A Comparative Analysis of Two Research
Articles
Research Papers (R P) and Research
Articles (R A) are composed by several parts: a title, an abstract,
acknowledgements, an introduction, a literature review, methods, results,
discussions, recommendations, references and appendixes. Swales (1990) and
Swales and Feak (1994) assert that the process of writing the introduction in a
research paper is a time-consuming, hard and vexatious task. Furthermore, these
authors expose that what is supposed to be the first part of the paper turns
out to be the lastly written section. In the introduction, the writer’s
principal objective is to attract the reader’s attention. That is why it is
such a challenging task. Conversely, methods sections are mainly written
following the principles of process paragraphs. In this sense, these are the
easiest sections to write and they are often the first section that researchers
choose to write in their papers. Methods sections, describe the details, the
methodology, the materials and the procedures that were used and developed by
the researchers to fulfill the aims of their research papers. Although Swales
and Feak (1994) explain the main characteristics that research papers should
contain to become readable for the audience, none of the authors has explained how
to make them interesting and appealing to the reader.
The purpose of this paper is to
compare and contrast the introductions with their literature reviews and the
methods sections of two research articles to find and expose their main
differences and similarities. One of the articles, written by Di Angelantonio,
E., Chowdhury, R., Sarwar, N., Aspelund, T., Danesh. J. & Gudnason, V.
(2010) belongs to the medicine field. The
other one, written by Barrs, K. (2012) belongs to the educational field.
Introductions in academic writing are structured in a
general-specific manner, following the Create a Research Space Model (C.A.R.S.)
(Swales and Feak, 1994). The C.A.R. S. Model has been created under the
principle that writers use organizational patterns to present their
introductions. These organizational patterns contain “moves” or cycles which
are characterized by a number of semantic and syntactic features. There are
three moves in introductions: creating a research space, establishing a niche
and occupying the niche, correspondingly. Taking into consideration the three
moves that should be present in academic introductions, it can be affirmed that
in the article that belongs to the medical field these three moves can be
clearly perceived. First, the authors start the introduction making reference
to what has been investigated and done in the specific area that is going to be
developed in the paper. For example, “End stage renal failure is known to be
associated with striking excesses of cardiovascular and all cause mortality.
Strong associations have also been reported between non-dialysis dependent
chronic kidney disease and such outcomes in patients with ischaemic
cardiovascular diseases, heart failure, and high blood pressure” (Di
Angelantonio et al., 2010, p. 1). After that, the authors indicate the gap that
has been found in previous research of the area. This can be noticed in the
following statement: “However, many such studies have lacked concomitant
assessment of estimated glomerular filtration rate and urinary protein status
or involved less than 10 years of follow-up (the time horizon used in most
clinical cardiovascular risk scores), omitted measures of discrimination or
reclassification of risk to help in judging the incremental predictive value of
assessing chronic kidney disease, or involved some combination of these
limitations” (Di Angelantonio et al., 2010, p. 1). Finally, these authors
expose the main purposes of their paper. As a result, the third move, which
deals with occupying the niche, can be also perceived.
As
regards the educational article, the first move of the introduction can be
clearly perceived too. The author makes reference to what has been done in the
specific area to be developed. For instance, “Fostering L2 interaction both
in and out of the classroom, especially when this interaction is occurring in a
wider L1 context, is considered fundamental for second-language development”
(Barrs, 2012, p. 10). In the same way, the third move is also present in the
introduction of this paper as the author exposes the main purpose of it. For example,
“This article reports on an action research project undertaken at the author’s
language university in Japan, initiated by the issue of how to increase
opportunities for continued English language interaction outside the classroom,
specifically in the various holiday periods in the academic year” (Barrs, 2012,
p. 10). Conversely, the second move in this educational article is not as clear
as the one in the medicine paper. The gap that has been found by this author in
previous research does not start with a negative opening such as however,
although, nevertheless and so on.
Different authors such as Swales and Feak, coincide in
the main characteristics that the methods section should accomplish in a
research paper. Taking them into account, it can be affirmed that the medical
article follow the principles established by these authors. To begin with, the
word Methods in this paper is written at the start of the section. Moreover,
the mostly used tense by the authors in this section is past passive voice. For
example “Creatinine measurements were made at baseline within days of the initial
examination by using the Jaffe method” and “Presence of proteinuria was
assessed at baseline with a urinary dipstick” (Di Angelantonio et al., 2010, p.
1). Additionally, in the subsection participants, measurements and end points,
the words are typed at the left margin of this article. In this subsection, the
authors describe the subjects that took part in the research, the measurements
which were practiced to those subjects and the results obtained from them.
In
the educational paper the methods section is divided into four subsections (Data Collection and Analysis Methods, Context, Participants and Materials). The Participants subsection
describes the subjects that took part in this research paper. In the same way,
the words Participants and Materials are
typed at the left margin of the paper as well as the other two subsections
chosen by the authors to be developed in this section. As regards the usage of
tenses, the mostly used tense in the methods section in this educational paper
is past passive voice. For example, “When students entered the Freshman English course, a
questionnaire was administered in order to investigate their access to
Internet-enabled computers and mobile devices”, “The action-research project
was administered for one class of English-major freshman (first-year) students,
(N = 28: 22 female and 6 male), who were all taking both semester 1 and
2 of the compulsory Freshman English course at the author’s university” and
“The project was carried out at a private 4-year language university in Japan” (Barrs,
2012, p.14). However, the word
Methods does not appear centered at the start of the section. Instead, the word
Methodology is written in capital letters to start the methods section in this
piece of writing.
On the whole, it can be said that although both
articles come from different fields, the authors of both papers intended to
present a problem, analyze it and find a solution developing their papers in a
similar way. Both authors write their articles following RAs’ structures, with
an introduction, a literature review, a method section, the results, a
discussion and a conclusion section in their papers. In this sense, it can be
affirmed that both articles belong to a discourse community.
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 Learning and Technology,
16 (1), 10-25. Retrieved from http://llt.msu.edu/issues/february2012/actionresearch.pdf
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 population
based cohort study. BMJ (341), 1-7. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.c4986.
Purdue University Online Writing Lab (OWL). (2010).
General Format. Retrieved February, 25th, 2010, from http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/
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.
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