Results, Discussion and Conclusion sections analysis

Analysing the Results, Discussions, and Conclusions Sections of Research Papers

            The purpose of this paper is to make a comparative analysis of the Results, Discussions, and Conclusions sections of two research papers (RPs) belonging to two completely different areas, namely the fields of education and medicine. The article belonging to the medicine field is a case study research carried out to analyze the interrelationship between kidney and cardiovascular disease. It is organized into Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion and Conclusion. The article on education, is concerned with a research implemented to foster the use of Second Language outside the classroom with a Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) programme. It is divided into introduction, methodology, results, and limitations; each of these sections is also subdivided through the use of sub-headings. While Di Angelantonio, Chowdhury, Sarwar, Aspelund, Danesh and Gudnason´s (2010) medical article, exposes the three sections commonly found in research articles separately, Barss`s (2012) educational article integrates the results with the discussion altogether. However, the authors have mostly included all the requirements that these three sections have to follow for a research paper to be academic.

            Both of the articles in discussion are descriptive in nature. The past simple tense is used to describe the Results sections.  At the beginning of the Results section of her article, Barrs (2012) explains in a descriptive way “A four-week project was set up during the 2010 football World Cup, utilising a Moodle forum, whereby students were randomly assigned a country`s team to follow and had to post a message on the team`s tournament performance.” (p. 15).  In her article, Barss (2012) divides her Results section into two parts, which are the periods she had for her action research, where she provides the results of the research by presenting the main findings and summarizing the data connected to the question of the paper with text and figures. In contrast, the article on medicine, has different headings in order to separate the different paragraphs of the Results section. While Di Angelantonio`s (2010) paper includes the discussions section separetely from the results, Barss (2012) describes the results and discusses them in the same section.

            Regarding the presentation of data, both articles use texts to state the results of their studies and include graphics such as tables or figures where the reader can refer to.  After showing the collection of data through three different Tables, the education RP compares the results and gives an explanation for the differences in this way; “As can be seen from the data in Tables 1-3, the number of postings in general as well as the number of interactions that went beyond a singular posting reply pattern were low, especially considering this was a 4-week project.” (Barrs, 2012, p.16).  As regards the description found in the medicine article, a more complex way of describing data is included when the results of the Tables and Figures are analysed by the authors. Di Angelantonio et. al (2010) explains “Addition of smoking status, systolic blood pressure, total cholesterol, and diabetes to a coronary heart disease risk model containig only age (and stratified by sex) increased the C index from 0.6453 to 0.6963.” (p. 4).  The tables included in the educational paper comply with the basic rules established by APA (2007). It contains six tables and one figure. All of them are correctly numbered and the headings are italiced and all the words are in capital letters. The medicine research paper, instead, does not respect certain requirements. It includes four tables and two figures. They are numbered but the titles are not in italics, and only the first word is capitalized. They are accompanied by notes in a smaller typeface which are meant to clarify the information presented.            

            The Conclusions section in the research paper on education is preceded by limitations which explain the negative points or difficulties that had to be faced during the research, the author has included information about certain changes that had to be implemented. Barrs (2012) makes use of tentative language to express certain degree of probability in her findings which is more academic in the educational field. The Conclusions section in Barss’s (2012) article starts by stating the relevance of the research and the importance of developing this kind of study which is highlighted throughout the whole paper. This is presented as a positive experience which is seen as a way of solving the question introduced at the beginning of the article: How to make learners practice the language outside the classroom. On the other research paper, the Conclusions section is preceded not only by limitations but also by strengths. The conclusions are presented in the present tense and the author shows certainty about the statements.

            On the whole, it can be asserted that even though there seems to be no direct relationship between the fields of education and medicine, there are certain similarities between both articles. RPs tend to comply with certain rules no matter which field they relate to. The reader is provided with the necessary information about the situations described on both papers. They contain clear explanations of the background applying both the clarity principle and the reality principle, which help the reader understand the problem. Finally, they provide a possible solution which is also evaluated by the authors.  All in all, it may be assumed that objectivity is present in both papers. However, Di Angelantonio tends to be less moderate than Barr when he draws his conclusions, this may be due to the fact that his research has been conducted on the scientific field where the data can be described as more precise than the one in the education field.

                                                           

                                                           

                                                            References

American Psychological Association (2007). Concise rules of APA style. Washington,        DC: British Library Cataloguing-in –Publication Data.

Barrs, K. (2012). Fostering computer-mediated L2 interaction beyond the classroom.         Language and Learning & Technology, 16(1), 10

Di Angelantonio, E., Chowdhury, R., Sarwar, N., Aspelund, T., Danesh, J., & Gudnason,             V. (2010).Chronic kidney disease and risk of major cardiovascular disease and             non-vascular mortality: prospective populationbased cohort study. British Medical          Journal, 341:c4986. doi: 10.1136/bmj.c4986