How should I structure the Introduction?

INTRODUCTION

METHODS

RESULTS

DISCUSSION

CONCLUSION

How should I structure the Introduction?

An Introduction generally answers the following questions. You can use the answers to these questions to structure your Introduction.

 

• What is the problem?

• Are there any existing solutions (i.e. in the literature)?

• Which solution is the best?

• What is its main limitation? (i.e. What gap am I hoping to fill?)

• What do I hope to achieve?

• Have I achieved what I set out to do?

 

How should I structure the Methods?

The Methods section should answer most of the following questions, obviously depending on your discipline:

 

• What / Who did I study? What hypotheses was I testing?

• Where did I carry out this study and what characteristics did this location have?

• How did I design my experiment / sampling and what assumptions did I make?

• What variable was I measuring and why?

• How did I handle / house / treat my materials / subjects? What kind of care / precautions were taken?

• What equipment did I use (plus modifications) and where did this equipment come from (vendor source)?

• What protocol did I use for collecting my data?

• How did I analyze the data? Statistical procedures? Mathematical equations? Software?

• What probability did I use to decide significance?

• What references to the literature could I give to save me having to describe something in detail?

• What difficulties did I encounter?

• How does my methodology compare with previously reported methods, and what significant advances does it make?

 

LANGUAGE to use speaking about Methods:

In order to validate the results, we first had to...

In an attempt to identify the components, it was decided to...

To provide a way of characterizing the samples, an adaptation of Smith’s method [2011] was

used.

For the purpose of investigating the patients previous medical history, we...

Our aim was to get a general picture of...

This choice was aimed at getting a general picture of...

 

 

How should I structure the Results?

The Results should answer the following questions.

1. What did I find?

2. What did I not find?

3. What did I find that I was not expecting to find? (e.g. that contradicts my hypotheses)

 

How should I begin the Results?

There are two typical ways to begin the Results. The first is to give a general panorama of your surveys, experiments etc. without repeating the details you gave in the Methods section, as in the three examples below:

 

Overall, the results presented below show that …

The three key results of this empirical study are: …

The following emergent themes were identified from the analysis: …

 

How should I begin the Discussion?

Below are four possible beginnings for the same paper.

 

(1) Remind readers of your goals, preferably in a single sentence:

One of the main goals of this experiment was to attempt to find a way to predict who shows more task persistence.

 

(2) Refer back to the questions (hypotheses, predictions etc.) that you posed in your Introduction:

These results both negate and support some of the hypotheses. It was predicted that greater perfectionism scores would result in greater task persistence, but this turned out not to be the case.

(3) Refer back papers you cited in your Review of the Literature:

Previous studies conflict with the data presented in the Results: it was more common for any type of feedback to impact participants than no feedback (Shanab et al., 1981; Elawar &Corno, 1985).

(4) Briefly restate the most important points from your Results:

While not all of the results were significant, the overall direction of results showed trends that could be helpful to learning about who is more likely to persist and what could influence persistence.

 

HOW to end the Conclusion

 

However, it remains to be further clarified whether our findings could be applied to …

Further studies are needed to determine whether these findings could be applied to components other than those used for …

One area of future work will be to represent these relationships explicitly …

Future work will mainly cover the development of additional features for the software, such as …

Future work will involve the application of the proposed algorithm to data from …

Future work should give priority to (1) the formation of X; (2) the interaction of Y; and (3) the processes connected with Z.

Future work should benefit greatly by using data on …

We suggest that policy makers should give stakeholders a greater role in …

We recommend that stakeholders should be given a great role in …

 

Cut redundant words

The words in square brackets below are probably all redundant, and could simply be removed without having to make further changes to the sentence.

 

It was small [in size], round [in shape], yellow [in color] and heavy [in weight].

This will be done in [the month of] December for [a period of] six days.

Our research [activity] initially focused [attention] on [the process of] designing the architecture.

The [task of] analysis is not [a] straightforward [operation] and there is a [serious] danger that …

The analyses [performed in this context] highlighted [among other things] the [fundamental and critical] importance of using the correct methodology in a consistent [and coherent] manner [of conduction].

 

And list the implications

MARKERS and their FUNCTIONS

 

In order to do this / To this end / With this

mind

To state the purpose of something. For

instance, you outline a requirement,

and then you begin to say how you

could meet this requirement

 

Then / Following this / Afterwards

To indicate a temporal relationship

 

For example, / An example of this

is / In fact, / Unlike / Nevertheless,

To give an example or supporting/negating

evidence. By ‘example’ I don’t mean

just a list of items, but a complete

example or evidence that supports or

negates what you have just been saying

and that requires several sentences to

explain

 

In addition / Another way to do / An

additional feature of

To add additional points. For instance,

if you are focusing just on one thing

(e.g. X) and you talk about X’s attributes

 

On the other hand / However / In contrast

To qualify what you have just said: i.e. to

indicate an exception or the two sides of

an argument

 

Due to / Since / Although

To give reasons for something

 

Thus / Therefore / Consequently / Because

of this

To indicate a consequence

 

This means that / This highlights that /

These considerations imply that / In

conclusion / In sum

To announce and give a mini conclusion

about what you have said in the previous

sentences

 

Figure 1 shows / As can be seen in Table 2

To talk about figures, tables etc.

 

Firstly, secondly, finally

To introduce elements in a list

 

As far as X is concerned, / In relation to X,

In the case of / With regard to / As noted

earlier

To introduce a new element; to recall

something mentioned earlier

 

It is worth noting that / Interestingly

To add some additional information or

make some comment, not necessarily

directly about something you have

mentioned before but as an aside.

INTRODUCTION

METHODS

RESULTS

DISCUSSION

CONCLUSION

How should I structure the Introduction?

An Introduction generally answers the following questions. You can use the answers to these questions to structure your Introduction.

 

• What is the problem?

• Are there any existing solutions (i.e. in the literature)?

• Which solution is the best?

• What is its main limitation? (i.e. What gap am I hoping to fill?)

• What do I hope to achieve?

• Have I achieved what I set out to do?