Introductions and Methods sections

Analyzing Introductions and Methods sections

Particularly invaluable are research papers (RP) in any fields of studies since they provide the possibility to share knowledge and carry out investigations in any field. At the same time, they allow researchers to become members of a discourse community. RPs have distinctive characteristics and are composed of several parts: Title, Abstract, Acknowledgement, Introduction, Literature Review, Methods, Results, Discussions, Recommendations, Reference, and Appendixes. The present paper will delve into the Introduction, Literature Review and Method sections of two RPs from the education field and medicine field in order to depict their peculiarities. The former is named "Newspaper Articles in University EFL Reading Classes" (Ito, 1993) and the latter is named "Placebo Use in the United Kingdom: Results from a National Survey of Primary Care Practitioners" (Howick et al., 2013).

According to Swales and Freak (1994), Introductions must catch the readers’ attention as the writers need to sell their product to the readers. They compared writers to plants by saying that “as plants compete for light and space, so writers of RPs compete for acceptance and recognition” (p. 174). Introductions can be analyzed by taking the Create Research Space Model (CARS) in consideration. Following this model, Introductions are written in a general-specific manner. This means that statements go from a general topic of discussion to a particular situation of the analysis. Apart from considering this model, writers are expected to use an organizational pattern to present their introductions.  These patterns are composed by three moves or cycles, which have specific semantic and syntactic characteristics.

In both papers the different moves are likely to be detected. The main aim of the first move is to review previous research. Although writers have chosen to introduce other investigations directly, the way that has been done was different. In "Newspaper Articles in University EFL Reading Classes", Ito (1993) starts the section by saying “It has been long acknowledged that…” (p.1). On the other hand, in the other paper writers start less subtly by saying “Surveys in other countries suggest…” (Howick et al., 2013, p.2).  As regards tenses, both Introductions have the same pattern as writers have chosen to use present tenses. In the paper that comes from the medicine field, writers have used Present Simple to refer to the state of current knowledge. In the other paper, the author has used not only Present Simple but also Present Perfect in a bid to refer to the previous studies so as to show they are of utmost importance.

Especially noteworthy is the fact that the second move is presented in different ways. Its aim is to present the gap that exists in the previous research, which will provide meaning to the current paper. In a bid to show that gap, writers normally use connectors that express contrast. This is what Ito (1993) had done in his paper when using “but” in the following sentence “Newspaper articles in those textbooks, no doubt, represent authentic use of English, but they usually report events that took place more than a year before at best” (p. 1). Contrary to this, in the other paper, writers used words that carry negative connotation to show there is a gap. Some examples of these words are: only, unknown, barrier and confusion. These words were included in different sentences within the second move. Howick et al. (2013) stated:

 The only survey of placebo use in the UK was a 1976 qualitative study restricted to Welsh practitioners. Hence current prevalence of placebo use in UK primary care is unknown. A barrier to investigating placebo use is that confusion surrounds the ‘placebo’ concept.  For example, placebos are often characterized as inactive and nonspecific when in fact they can be active, and have specific effects, especially for relieving pain. (p. 2)

The aim of the third move is to occupy the gap that the writers have found by outlining purposes of the present studies and announcing the principal findings.  There are two different statements to start this move. Statements can be purposive or descriptive. The former states the purpose and the latter describes the present study. The paper written by Ito (1993) has started  with a purposive statement as he claims “This paper reports a simple but effective use of current newspaper articles in the form of a weekly short quiz in advanced EFL reading classes at Nara University of Education, Japan” (p.2). Ito (1993) continues with a descriptive statement by expressing

This weekly newspaper quiz not only takes full advantage of newspaper articles as authentic reading materials but also focuses on their immediacy as an important motivating factor for Japanese university students, whose motivation to learn English has generally dwindled very much after they have passed the all-important entrance examinations which determine most of their future career. (p.2)

In the other paper, the third move starts with a descriptive statement and then a purposive statement is introduced when the authors claim “We aimed to discover if UK general practitioners (GPs) prescribe placebos as frequently as elsewhere and also to understand the conditions under which general practitioners find placebos ethical” (p.2).

            Literature Reviews might be embedded in the first move of the Introduction indicating that a gap in the previous research has been found; or sometimes Literature Reviews can stand in isolation as a separate section. Both papers have their Literature Review inside their Introduction. Ito (1993) presents it inside the first move. In the paper coming from the medicine field, the Literature Review can be seen in the first and second move, as the authors start without mentioning any previous work in particular but referring to “surveys in various countries” (Howick et al., 2013, p. 2); and then, they continue by presenting another survey which was carried out in 1976  which is the one that shows there is a gap that needs to be filled.

            When producing the Methods section, authors should take into account that some specific information must be included, such as, the tool that has been used to collect data, the people who have participated and what is exactly what has been done. A peculiar characteristic of this section is the fact that it is often written in passive voice in order to avoid being personal. In these two papers, this rule has been applied as the use of passive voice sentences in the present and in the past is very frequent.

Swales and Freak (1994) claimed that Methods sections are normally divided into three subcategories, which are: participants, materials and procedure. In the paper written by Ito (1993), there is no Methods section as such, but there is a subtitle after the Introduction under the name of Preparation and Administration of the Newspaper Quiz. This section is also divided in three subsections: Quiz Format, Sources and Administration. It can be said that the first two subsections are part of the materials subcategory Swales and Freak (1994) refer to. In these two parts the author gives details about the quiz that has been used. A very clear example of this is the beginning of the Quiz Format subsection.

The newspaper quiz takes the form of a modified cloze test. It is different from the ordinary type of cloze test in several ways: the blanks, 10 in all, are placed rather deliberately instead of being placed at regular intervals; only nouns and verbs, usually those which are closely related to the content of a selected article, are deleted; the deleted words are listed on the blackboard in alphabetical order as the alternatives for the blanks; the use of a dictionary is allowed and encouraged. (Ito, 1993, p. 2)

The Administration subsection can be identified as the procedure section mentioned by Swales & Freak (1994). In this section how the research has been carried out is explained in detail. Ito (1993) creates a list of the different steps that the students have gone through when using the quiz. The participants section is not included in this paper. I adhere to the view that this happens because there is nothing in particular that the readers needs to know about them as the author has already said they were Japanese university students after passing the all-important examinations that will determine most of their future career.

In the other paper, writers have chosen to use a similar strategy, that is to say, they also divided the Methods section in four different subsections, which are Participants, Defining Pure and Impure Placebos, Survey Instrument and Statistical Analysis. The second and third parts can be taken as if they were one since they both refer to the material that has been used. The last section is the procedure part of the research. It is interesting to mention that in this last part, writers have changed the way to present their work as they are constantly using active voice with the personal pronoun “we”.

We used descriptive statistics (means and 95% confidence intervals) to describe practitioner characteristics and frequencies of placebo use. We reported how often respondents used all pure and all impure placebos at least once in their career (mean and 95% CI). For each type of placebo we categorized prevalence of use into: frequent (daily or approximately once per week), occasional (approximately once per month or once per year) and rare/never (more than once per year or never). (Howick et al., 2013, p. 4)

It can be concluded that even though these two papers have some differences, authors have used similar strategies and linguistic features. As regards organization, both papers have a similar structure even though the titles and subtitles of the Methods section do not coincide. In both Introductions authors have chosen to present a gap by the use of the three moves which have been easily identified. In both cases, Literature Reviews have been included in the Introduction section within the first and/or second move.

Reference

Howick et al. (2013). Placebo use in the United Kingdom: Results from a national survey of primary care practitioners. Plos One, 8(3), doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0058247

Ito, H. (1993). Newspaper articles in university EFL reading classes. Bulletin of Institute for Educational Research of Nara University of Education, 29, 49-61.

Swales, J.M., & Feak, C.B. (1994). Academic writing for graduate students: Essential tasks and skills. Ann Harbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press.