Journal articles, Methods section

Rewrite the following wordy passages. Make them sufficiently concise so that they are appropriate for journal article Methods sections. Do not get distracted by the science you do not need to understand the science fully to improve the passages with the conciseness techniques presented in chapter 2. Hints and word-count goals are provided for each passage to focus your efforts. 

With these two moves in mind, we examine the Methods sections of three hypothetical posters. The first poster concerns the detection of PCBs in full-fat milk. We include both the poster Methods section (excerpt 9A) and the journal article Methods section (excerpt 9B). In this way, you can see for yourself the differences and similarities between the two genres. A key difference is that the poster includes far less information than the journal article. For example, the poster addresses only full-fat and skim milk, whereas the journal article also includes half-fat milk. Half-fat milk is an intermediate case and serves only to confirm the two extreme cases. Thus, the intermediate case can be omitted without changing the essential message of the poster. 

Before we leave submove 3.2, we want to address one more question how much detail should be included when describing proposed methodology In a journal article, the general rule of thumb is to include enough detail so that an expert in your field can repeat the experiment. Thus, a journal article Methods section... 

Each chapter on technique ends with the short section called "Where Do I Go from Here " This includes suggestions for those who wish to investigate a topic further. It is not possible for a book of this nature to cover all issues of implementation for each technique. We assume that those who want to pursue a topic further will have access to library facilities and to the Internet, so no attempt has been made to provide a comprehensive reading list. Regular journal articles provide overviews of research in each area, so the section on applications toward the end of each chapter similarly provides examples of how each method is used rather than a comprehensive review. 

In chapter 1, we learned that genres have both broad and fine organizational structures. In this chapter, we focus on the broad organizational structure of the journal article, signaled by identifiable sections and headings. In general, journal articles are divided into four major sections. These sections have the familiar names Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion collectively, this organizational structure is referred to as the IMRD format. In addition to these four... 

The Introduction section of a journal article Identlhes the research area, explains the Importance of the research, provides background Information, cites and summarizes key literature in the held, points out what still needs to be studied, and Introduces the reader to the work presented In the article. The Methods section—formally known as Materials and Methods or Experimental (Section)— describes how the study was conducted. The Results section summarizes quantitative (and possibly qualitative) data collected during the study. In the Discussion section, authors interpret their data and suggest the larger implications and/or applications of their results. Each of these major sections can be further divided into moves, as we will see in subsequent chapters. 

Recall that the actual seguencing of sections In a completed journal article does not normally reflect the exact order In which most authors write their articles. In fact, writers often begin with the Methods section (as you will). As writers progress through the different sections of their papers, they go back and forth among the sections, revisiting previously drafted sections to modify them as needed. 

What we call the Methods section is given a more formal name in journal articles, such as... 

What have you learned about writing Methods sections from other writing courses and labs Let s evaluate your knowledge with the following pretest. In column 1, place a Yes next to those items that you think should be included in a Methods section of a journal article. Place a No next to items that you think should be omitted. Use a question mark ( ) if you are unsure. (You will use column 2 to repeat this exercise at the end of the chapter.)... 

To see for yourself how chemists write Methods sections for journal articles, we have included excerpts from the published literature throughout this chapter. These excerpts illustrate appropriate levels of detail, formality, and conciseness when writing for expert chemists. We encourage you to use these excerpts (rather than lab reports or lab manuals) as models for your writing. 

Move 1 is approached slightly differently in synthesis papers (e.g., articles published in The Journal of Organic Chemistry). Such papers typically describe a series of related reactions, often totaling 10 or more individual syntheses. Rather than describe all of the chemicals used for these many reactions at the start of the Methods section, authors instead include only general information in move 1 (e.g., All NMR studies were performed on a 500 mHZ instrument. ). A common subheading for this move is General. Information about specihc reagents and materials are included in move 2, where the individual syntheses are described. 

Upon completion of exercises 3.5 and 3.6, you probably noticed that not all written works in journals strictly adhere to the move structure in figure 3.1. Not surprisingly, the move structure does not apply to genres intended for a more general audience (e.g., news alerts, book reviews, editorial remarks), nor does it apply to all research-related works. For example, research articles published in Organic Letters omit a Methods section entirely instead, the procedures are published on the Internet as supporting information. 

Because of these variations, we end this section with a cautionary note Although the move structure in figure 3.1 presents a common and effective way to organize your Methods section, it will not apply in all situations. Move structures vary from journal to journal and article to article hence, ultimately you must model your organizational structure after an article similar to the one that you plan to write. 

Read and review the Methods sections of the journal articles that you collected during your literature search (see chapter 2). As you read these articles, pay attention to how the authors organized their methods and what information they included. How much detail is included in descriptions of materials, instrumentation, procedures,... 

The first move of the Methods section provides a description of chemicals, materials, and/or samples. Beginning writers often wonder what to include in this section (level of detail) and how these details should be presented (level of formality), both issues related to audience. With respect to detail, it is customary to report the name, purity, and vendor for all essential chemicals and materials used in the work. (Incidental chemicals, e.g., solvents used to clean glassware, need not be reported.) Similarly, for samples, both how and where the samples were collected should be described. With respect to formality, the journal article requires complete sentences. A common mistake is to use lists although commonplace in... 

Imagine that you prepared a stock standard solution of arsenic in your research project. You purchased an arsenic concentrated standard (1000 pg/mL) from Spex Industries in Hoboken, New Jersey. You prepared a 100 pg/mL stock standard solution by adding 10 mb of the concentrated standard to a 100 mb volumetric flask and diluting to the mark with deionized water. How would you report this information in the Methods section of a journal article ... 

Consider the abbreviations used in the Methods sections of the journal articles that you have selected for your writing project. Make a list of these abbreviations and their definitions. (Note Look for definitions earlier in the article if the abbreviations are used without definition in the Methods section.)... 

Rewrite the following list of chemicals in a way that is appropriate for the Methods section of a journal article. Assume that all chemical compounds (i.e., reagents... 

Many of you have already described procedures in a lab report. Most likely, you included items such as the equation that you used to calculate percent yield or the step-by-step instructions that you followed to complete a synthesis (e.g., Heat to reflux. or Stir constantly for 10 min. ). Are such items also appropriate in a journal article To answer this question, we analyze several different excerpts. Each excerpt describes a common chemical procedure. Although by no means comprehensive, these few examples should get you started and help you understand what an expert audience expects in this move of the Methods section. 

Find three synthesis articles in The Journal of Organic Chemistry. Compare the Methods sections in these articles with excerpts 3K and 3L. Which of your three articles, if any, include the same types of information that you reported in parts a, b, and c of exercise 3.14 ... 

Although the Methods section is overwhelmingly written in the past tense, there are few correct instances of present tense. The general rule of thumb for deciding when to use past or present tense in the Methods section (and elsewhere in the journal article) is as follows ... 

You may have been taught in other writing courses not to use passive voice because it is considered weak. However, passive voice, when used appropriately, strengthens writing in chemistry journal articles (and other scientific genres). Figure 3.3 shows the frequency of passive voice in each section of a chemistry journal article. Note that passive voice is used in all sections, but it is most common in the Methods section. 

As a review, try explaining the following to a friend or colleague who has not yet tried to write a Methods section for a journal article ... 

All sections of a journal article lead up to or away from the results section, and the results section may retain its value long after the methods and conclusions have become obsolete. 

In hgure 3.3 (chapter 3), we reported the frequencies of passive voice in each section of a journal article. If you look back at figure 3.3, you will see that passive voice is used more frequently in Methods sections than in Results (or Discussion) sections. This distribution suggests that both active voice and passive voice are used in Results sections. Past and present tense, when combined with active and passive voice, form four different tense-voice combinations. Each combination has its own function, several of which are illustrated in table 4.1. 

The Introduction begins with the most general information (the research area) and gradually shifts to a more specihc focus (the current work), preparing the reader for the highly specihc focus of the Methods section. This transition from general to specihc is apparent in the now-familiar hourglass shape of the journal article. 

In what ways is an Introduction different from the Methods, Results, and Discussion sections of a journal article ... 

The poster text is divided into the same general IMRD sections as the journal article Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion. Similarly, most posters include an Acknowledgments section, some have an abbreviated References section, and all have a title and author list. Most posters do not include an abstract, in part because of space limitations and in part because an abstract already appears in the conference proceedings. Like the journal article, the IMRD structure of the poster follows an hourglass shape. The top (Introduction) and bottom (Discussion) sections have a broader focus, while the middle sections (Methods and Results) have a narrower focus. Each section of the poster can be divided into individual moves or steps that guide viewers in a conventional way through the content of each section. These moves are analyzed in the next part of the chapter. 

Consider the following excerpts taken from experimental sections of Journal articles. Convert each procedure into a single item or a bulleted list of items that would be appropriate for a poster Methods section. Omit information that would not be included in a poster. 

Sentences a-c are taken from journal articles. For each, (1) indicate which poster section the information would belong in (Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion) and (2) rewrite the information so that it is appropriate for a poster. 

Unlike the methods section of a journal article, operational parameters (settings under which an instrument is operated) are not typically included in the methods section of a proposal. (See chapter 3.)... 

Another common place for redundancy is in transitional sentences. In journal articles, there are two transitional moves at the start of the Results section (to remind readers about methods) and at the start of the Discussion section (to remind readers about results). Caution is needed not to repeat the same sentence in these moves. For example, if you wrote in the Results section As shown in Figure 1, the rate increased with the addition of the catalyst, you could not use this sentence again at the start of the Discussion section. To avoid repetition, you must either state the repeated information differently, or combine it with new information. An example of the latter approach is shown in excerpt 18B, where the authors combine repeated information from the Methods section (that rats were fed 3 pg Se/g of diet) with new information from the Results section (that this diet significantly reduced the incidence of mammary tumors). 

Consider the following subheadings from a draft of the Materials and Methods section of a journal article. Make changes, where appropriate, so that the headings are parallel. 

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