So far, you have learnt the about the process of research: asking an RQ, designing a study, collecting data, describing and summarising the data, and analysing the data. In this chapter, you will learn to:
A diagram showing the six steps of research, arranged in a cycle: Ask, Design, Collect, Classify and summarise, Analyse, Report. Step 6 (Report) is highlighted, captioned “Reporting and writing research”.
Research needs to be effectively communicated and shared, so the results can be used, evaluated and built on by others. The purpose of writing about research is to effectively and clearly communicate.
Research may be shared using face-to-face or online presentations (Section 35.4) or written documents (Section 35.5). The style and expectations vary widely between these two formats, between disciplines, and even between journals in the same discipline. Hence, this chapter gives general comments about writing, rather than specific requirements. Formal guidelines for writing about research exist, for both experimental[96] and observational studies [106], though we will not discuss these specifically. Since different disciplines and journals have their own styles, read articles from your discipline or target journal for examples of the required style and formatting.
Write carefully and precisely. Use simple, clear but technically-correct language. Use the [Glossary] if necessary. Carefully choose every word you use to ensure it conveys the correct and intended meaning. [102] concluded, from experiments, that students often believe that using fancy words makes them appear smarter. However, he recommended students ’write clearly and simply if you can, and you’ll be more likely to be thought of as intelligent’ (p. 153).
Use correct spelling, grammar, punctuation and formatting. Use (but do not rely upon) a spell checker and grammar checker; use a dictionary. Specifically:
Be inclusive. Unless specifically referring to men or women, use inclusive language (e.g., ’fire-fighter’, not ’fireman’; ’nurse’ rather than ’male nurse’).
Take care using comparative terms. For example, writing ’this treatment is better’ must be clarified. Better than what? And ’better’ in what sense: cost? ease of use? patient outcomes?
Use terminology consistently. Different words may be used for the same concept in research and statistics. Use the term that is common in your discipline; most of all, be consistent.
Be clear, concise and complete. Place material in an Appendix (Subsection 35.5.8) if it will interrupt the flow of the narrative. Often, this material can be made available online if too lengthy in printed form.
Ensure pronouns clearly identify the nouns they refer to. For example, consider this sentence: ’When the weeds and crops were sprayed, its growth rate reduced by \(80\)%’. The word its may refers to the growth rate of the weeds, the crops, or both.
Ensure verbs and nouns agree. Both the nouns and verbs in a sentence should be singular or plural. For example, ’the rats was weighed’ should be ’the rats were weighed’. Usually, ’data’ is considered plural (’datum’ is the singular; ’dataset’ is also singular), so write ’the data were right skewed’ rather than ’the data was right skewed’ (but the latter use is becoming more common). In any case, be consistent.
Avoid leaps of logic, and reaching conclusions unsupported by the evidence. Ensure your conclusions are consistent with the evidence in the study. For example, a student project found that the proportion of provisional drivers (those yet to get a full licence) was higher in the free university car park, compared to paid car parks. They concluded that provisional drivers seek to ’save money by parking in free car parks’. This may be true, but is not supported by the evidence. The evidence simply shows a difference in proportions, but does not explain why.
Present the facts in an unbiased manner, and avoid promoting personal opinions. For example, do not describe results as ’exciting’. Because academic writing generally shuns personal opinions, writing in third person (’the fertiliser was applied’) is usually (but not always) preferred over writing in first person (’I applied the fertiliser’).
Writing well is difficult; editing can be painful; revising is time-consuming. Revise your document carefully as many times as necessary; having someone else read and comment on your writing can be useful.
Producing reproducible research. When possible, research should be reproducible (Section 5.3). This includes describing the protocol, and making available any data (when possible; sometime this is not ethical or permitted) and any instructions or code used to analyse the data.
Authorship. Ensure everyone who has made an intellectual contribution is listed as an author. [193] suggests authorship be considered for those involved with:
Acknowledgements. An optional Acknowledgements section is used to acknowledge research funding bodies, and people who supported the research. Avoid writing ’The authors would like to thank...’; instead, thank them: ’We thank...’. Reviewers of the article, when appropriate (who are almost always volunteers), are usually thanked also.
Use of artificial intelligence (AI). Any use of AI in the study should be disclosed. This includes using AI during the research (e.g., generating figures or research design) or when writing about the research. The description should indicate where AI was used, which AI systems (such as ChatGPT) were used, and how they were used. AI also may make mistakes, so any material generated using AI should be verified by the authors.
Plagiarism. Writing about research almost always refers to, and builds on, others’ work: to formulate the research question, to establish ideas and to explain the background of the research. However, plagiarism (using other people’s words and ideas without acknowledgement) must be avoided. All sources used when writing research should be acknowledged. Plagiarism is a serious offence: it is theft of intellectual property. Do not plagiarise; use quotes if necessary and cite the work of others as needed. Plagiarism applies to words, text, images, photographs, ideas, etc.
Presentations are often used to share progress reports of research, or give an overview of completed research. They are used at conferences, workshops, and progress meetings, and may be given to peers, stakeholders, funding bodies, small groups of other researchers, or work teams. Presentations should be adapted to suit the time allocated and the audience: a conference presentation to your research peers should be different from a presentation to a progress meeting.
As a verbal medium, speak slowly, clearly, loudly, and with expression. Use eye contact, and practice beforehand. Ensure you keep to your allocated time. Ensure technical or unusual words are pronounced correctly; aids to correct pronunciation of many unfamiliar terms have been given in this book.
As a visual medium, presentations usually omit technical details and give the audience an overview of the major points and processes; sharing tedious technical details is unlikely to produce an engaging presentation. Presentations usually focus on the why and the what of the research. Presentations may encourage audience members to learn more by reading your written documents (Section 35.5).
Presentations also tend to use graphs, images, short sentences, and minimal text. Presentation software encourages the use of fancy fonts, transitions and animations, but these are usually more distracting than informative; avoid. Ensure your fonts and colours are readable from a distance (especially in tables and graphs).
Using bullet points on slides, while common, is not necessary; short sentences are fine. Slides should not contain information that you simply read to the audience; a good presenter adds important details around the structure provided by information on the slides. The slides guide, but do not have to tell, the story of your research.
Written documents are more likely to be formally written and prepared than presentations. Unlike presentations, written documents tend to provide details of how the research was conducted. Written documents may be journal articles, progress reports, reports to stakeholders, or funding applications; these are all referred to as ’articles’ in what follows, for brevity.
Journal articles, and most other written documents too, should contain sufficient details so that other professionals can repeat the study (Section 9.2); i.e., the research should, as far as possible, be reproducible (Section 5.3).
Figure35.5.The connection between the article and the steps studied. The Abstract briefly covers all aspects of the study, and the Discussion explains what has been learnt through the process, and discusses the results.
Titles are important: poor titles can discourage a reader from reading an article. A title should clearly describe the main purpose of the article. Sometimes this is achieved by posing questions in the title (’Do warning lights and sirens reduce ambulance response times?’; [207]) or providing answers in the title (’No harm from five year ingestion of oats in coeliac disease’; [223]).
The Abstract (or Summary, or Overview) is a short section at the start of an article summarising the whole article, including the results; it is not an introduction. The Abstract is the most important part of any article: it is the only part that many people will read. Some journals require a structured abstract, with specific sub-headings (for example, Introduction, Methods, Results, and Conclusion (or Discussion)).
Readers should reach the conclusions based on the evidence presented. Sometimes, articles have separate Conclusion and Discussion sections; sometimes they are combined.
The References (or Bibliography) section gives the full citations of any work referenced, in the required format (such as APA, Harvard, etc.). Most journals have strict guidelines for how references should be listed and formatted (which must be followed).
Sometimes an Appendix is included, which contains important material that would otherwise break the flow of the article’s narrative. The Appendix may include large tables, data, images, discussions of technical details, mathematical development, and so on. Sometimes, this material is placed online.
Subsection35.6.1Constructing tables, graphs and images
Good figures and tables take time and care to prepare (Chapter 17). Their purpose should always be to display information in the simplest, clearest possible way, and to highlight the important information. In general, tables, graphs and images:
should avoid using different colours, line types or fonts unless these have a purpose (i.e., to differentiate between groups in the study); if they are used, their purpose should be explained (e.g., using a figure legend or caption).
Figures and images typically have captions below, while tables typically have captions above. The source of images (e.g., the photographer) should be acknowledged (as ethical practice), when appropriate. Tables should use very few horizontal lines, and no vertical lines.
Any numbers presented should be rounded appropriately. Software may report more decimal places (or more significant figures) than necessary. When appropriate, ensure units of measurement are given.
Be consistent and careful with decimal numbers. Some journals require numbers to be written with a leading zero (e.g., \(P = 0.024\)), and some do not (e.g., \(P = .024\)). Counts are usually written in words when fewer than ten (or sometimes twelve), and otherwise presented using digits. However, usually numbers are written in full when starting a sentence (’Thirty-seven people volunteered’).
Numbers taken from software output may need to be sensibly rounded before being included in a report (including in tables and graphs), and units of measurement added.
Readers should not be able to misinterpret your meaning, so write carefully and precisely. One potential source of confusion is words with a different meaning in research compared to every-day use or in other disciplines (called lexical ambiguity; [248]). Some specific words where care is needed are given below.
Confidence: In research, ’confidence’ is usually used in the phrase ’confidence interval’ (Section 24.4). Take care when using ’confidence’ in other contexts to avoid confusion.
Control: In research, a ’control’ is usually used in the context of a control group (Definition 2.45), but may have other meanings in other disciplines.
Correlation: In research, correlation describes the (often linear) relationship between two quantitative variables (Subsection 16.4.1). In general usage, ’correlation’ may mean any ’association’ between any two variables.
Estimate: In research, ’estimating’ means to calculate an estimate for an unknown population parameter using sample information. In general usage, ’estimate’ often means to make an educated guess.
Experiment: In research, an experiment is a specific type of research study (Section 4.4). The word ’study’ can be used to talk about research more generally.
Independent: This word has many different uses in statistics and research, in science, and in general usage. The word ’independent’ in this book refers to events that do not impact each other in a probabilistic sense (Section 18.4).
Normal: In research, ’normal’ often refers to the ’normal distribution’ (Section 20.3). If this is not the meaning you intend to convey, consider using the word ’usual’ or similar.
Odds: In research, ’odds’ has a specific meaning (Section 12.5) and is not the same as probability. In general usage, ’probability’ and ’odds’ are often used interchangeably.
Population: In research, the ’population’ refers to a larger group of interest (Definition 2.2). In general usage, ’population’ often refers to groups of people specifically.
Significant: In research, ’significance’ is usually understood to refer to ’statistical significance’ (Section 28.6). If this is not the meaning you intend to convey, consider using the word ’substantial’ or similar.
Written documents are usually formal, and include details of what was done. They should be written carefully and precisely, using the appropriate technically-correct words. Use short sentences for easier reading and omit unnecessary words.
Select the correct word to use to complete this sentence: its or it’s? ’Each kangaroo was observed for signs that [______] tracking device caused discomfort.’
Explain how this sentence can be misinterpreted, and write an improved version: ’The research assistant recorded the pH of the lake water in the beaker after removing weeds.’
Explain how this sentence can be misinterpreted, and write an improved version: ’The new diet lost more weight, on average, than the traditional diet.’
The regression correlation coefficients of \(0.999996066\) and \(0.999653453\) were obtained for the temperatures and speeds respectively [as associated with the time the engine had been running].
In a student project, the heights that students could jump vertically were compared, starting from a squat or standing position. Every student in the study performed both jumps. Critique the numerical summary produced by the research team (Table 35.8).
The aim of a student project was ’to determine if the proportion of males and females that use disposable (coffee) cups on campus is the same’. The two variables observed on each person in the study were (a) whether the person used a disposable cup, and (b) the sex of the person. In reporting the results in their Abstract, the students state:
Based on the sample results, the \(95\)% confidence interval for the population mean number of disposable cups used by males and females is between \(0.690\) and \(1.625\text{.}\) Meaning that the population mean is likely to fall between those two intervals.
The aim of a student project was ’to determine if the average hang time is different between two types of paper plane designs’. The two variables in the study were: design type (Basic Dart; Hunting Flight), and the hang time of the flight of the plane (in seconds). In reporting the results in their Abstract, the students state:
Very strong evidence proving a difference (\(P = .000\)) between the Basic Dart mean hang time (\(881.84 140.73\)) and the Hunting Flight mean hang time (\(1504.19 699.86\)). \(95\)% CI for the means of The Basic Dart (\(829.29\) – \(934.39\)) and the Hunting Flight (\(1242.86\) – \(1765.52\)).
