Academic Research: A comparative analysis

Research papers are an essential feature of the academic world. The writing associated with academic research is demanding and challenging, with a methodology and discipline all of its own. For that reason, different sections are comprehended within a Research Paper (RP), including title, abstract, introduction, literature review, methods, results, discussions, recommendations, references and appendixes. In this paper, two articles in the educational and medicine field correspondingly will be analysed. On one hand, the integration of inter-culture education into intensive reading teaching for English majors through project-based learning is considered, whereas assessment of perceived emotional intelligence and eating disorders among college students is also figured. Taking into account the articles’ introduction, literature review and methods, components and structures will be scrutinized so as to draw conclusions on similarities and differences between them.

It is widely known that writing introductions is an arduous and crucial task. According to Plato, the Greek philosopher, “[t]he beginning is half of the whole” (as cited in Swales & Feak,1994, p. 173). In that fashion, introductions set the foundations of the RPs so as to express the onset of the investigation. As Wallwort (2011) states “[t]he introduction presents the background knowledge that readers need so that they can appreciate how the findings of the paper are an advance on current knowlegde in the field” ( p. 195). It would seem to be that introductions also have a purpose to focus on when elaborating them. Thus, the main objective of introductions is “to provide the rationale for the paper, moving from general discussion of the topic to the particular question or hypothesis being investigated. A secondary purpose is to attract interest in the topic-and hence readers.” (Swales & Feak, Ibid. p. 156). Thus, regardless the field, RPs seem to pursue the same structure and general purposes either on Wu and Meng (2010)’s educational article or in Pettit, Jacobs, Page and Porras (2010)’s medicine paper.

In order to obtain acceptance and recognition, writers should write their introductions following a certain organizational pattern. “Swales and Feak (Ibid.) describe what they characterise as “moves” in the various sections of academic articles. Basically, a “move” is a stage in the development of the text that all writers go through. Swales and Feak (Ibid.) identify three “moves”: Establishing a research territory, establishing a niche and occupying the niche (p. 175). In Wu and Meng ( Ibid.)’s article, the introduction does not seem to follow Swales and Feak (Ibid.)’s description of moves rigidly. In the first part of the introduction after the same title, the authors show which the area of interest and research is to be analysed in their paper, skipping the literature review suggested by Swales and Feak (Ibid.). After that, Wu and Meng (Ibid.) narrow the scope and set the area of their analysis, indicating the gap in previous research as well as stating their purpose of investigation.

By comparison, Pettit, Jacobs, Page and Porras (Ibid.)’s article neither seems to pursue Swales and Feak (Ibid.)’s description of introductions thoroughly. Unlike Wu and Meng (Ibid.)’s title of the first part of the paper, Pettit, Jacobs, Page and Porras (Ibid.) divide the introduction into background and purpose. However, although the authors change the organization of the introduction, they develop the stages suggested by Swales and Feak (Ibid.). It may be considered that within the background section of the introduction, general research is shown as well as a revision of previous analysis and indication of a gap in earlier investigations whereas in the purpose section the authors outline thir purposes of their present research.

As regards literature reviews, both papers have their own styles and formats. Wu and Meng (Ibid.)’s paper has a separate division with its own headline named literature review. This part includes varied subtitles such as “Definition of inter-culture education”, “Language and culture are inter-connected”, “Project-based Learning: Means of integrating inter-culture education into intensive reading teaching” and “Programs related to the present study” having subsections in which the information is organized according to more specific topics. It might be suggested that Wu and Meng (Ibid.) consider the fact of including many authors to support their research of utmost importance due to the extension and meticulous organization of their literature review.

As opposed to Wu and Meng (Ibid.)’s article, Pettit, Jacobs, Page and Porras (Ibid.) include the literature review within the background section, entitled as such. It may be probable to indicate that a wide range of authors are cited in the body of the introduction, supporting the authors’ thesis and providing a theoretical background to the research. Consequently, Wallwort (Ibid.) states that “[t]he amount of detail you need to give varies inmensely from discipline to discipline” (p. 207), an issue which argues in favour of the difference in length between both papers. Considering Wallwort (Ibid.)’s statement, it might be possible to agree that the literature review in the medicine article by Pettit, Jacobs, Page and Porras (Ibid.) is shorter and less rigorous.

Concerning methods sections, Swales and Feak (Ibid.) state that "[t]he methods section describes, in various degrees of detail, methodology, materials, and procedures, [being] (. . .) the narrowest part of the RP." (p. 156). In contrast to introductions, this section is the easiest to write and “it is often the section that researchers write first” (Swales & Feak, Ibid., p. 159). According to the American Psychological Association (APA) (2010), “[i]t is both conventional and expedient to divide the Method section into labeled subsections.” (p. 29). That is the case of Pettit, Jacobs, Page and Porras (Ibid.)’s article in which subtitles can be seen such as sample, data collection and data analysis. Within the sample headline, participants are described and analysed in terms of numbers and percentages, whereas in the data collection title investigation techniques are developed as well as in the data analysis headline the gathering of information is described.

Likewise, Wu and Meng (Ibid.)’s RP contains subtitles in the body of the method section, though this part of the article is called research design. The subtitles mentioned in this paper are: research questions, participants, instruments, procedures of project-based learning and data analysis. In the first subsection, questions asked to participants are included and in the second subsection participants are described regarding the number of students, the frequency pupils have the classes, the amount of time they study outside the classes and how long the program extended. Within the instruments subsection, the researchers claim to collect quantitative and qualitative data while in the procedures of project-based learning part the development of the project is explained. Finally, in the data analysis subsection Wu and Meng (Ibid.) comment and emphasize the type of analysis they carried out, mentioning each of them but without going deeper into details. Broadly speaking, although both RPs differ on the headlines for each of the stages of the method section, it might be possible to agree that the two papers consider extremely valuable to analyse the methods thoroughly so as to enable the reader to judge whether the content of the paper is appropriate, reliable and worthy.

Having analysed the aforementioned RPs, it would seem that although the fields may vary, the way in which papers are written and structured are similar to each other. It might be suggested that there is a remarkable consistency regarding academic writing, following the usual sections and components of RPs. On account of some format aspects, there seems to be some minor changes which do not alter the original requirements for academic papers but they can be related to the type of journal the authors are applying to. Altogether, despite proper differences of each particular field and type of submission according to addressed audiences, the findings of this paper suggest that the RPs analysed are scientific and academic as well as they follow appropriate rules so as to be part of an academic context.















References
American Psychological Association. (2010). Publication Manual (6th ed). Washington, DC: British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data.
Pettit, M. L., Jacobs, S. C., Page, K. S., & Porras, C. V. (2010). An assessment of perceived emotional intelligence and eating disorders among college students. American Journal of Health Education, 41 (1), 46-52. Retrieved April 2011, from http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=EJ871145&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=EJ871145
Swales, J. M., & Feak, C. B. (1994). Academic writing for graduate students. Essential tasks and skills. Ann Harbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press.
Wallwork, A. (2011). English for Writing Research papers. New York: Springer.

Wu, S. & Meng, L. (2010). The integration of inter-culture education into intensive reading teaching for English majors through Project-based Learning. US-China Foreign Language, Volume 8, No.9. Retrieved from
http://0www.eric.ed.gov.novacat.nova.edu/ERICWebPortal/search/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED514716&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED514716