Research Articles: An Analysis of the Introduction and Method Sections

Research Articles: An Analysis of the Introduction and Method Sections

According to the American Psychological Association (APA), “Research is complete only when the results are shared with the scientific community” (2011, p.9). In doing so, not only do researchers have to display language skills in order to be clear and concise but they also need to have knowledge of the structure of a Research Article (RA) so as to be understood by the discourse community they belong to. 

Much research has been done to establish the underlying organization of RAs (Swales, 1990; Swales and Feak, 2012) with the aim of providing writers with explicit and practical guidelines. However, few attempts have been made to compare and contrast each section of RAs from two different fields of investigation with the aid of a peer editor and the utilization of a wiki. The purpose of this paper is to perform a thorough analysis of the structure of the Introduction and the Methods sections of two RAs, one in the field of education by Hermes and King (2013) and the other in the field of medicine by Reynolds et al. (2006). 

One of the most important sections in RAs is the Introduction in which you compel the interest of readers by creating a research gap.  Both articles will be analyzed in light of the Creating a Research Space Model (C.A.R.S.) and the general-specific (GS) criteria of organizing texts (Swales and Feak, 1994).

Both articles evidence a neatly and standardized introduction which follows the overall rhetorical shape of GS texts. Move 1 is signaled by the literature review in both fields which describes the current state of the phenomena studied: The article written by Hermes and King (2013) claims centrality by stating the critical importance of the research: “If the language is not transmitted to younger generations within the next decade, Ojibwe, (…) could cease to be a living language” (para. 1) and the article written by Reynolds et al. (2006) does that by stating that “Finding practical and affordable depression-management strategies that prevent recurrence is of great importance” (para. 1). As for grammatical features, tenses used in this move are Present Simple and Present Perfect. Only the article about Ojivwe uses Present passive voice.

After the territory has been established by making a centrality claim, making topic generalizations and reviewing what has been done by whom in previous research, both articles continue with Move 2. Authors signal this change by the subordinating conjunction however with the intent to establish a niche in the literature reviewed. The following negative openings have been chosen: “Little is known about how technology might be useful to Indigenous language learning among children and families in informal contexts” (Hermes and King, 2013, para. 1) and “there is little information about the long-term efficacy of SSRIs or psychotherapy in the elderly (…). There is also no consensus about whether long-term maintenance pharmacotherapy is appropriate after a first episode of depression” (Reynolds et al., 2006, para. 2).

Once the gap has been identified, both articles continue to Move 3. Neither of the authors begin this move with a purposive statement; they occupy the niche by means of descriptive statements of their present study: “Addressing this gap, this research project examined how a recently developed multimedia software program, Ojibwemodaa, was used by families at home” (Hermes and King, 2013, para. 1) and “We assessed whether long-term antidepressant treatment would affect the recurrence of depression specifically in people 70 years of age or older” (Reynolds et al., 2006, para. 3). Only the article on Ojivwe indicates the structure of the paper in the end of the introduction which is followed by further subheadings: Technology and Indigenous Language Revitalization, Context and theoretical framework and Ojibwemodaa software. 

Tenses used in this move are past simple and past passive voice. The article in the education field has chosen inanimate agent (passive voice), whereas the article in the medicine field has chosen a human agent: the subject pronoun “we”.

Regarding the acknowledgment of sources, the article in the field of education follows the American Psychological Association (APA) guidelines of in-text citations and reference list whereas the one in the field of medicine has recourse to numbered end notes organized in the References section in order of appearance and not in alphabetical order.   

Another equally important section is Methods, which describes how the research has been carried out allowing for future replication. Whereas the authors of the article “Maintenance Treatment of Major Depression in Old Age” have centered the word Methods at the start of the section and have included no sub-headings other than Statistical Analysis, the authors of the article “Ojibwe Language Revitalization, Multimedia Technology, and Family Language Learning” have chosen the heading Research Design typed in the left margin in upper case and bold letters and have included three sub-headings typed in the left margin in bold: Data Collection and Analysis, Participants and Study Motivation and Participant Retention.

The information disclosed in both Methods sections follows Sampieri, Collado and Baptista’s (2010) suggestions of what to include: Method, Context, Sample, Design and Procedure (pp. 351-352). As both articles describe how data was collected, how the participants were selected and how the research was carried out, tenses used in this section are mainly Past Simple in active and passive voice. As regards tables and figures, the article by Reynolds et al. includes them and directs readers to see them in parenthesis without the use of the imperative see and the abbreviation fig. On the other hand, the article by Hermes and King has only included figures in the first part of the paper and has signaled them by the use of the imperative see and the complete word figure.

All things considered, it can be stated that even though the articles in the fields of education and medicine do not possess the same layout or the same style of acknowledging sources, they have both followed the steps in the process of conducting scientific research. Both have structured the content by complying with the Creating a Research Space Model (C.A.R.S.) and with the general-specific (GS) criteria of organizing texts (Swales and Feak, 1994). Moreover, they contain relevant and valuable information which contributes to the production of knowledge within their discourse communities.

References

 American Psychological Association. (2011). Publication Manual (6th ed.). British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data: Washington, DC. 

Hermes M. & King K. A. (2013). Ojibwe language revitalization, multimedia technology, and family language learning [Electronic version]. Language Learning & Technology, 17, (1), 125–144.

doi: 10.1.1.295.2845

Reynolds, C., Dew, M.A., Pollock, B. G., Mulsant, B. H., Frank, E., Miller, M. D., … Kupfer, D. J .(2006). Maintenance treatment of major depression in old age [Electronic version]. The New England Journal of Medicine, 354, 1130-8.

doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa052619

Hernández Sampieri, R., Fernández Collado, C., & Baptista Lucio, P. (2010). Metodología de la investigación [Methodology of investigation]. (5th ed.). McGraw Hill: México.

Swales, J. M. (1990). Genre Analysis: English for Academic and Research Settings. Cambridge: CUP. 

Swales, J. M. & Feak C. B.(1994). Academic Writing for Graduate Students. Essential Tasks and Skills. (3rd ed.). The USA: University of Michigan Press.