Comparative Analysis of Two Research Articles
Research articles (RAs) have their own structure and
format,
and they are composed of several parts or sections: title, abstract,
acknowledgements, introduction, literature review, methods, results, discussions,
recommendations, references, and appendixes. Swales (1990) and Swales and Feak (1994) provide
academic writers with a description of the structure that RAs should have as
well as guidelines about the elements which should be present in each section.
Considering the introduction in particular, they claim that it should include
three moves or cycles: establishing a research territory, establishing a niche,
and occupying the niche. As regards the methods section, they claim that it is
usually divided into three subsections: participants, materials, and procedure.
However, when examining RAs it is possible to see that sometimes authors do not
follow some of those conventions. Being able to analyze the structure of each
section in an RA and its linguistic characteristics is crucial for student
writers to learn how to write an RA properly. This paper intends to provide a comparative analysis
of two research articles, placing the focus on the introduction and methods sections
in each piece of work. The elements included in each section have been examined,
as well as the way they have been sequenced, in order to identify whether the authors
have included the components that should be present in each section, and
whether they have respected the order in which those components should be
presented in an RA.
In the article “The Effects of Captioning Videos Used
for Foreign Language Listening Activities”, Winke, Gass and Sydorenko (2010)
present an introduction that includes
the most important elements that according to Swales (1990) and Swales and Feak
(1994) an introduction to a research article should have: establishing a
research territory, by stating the present state of arts, referring back to
what has been done and showing relevance for the study; establishing the niche by
indicating the motivations for the study, indicating the gap that has been
found in the area, and formulating questions about the situation; and occupying
the niche by describing what the present research is about. However, though in
most research articles the purpose of the study is usually mentioned in the
last move in the introduction, in this case it has been presented at the
beginning, with the phrase: “The purpose of this study is to investigate L2
learners’ use of captions while watching videos in a foreign language.” (Winke,
Gass &Sydorenko, 2010, p. 65). This introduction seems to be structured in
a general-specific movement, going from the purpose statement and a general
discussion of the topic to particular questions. Furthermore, despite the fact
that some past research is mentioned and some research questions are formulated
in the introduction, there is a separate literature summary and research
questions section after the introduction. Although the authors seem to have
written a quite detailed and complete introduction, other elements could have
been provided in the last move, such as a more detailed description of the
nature of the research, explaining the reasons for selecting that type of
research study, an announcement of main findings, and an indication of the
research paper structure.
In the article “ADHD Drugs and Serious Cardiovascular
Events in Children and Young Adults”, Cooper et al. (2011) present a very brief
introduction which has no heading to identify it. The introduction should be more complete as it
“is the part of the paper that provides readers with the background information
for the research reported in the paper. Its purpose is to establish a framework
for the research, so that readers can understand how it is related to other
research” (Wilkinson, 1991, p. 96, as cited in Pajares, 2007, p. 1). There is
no literature review in this article, just some brief references to past
research, as it can be observed in this sentence: “Although case reports from
adverse event reporting systems can be an important source for identifying
medication safety signals, they cannot reliably quantify risk.” (Cooper et. al.,
2011, p. 1896) from Canada and the United States that have included cases of
sudden death, myocardial infarction, and stroke in conjunction with the use of
these drugs have raised concern about their safety” but no author citations are
provided, and this is a serious weakness as “the review of the literature
provides the background and context for the research problem. It should
establish the need for the research and indicate that the writer is
knowledgeable about the area” (Wiersma, 1995, p. 406, as cited in Pajares,
2007, p. 3). Furthermore, though three moves can be identified in the
introduction to this article (creating a research space, establishing a niche
and occupying a niche), other elements could have been included in this
introduction too, such as a description of the research structure and the
reasons for choosing that type of research.
The methods section in the article written by Winke,
Gass and Sydorenko (2010) includes the main elements that Swales (1990) and
Swales and Feak (1994) state are usually included in that section: the participants,
materials and procedure. However, the methods section in this article also
includes supplementary elements, such as a scoring section and an analysis
section. Both the sources of data and the collection and analysis of data are
included. A table is used to provide specific information related to the
participants, and a diagram is used to provide a clear account of the study
procedure.
In the article written by Cooper et al. (2011), the methods
section is also very detailed and complete, though it has a different layout
from the one commonly used in research articles. It includes data sources, the
study population, information about the use of study drugs, study end points, a
study oversight and a statistical analysis. The information related to the sources
of data, collection and analysis of data are included in those sections. Tables
are used to provide specific information about the participants, as well as
some graphs that clearly show specific data related to the study.
In conclusion,
both articles have a quite complete and detailed methods section, and though
each one has a different style and layout, both include the main elements that
must be present in the methods section of a research paper. However, the
introductions are quite different in each article. While the introduction in
the article written by Winke, Gass and Sydorenko (2010) is quite complete,
including the main information that an introduction to a research paper should
have, the article written by Cooper et al. (2011) has a very weak introduction,
which is very brief. Though the latter intends to include the main elements
that should be present in an introduction and in the right order, the
information given is quite scarce, particularly as regards the past research,
where neither
a literature review nor citations have been included
References
Cooper, W. O.,
Habel, L.A., Sox, C. M., Chan, K. A., Arbogast, P. G., Cheetham, T. C.,
…Ray, W. A. (2011). DHD Drugs and Serious
Cardiovascular Events in Children and Young Adults. New England Journal of Medicine. 365 (20), 1896-1904. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa1110212
Pajares, F. (2007). Elements of a proposal. Emory University. Retrieved from
http://www.des.emory.edu/mfp/proposal.html
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 Harbor,
MI: The University of Michigan Press.
Wiersma, W. (1995). Research
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edition). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
Wilkinson, A. M. (1991). The
scientist’s handbook for writing papers and
dissertations. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Winke, P., Gass, S. & Sydorenko, T. (2010) The Effects of Captioning
Videos Used for
Foreign Language Listening Activities. Language Learning and Technology Journal.
14 (1), 65–86. Retrieved from http://llt.msu.edu/vol14num1/winkegasssydorenko.pdf
