four to ten sentences.

     Concerning the type of abstract, Swales and Feak (1994) state that they could be informative or indicative, structured or unstructured. Additionally, Swales and Feak (1994) argue that there exist certain linguistic specifications to describe them. They should include the use of full sentences, the use of the past tense, impersonal passive, the absence of negatives and the avoidance of abbreviations and jargon. They argue that in general, conclusions tend to be written in present, while opening sentences tend to be written in present or present perfect and sentences describing results tend to show tense variation to produce different effects on the reader.  

      Authors have also contributed with formulaic paragraphs to write proper academic abstracts. However, not many abstracts from different disciplines such as education and medicine have been deeply analyzed or compared so as to specify similarities and differences among them. In this paper, four RA abstracts, two from the field of education and other two from the medicine field, will be compared as regards their structure and linguistic patterns. 

     Following Swales and Feak’s (1994) description of the abstracts structure and main characteristics, the chosen abstracts from the field of medicine, one written by   Bonner, C. et al. (2014) and the other written by Devereux R. et al. (2014) are structured and informative, since both of them contain bolded headings identifying the main sections in the RA. Moreover, they include extracts from the articles so they are heavy on data; also, they look to the past to refer to what the researchers did.  Both abstracts follow IMRAD (Introduction-Methods-Results-And-Discussions) formula.

      As regards their linguistic features, the methods and results sections in the given abstracts were written in past tenses to indicate how the researchers performed the studies, for example in “General practitioners in New South Wales, Australia, recruited 26 patients with CVD/lifestyle risk factors who were not taking cholesterol or blood pressure-lowering medication in 2012” (Bonner et al., 2014, para. 3). However, the opening sentences were written in present tenses, such is the following case in “The postpartum state is associated with a substantially increased risk of thrombosis” (Deveroux et al., 2014, para. 1). Full sentences and the absence of negatives are evident throughout them. However, none of the abstracts included any keywords.

    Now, considering Swales and Freak’s (1994) description, in both abstracts from the field of education, one written by Liu et al, (2000) and the other written by Zhao (2003), we may affirm they share some similarities. They are unstructured as they are presented in one long an unbroken paragraph. Besides, they are informative as they review literature on the analyzed issues setting the goals or purpose of the mentioned review, for instance in Zhao’s (2003) article: “This review study is intended to address three related issues in technology and language education” (para. 1). Similarly, both articles discuss the findings in different categories.  This part is explained extensively as it occupies almost half of the abstract length. However, the last part has been developed differently: Zhao (2003) mentions a positive conclusion of the said findings while Liu et al. (2000) discuss issues for future research. Regarding keywords, both articles include this subheading immediately below the one-paragraph abstract and there have been written four expressions in each of them.

     As for their linguistic characteristics, the education abstracts comply with some features such as absence of negative, use of third person and use of active and passive voice. In the article written by Zhao (2003), present simple is used in the opening sentence of the abstract, there is tense variation in the body with predominance of past simple to express results and, finally, the conclusion is stated in past simple. On the other hand, in the abstract written by Liu (2000), present simple and present perfect may have been used throughout the whole piece to show contemporary relevance, for example in “The goals of this review are (1) to understand how computers have been used in the past eleven years (…)” (para. 1).

     All in all, with respect to the features that characterize abstracts, we may conclude that the four of them are descriptive in nature considering they describe the main texts. We can also infer that they are expository in view of the fact that they transmit information in a clear and concise manner. They are carefully written summaries of the RAs which aim to attract readers’ interest to continue reading the rest of the articles. Nevertheless, they present different organizational formats. The abstracts in the field of medicine are structured while the ones in the field of education are unstructured and shorter. Nevertheless, in Hubbuck’s (1996) terms, all of them are the “paper in capsule form”. Finally, we might state  that as they are were written in a proper academic style, they fulfil their aim to attract the reader’s interest in reading it thouroughly.

 References

Bonner, C., Jansen, J., Newell, B.R., Irwig, L., Glasziou, P., Doust, J., Dhillon, H. & McCaffery, K. (2014). I Don’t Believe It, but I’d Better Do Something About It: Patient Experiences of Online Heart Age Risk Calculators. J Med Internet. Retrieved from http://www.jmir.org./2014/5/e120

Devereux R., Elkind M., Hovsepian D., Kamel H.,  Navi B., Sriram N. (2014) Risk of a Thrombotic Event after the 6-Week Postpartum Period. The New England Journal of Medicine. Retrieved from http://www.proyectoteam.com/pdf/Articulomes_marzo2014.pdf

Hubbuch, S. M. (1996). Writing research papers across the curriculum. (4th ed.). Harcourt Brace: Fort Worth, TX.

 Liu M., Moore Z., Graham L., Lee S., (2000) A Look at the Research on Computer-Based Technology Use in Second Language Learning: Review of Literature from 1990-2000. Journal of Research on Technology in Education. University of Texas – Austin.  Retrieved from  http://jabba.edb.utexas.edu/it/seclangtechrev.pdf

Swales, J.M. (1990). Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings. (Cambridge Applied Linguistics Series).Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Swales, J. M., & Feak, C.B. (1994).  Academic writing for graduate students: Essential tasks and skills. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press

Zhao, Y. (2003).  Recent Developments in Technology and Language Learning: A Literature Review and Meta-analysis. CALICO Journal. Michigan State University. Retrieved from https://calico.org/html/article_279.pdf

A Comparative Analysis of Two Research Articles: Their Results, Discussion and Conclusion Sections

     Applying academic conventions is very important when writing Research Articles (RAs). Indeed, they should be respected in order to fulfill the requirements of the scientific community worldwide. This means using a certain structure and style, which is by international agreement known as "Introduction Methods Results and Discussion or IMRaD” (Hengl & Gould, 2002). Many authors have pondered into the task of writing books to help researchers write their RAs that respect these academic conventions. Nevertheless, there is very little research on how those conventions are presented on RAs from different areas of knowledge. Thus, the aim of this paper is to compare the results, discussion and conclusion sections of two RAs from two diverse fields of study: education and medicine. The comparisons will focus on how these sections have been structured in each article and whether the academic conventions are respected or not.

      In both articles, the one from the field of medicine (Bonner et al., 2014)  and the one from the field of education (Zhao, 2003), the Results section and the Discussion and Conclusion section have been presented under two major headings.

     First of all, the Results section in both RAs start with general statements and then, throughout the text, data is supported. They may be descriptive and they seem to thoroughly compare results and give explanation for the differences mentioned. Also, the authors may critique assumptions and clearly present the main findings. The Results section in the medicine article has been divided in subheadings like Reliability, Risk Formats and Process of Using Risk Calculators while the Results section in the education article has been divided into seven subsections so as to, in turn, help the reader  better understand these researches’ findings.

      Both RAs summarize the data in the text with two tables each of them. According to Swales and Feak (1994), the tables might be representative of the data being described as comparison is made between different groups of people without necessarily repeating what is said in the text, like in the RA in the field of education which has two tables that illustrate the data, on the one hand, the Overall Effect of Technology Applications in Language Learning and, on the other hand, a Summary of Technology and Content of Studies. The articles succeed in calling attention to the main points and achieving the communication principle of simplicity. Anyway, no bar charts or line charts were used.

          As for the Discussions and Conclusions sections, they come immediately below the Results sections, conducted as proper interpretations of outcomes. While in the article related to the field of medicine, the Discussions section has been divided into three clear cut pieces of information with a single-paragraphed conclusion, in the paper of the field of education the Discussions and Conclusion sections have been written together and deeply developed.

          In the medicine article two headings organize the ideas presented within this section: Findings and Implications and Strengths and Limitations. Within the former subsection, key findings make reference to the initial concern specified in the niche within the introduction: “However, research has established that percentages are poorly understood by both clinicians and patients” (Bonner et al., 2014, para. 2).  The relationship between what the authors found and what was stated in the niche is properly introduced by the expression This supports. It is worthwhile noting that the Discussion section’s primary objective might have been fulfilled; thus, reasons seem to be given about the outcomes. Then, the new findings are carefully compared with those in past literature. Moreover, the authors repeatedly mention, in several instances, that this research is consistent with findings in previous studies (Bonner et al., 2014). Regarding grammar tenses, will is used to express possibility, for example in the sentence when the authors argue that “The ultimate goal of risk calculator websites will vary depending on the motivation and target audience (…)” (Bonner et al., 2014, para. 33) whereas should is used for recommendations, for example, when they state that “Future research should include measurement of benefits (…)” (Bonner et al., 2014, para. 35). The second heading highlights the novelty of the topic and lists a number of research limits. Lastly, the short Conclusion section, as stated before, it is one subdivision of the Discussion and it is very concise as it does not extend more than one paragraph. It is successfully connected to the rest of the paper and refers back to the points mentioned in the introduction. It summarizes the research problem and describes what should be done in the future: “Future research should investigate both the benefits and harms of communicating risk” (Bonner et al., 2014, para. 38) and it seems to achieve the aim of convincing the readers that conclusions are of utmost importance. It does not use a signaling phrase such as In conclusion which would be inappropriate for academic writing (Swales and Feak, 1994).

          Similarly, the unified section labeled as “Discussion and Conclusions” in the article about the field of education, starts by reasserting and reminding the reader the three main goals which conducted the survey “This review study was conducted to achieve three goals” (Zhao, 2003, p. 20). Furthermore, the principal findings are recapitulated as well as their implications: “In this final section, the main findings of the study are summarized and their implications are discussed for future research” (Zhao, 2003, p.20). Contrary to the article about the field of medicine, this research paper does not use the modals will or should to express possibility or advice. It uses passive structures to convey emphasis, for example in the sentence “To truly capitalize on modern information (…) a number of issues must be addressed” (Zhao, 2003, p.22). Finally, this section concludes by pointing out four titled and numbered issues that need to be addressed in order to improve language learning in relation to modern information and communication technologies. As a consequence, the author succeeds in presenting sound arguments, evaluating the solutions and setting recommendations.

     All in all, after a deep analysis of Results, Discussion and Conclusions sections, it can be asserted that both articles respect the order of the IMRaD sections and academic formal style. However, they vary in few minor aspects like the use of some tenses and the decision of including the Conclusion section within the Discussion or not. Clearly, the authors of these articles though being experts of different areas of knowledge both have respected the academic conventions that Swales and Feak (1994) describe as proper within the academic and scientific community.

  

References

Bonner, C., Jansen, J., Newell, B.R., Irwig, L., Glasziou, P., Doust, J., Dhillon, H. & McCaffery, K. (2014). I Don’t Believe It, but I’d Better Do Something About It: Patient Experiences of Online Heart Age Risk Calculators. J Med Internet. Retrieved from http://www.jmir.org./2014/5/e120

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. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press

Zhao, Y. (2003).  Recent Developments in Technology and Language Learning: A Literature Review and Meta-analysis. CALICO Journal. Michigan State University. Retrieved from https://calico.org/html/article_279.pdf

Comparative Analysis of Two Articles

     Copley, Greenberg, Handley and Oaks (1996) stated that a research paper is “more than a collection of different pieces of information about a topic” (para. 1). Moreover, Swales and Feak (1994) have delved into the linguistic specifications and formal conventions for writing research articles properly. All these guidelines have been an important contribution to many researchers who have been concerned with sharing their studies with the professional community in their fields. However, few studies have been conducted to make a contrastive analysis of articles from distant disciplines. The purpose of this paper is to analyze and compare two research articles: one from Medicine field and the other from the field of Education field. Particularly, the introductions in both articles and methods sections are described. As for the introduction analysis, the criteria being followed is the Create a Research Space Model (C.A.R.S.) proposed by Swales and Feak (1994, p. 174), while methods sections are analyzed based on features of Process Paragraph.

     As regards the introduction, Gregg et al. (2014), in their article in the medical field, presents a considerably shorter introduction than the one written by Aydin and Yildiz (2014) in their article in the Educational field. Considering the organizational patterns proposed by Create Research Space Model (C.A.R.S.) (Swales and Feak, 1994, p.174), in the former, the authors seem to have structured it in a general-specific manner. Although move1 has been carefully developed for the review of some previous research, move 2 is not specifically indicated. The niche does not seem to have been established as there is no gap depicted. Then, move 3 outlines the purpose of the research but it does not indicate how it will be structured. On the other hand, in Aydin and Yildiz’s (2014) research article the authors dedicate half of the length of it to the development of the introduction which has been divided in detailed sections. As for move 1, the introduction thoroughly establishes the research territory. First, it shows that the research is important when it mentions the relevance of “writing instruction in foreign language classes” (Aydin & Yildiz, 2014, p. 160).  Second, it vastly reviews previous research as when the authors mention “sociocultural theories of learning”, “collaborative dialogue”, “peer editing” (Aydin & Yildiz, 2014, p. 161). Move 2 is expressed in one single sentence and it seems to indicate the gap that has been found in the area of wiki collaborative tasks. It starts with the negative connector Although. Then, the authors smoothly introduce the last move and they succeed in expressing purposive statements and descriptive statements such as principal findings and structure of research papers.

     Regarding the use of tenses in the introduction, Gregg et al. (2014) use the Past Simple to refer to what previous researchers did and the type of investigation they will conduct while Aydin and Yildiz (2014) employed a wider variety of tenses in the three moves like Present Simple, Past Simple and Present Perfect. The latter mostly used Present Tenses to refer to what has been found in the field of language learning and Past Simple to state the result of other studies on wikis. As for the last move they used Present Tenses to make reference to their present study.

     Considering the Methods section, in the study by Gregg et al. (2014) the word Methods is centered and the section is divided in three subsections where the participants, materials and procedures are analyzed although they chose other subheadings like “data sources”, “definitions” and “data analyses” ( Gregg et al., 2014, p. 1515-1516 ). Aydin and Yildiz (2014) chose the word Methodology which is not considered appropriate for this section as it refers to something different as the underlying theory. However, they also described the participants, materials and procedures.  Both articles follow the main features of process paragraphs such as description of how to fulfill the aims, inclusion of details, use of explanations, slow pace, repeated terminology and, of utmost importance, use of passive voice throughout the Methods section.

     As a result of the previous analysis, it may be concluded that both articles comply with C.A.R.S. Model for the introduction and the linguistic components of the methods sections although with some variations. Particularly important may be the thorough consideration of these features when writing in the academic field.

  

References

Aydin, Z. & Yildiz, S. (2014). Using wikis to promote collaborative EFL writing. Language Learning & Technology 18 (1), 160-180. Retrieved from http://llt.msu.edu/issues/february 2014/aydinyildiz.pdf

Copley, C., Greenberg, L., Handley, E., &  Oaks, S. (1996). Developing a research question. Retrieved from  http://www.esc.edu/online-writing-center/resources/research/

Gregg, E. W., Li, Y., Wang, J., Rios Burrows, N., Ali, M. K., Rolka, D., Williams, D. & Geiss, L. (2014). Changes in Diabetes-Related Complications in the United States, 1990-2010. The New England Journal of Medicine.370 (16), 1514-1523. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa1310799

Swales, J. M., & Feak, C. B. (1994). Academic writing for graduate students: Essential tasks and skills. Ann Harbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press.