Analysis of Research Papers from the Natural and Social sciences
Particularly
invaluable are Research Articles (RA) in any fields of studies; they provide
the means to belong to a discourse community and share knowledge. Depending on
the professional field, RAs may have distinctive characteristics. The present
report will delve into the Results, Discussions and Conclusion sections of two
RAs from the social and natural sciences in order to depict their
peculiarities. The former is named "Fostering Computer-Mediated L2
Interaction" (Barrs, 2012) and the latter is named "Chronic Kidney
Disease and risk of Major Cardiovascular disease and Non-vascular mortality:
Prospective population based cohort study" (Di Angelantonio et al, 2010).
Both RAs
differ on the organization of the data among these parts of the reports. As
regards the results sections, the medical article has described them in an
analytical way outlining the actions taken and their outcomes which addressed
the hypothesis initially stated. For instance, Associations between different stages of
chronic kidney disease and the aggregate of non vascular mortality were
non-linear. This section has
been divided into three subheadings each of them dealing with a different part
of the experiment and presenting the reader the corresponding tables and
figures. Although the text has been illustrated with quantitative data, these
resources partially respect the American Psychological Association (APA) guidelines for tables and figures formats as,
for example, not every word in the title is capitalized; as table 1 reads, Chronic kidney disease staging system.
Conversely, they are consistent in the design employed since every table and
figure share the same stylistic conventions.
On the
contrary, the educational report presents the results with their direct
interpretation such as “Disappointingly,
the majority of interactions (93%) involved a simple one or two sentence
initiation followed by a single reply…” (p.1). It has been organized according to the two
periods the research had, followed by a description of the steps taken in each
period. The tables and transcriptions of the answers have been included inside
this section as well as the interpretation of outcomes. The consistent design
and format of the tables shown properly match those established by APA style: They
are numbered, properly capitalized and italicized titles, and double space
between the elements.
Di
Angelantonio et. al.(2010) focuses the discussion on the causes-effects connections
among the findings, e.g.” …estimated glomerular filtration rate seems to be non-linearly
related to risk of coronary heart disease”(p.1). The author restates many of the key results in
this section reminding the readers the objective of his research.
“Significantly”, “suggest”, “modestly” are examples of hedging. Especially
noteworthy is the paragraph he has included within this section on strengths
and limitations highlighting the latter. Barrs (2012) follows a
result-explanation-interpretation pattern along the results section: “...the preliminary investigation
revealed that the two distinct issues of (a) a lack of time, and (b) a lack of
interest in the discussion topic, contributed to the low amount of interaction
on the site”(p.1). A noticeable
number of modal verbs have been used together with hedging words such as
“disappointingly”, “potentially”, and “significant”, among others.
Regarding
Conclusions, the medical report states them in a short paragraph which follows
the discussion section summarizing the findings and acknowledging the
importance of further studies: “Further studies are needed to investigate associations between chronic
kidney disease and non-vascular mortality from causes other than cancer”(p.1). The educational one has added a section
about the limitations of the study separately from the rest and finally has
drawn conclusions expanding them with some reflections: “Further, the
nature of the interactions themselves could become an area of value for
extended investigation” (p.1).
The analyzed RAs cater for a great deal of
features concerning this specific kind of genre. Without losing their main
objectives, both studies have seriously attempted to account for their findings,
transmit relevant information to a particular audience and summarize their works
suggesting further research under the light of pre-established discourse
conventions. Interestingly noticeable is the organization of the content in
each of the articles reflecting the way of thinking of each field and
respecting the guidelines and conventions to format a paper and cite sources.
References
American
Psychological Association (2010). APA formatting and style guide. Retrieved
from http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/
Barrs,
K., (2012). Fostering
Computer-Mediated L2 Interaction. Language Learning & Technology, 16 (1). Retrieved from: http://llt.msu.edu/issues/february2012/actionresearch.pdf
Di Angelantonio, E. et al, (2010). Chronic
Kidney Disease and risk of Major Cardiovascular disease and Non-vascular
mortality: Prospective population based cohort study. BMJ2010; 341:c4986, doi:10.1136/bmj.c4986.
