Research Articles: A Comparative Analysis
Being part of a discourse community implies, among other things,
to follow the academic writing conventions of the community. A major academic
writing type is Research Articles, which allow this
community to explore fields of study in order to extend the boundaries of
knowledge to be later shared by all its members. As for all academic writings,
research articles conventions structure the content and way of presenting the
data collected. Different sections in the article provide the reader the
possibility to understand the information in a clear and comprehensive manner.
Three important sections of research articles are the Results, the Discussion
and the Conclusion Sections, whose purpose involves much more than presenting data.
They show the writer's ability to summarize, argue and evaluate their work so
as to contribute to the discourse community learning. Salovey (as cited in Hartley, 2008) argues
that “the art of writing a good results section is to take the readers
through a story” (p.47). The three
sections mentioned, however, are not always structured in the same format. In
this regard, writers such as Lewin et al. and Swales and Feak (as cited in Hartley,
2008) describe typical ‘moves’ in the discussion sections of academic
research. "Discussions, then, go beyond a summary of the findings and, indeed, there may be disciplinary differences in how
they are approached" (Harley, 2008,
p.49). While some
academic writers believe that a certain format shows weaknesses in the work,
others believe the opposite. However, it is important to acknowledge that even
though research articles can be presented in different formats, they all serve
as valuable resources for the investigation of new areas of study as long as
they include the content required and in accordance with the conventions of the
corresponding community. The purpose of this paper is to provide evidence of
such a belief through the comparative analysis of two research articles in the
fields of medicine and education.
In relation to the Results section, a major
difference between the research articles under analysis may be found in the
type of text the authors resort to. In the article on medicine, McClay,
Waters, McHale, Schmidt and Williams (2013) comply with the recommendations of
the American Psychological Association (APA, 2010) that states that “discussing
the implications of the results should be reserved for presentation in the
Discussion section” (p.32) and include
a purely descriptive text which mentions the different themes identified during
interviews. Conversely, Sun and Chang (2012) seem to include some of the
implications and interpretations of their results, especially under the heading
“The Making of An Author” (p. 55) where they state, for example, that “in the
end, these students’ collaborative dialogues on the blogs helped scaffold
individuals to establish themselves as authors and researchers” (p.56). The inclusion of
this kind of interpretative phrases conforms to Swale and Feak’s (1994) idea
that commentary may be included in the Results section given that “[the]
distinction between Results and Discussion is not as sharp as commonly
believed” (p.170).
In both articles, the authors present their results in relation to the research
questions or research objectives previously stated. However, they seem to do
this through different text organizations. According to Hartley (2008), the
Results section usually includes two moves: in the first move authors “state
the main findings in order – relating them
in turn to the hypotheses and methods used” (p.47) and in the second move they
specify subsidiary findings, also relating them to the research hypothesis. Sun
and Chang (2012) seem to include these two moves, using their research
questions (they do not refer to a hypothesis, but to questions) as subtitles to
organize the Results section and stating the most important findings first in
each subsection. Main findings are widely described and exemplified
while subsidiary findings are given less space within the text. McClay et al. (2013), on their part,
incorporate only the first of the moves, giving equal importance to all the
findings presented. They also include subsections within their Results and
these are connected to the research objectives.
The present analysis also allows to make a comparison of the Discussion and Conclusion
sections in both research articles. As suggested by Swales and Feak (1994), it
is possible that these sections appear separately or blended in one unique
section. While in the work by McClay et al. (2013) the discussion
section is sub-divided into three sub-sections, one of which is the conclusion,
the research article by Sun and Chang (2012) contains separated sections for
the discussion and the conclusion. As regards the content of these sections, in
the first sub-section of the former paper, the writers make reference to the
general aim of the research and they refer back to some issues related to the
procedure. Additionally, they devote some lines to discussing issues
related to the key findings in their work and to offering some recommendations
that the professionals in the field could benefit from. A sub-section under the
title Limitations follows,
in which the writers discuss some of the problems they came across with, how
they dealt with them and, once again, they provide some suggestions. To do so,
the writers have made use of linguistic tools such as modals “should” and
“could” as the following example shows: “Future research should
assess uptake and efficacy of cCBT in clinical practice in order to gain a more
complete knowledge of the potential of cCBT as a treatment for BN” (Limitations section, para.1). Closing the sequence of sub-sections, it is
possible to find the conclusion. Here, the writers reinforce the benefits of
their findings and reflect upon their possible implementation.
A
noticeable difference between both works is that in the discussion section, the
article on education goes back to some literature review in order to make a
point of theory and reflect upon it. Equally noticeable is that the writers
here hypothesize about the possible reasons for their findings and draw conclusions about the process
undergone by the participants and not just about the results, as the article on
medicine does. This could be observed when the writers describe that some
procedural behaviour in the participants: “In the study, there were times when
students simply echoed the problems someone else had encountered rather than
offering a constructive solution…” (p.58). Limitations and recommendations
in this article have been included indeed. However, contrary to the first article,
they have been both included within the Conclusion section. An important
similarity between the two articles is that both include most of the moves
expected to be present in a Discussion section, though not in the same
order.
The two articles compared showed significant differences in the structure and content of the three sections considered for this analysis. Sun and Chang (2012) presented a more complex text with their inclusion of two moves in their Results and the Conclusion as a separate section while McClay et al. (2013) chose a simpler presentation. In addition, neither of them has failed to include discussion and conclusions that, though not structured in the same way, include the contents appropriate to these sections. It could be concluded that the authors of both articles seem to comply with the basic requirements that allow them to present and discuss the outcomes of their study successfully.
The two articles compared showed significant differences in the structure and content of the three sections considered for this analysis. Sun and Chang (2012) presented a more complex text with their inclusion of two moves in their Results and the Conclusion as a separate section while McClay et al. (2013) chose a simpler presentation. In addition, neither of them has failed to include discussion and conclusions that, though not structured in the same way, include the contents appropriate to these sections. It could be concluded that the authors of both articles seem to comply with the basic requirements that allow them to present and discuss the outcomes of their study successfully.
References
American
Psychological Association. (2010). Publication Manual of the American
Psychological Association. (6thed.). Washington , DC
Hartley,
J. (2008). Academic Writing
and Publishing: A Practical Handbook. London
McClay C.A.
Sun,
Y.C., & Chang, Y.J. (2012). Blogging to learn: Becoming EFL academic
writers through collaborative dialogues. Language Learning &
Technology, 16 (1), 43-61.
Available from http://llt.msu.edu/issues/february2012/sunchang.pdf
Swales, J. M. & Feak, C.B. (1994). Academic Writing for Graduate Students:
Essential Tasks and Skills: A Course for Nonnative Speakers of English. Ann Arbor , MI : University of Michigan
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