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A result section in a research paper is where you present the results of your experiments and data analysis. This may be difficult, especially if you are unfamiliar with scientific writing conventions. In this guide, I will walk you through the step-by-step process of how to write a results section. I will provide tips for organizing your data, presenting your findings, and properly citing your sources. Let's get started!
What to consider while writing the result section?
Reiterating the purpose and goals of your research paper can help your readers refocus on the essential parts of your academic piece. That is an excellent place to start in your findings section.
Your readers have already read the introduction, literature review, and research methods in your research paper; it is now time and appropriate to draw their attention back to the purpose. The goal of your paper may be restated in a single brief paragraph.
- An effective results section of a research paper clearly and concisely presents the key results of a study in an unbiased manner.
- The results should be written in the past tense when describing the experiment but can switch to the present tense when interpreting the results or making recommendations based on the findings.
- The results section should be limited to information directly relevant to the research question.
- Any extraneous information should be either removed or relegated to a separate section.
By following these guidelines, researchers can write an effective results section that presents their findings clearly and concisely.
What is included in the result section?
Academic writing needs to be concise, neutral, and unbiased. To boost the credibility of your research, record each result that supports or contradicts your initial hypotheses.
The results section of your academic paper gives you a chance to:
- Summarise the data that has been gathered in the form of descriptive statistics.
- Report on the results of relevant and suitable evidential statistical analysis and interpretation intended to address the research questions in your academic paper or support your hypotheses.
- Demonstrate the importance of your study.
- It is best to employ sub-sections for a well-organized Research Results section.
- Your research questions, hypothesis, or models may serve as the foundation for these subsections or divisions.
- The statistical analysis that you conducted.
- Only the results of your study, and nothing else, should be included in the Results section. The findings demonstrate:
- Charts, tables, graphs, and other figures employed to show data
- A sentence-level contextual analysis of this data that clarifies what it means
- Any information that relates to the main research topic.
- All supporting evidence.
Structure and approach of the result section
It's crucial for a successful scholar to know how to write a results section and properly structure it. There are two ways of summarizing and structuring the results for the majority of research paper’s formats.
- Give a brief synopsis of the findings after presenting the results. When examining your data, for instance, you could have found an unexpected correlation between two variables. It's appropriate to include this in the results section. However, speculating why this connection could exist and offering a hypothesis as to what might be happening to belong in your paper's discussion section.
- Introduce a section, then talk about it. Then explain the next section, then talk about it. Longer papers tend to utilize this more frequently since it makes each finding easier for the reader to grasp. By this approach, it may be beneficial to include a brief conclusion that connects the observations to the discussion in the results section.
Important Elements for the Research Results Section
Keep these factors in mind to ensure that your study is well-structured and organized:
- To help your readers concentrate on the main points of your academic work, begin your study findings section by restating your research's objective.
- Include dependable, useful tables, figures, and charts that help to summarise your findings.
- Make sure to provide specifics on your data interpretation, analysis, and statistically significant tests.
- Report the statistically insignificant study results to support the legitimacy of your academic essay.
- When describing your study findings, avoid using verbiage language and keep your report as brief as possible.
- Include a summary of the main findings of your study in your section's conclusion.
Things to avoid
Avoid performing the following while writing the results section:
1. Do not interpret the data
The results section of an academic paper is where you report the findings of your study. It is crucial to note that you should not interpret the data in this section; rather, you should simply report what you found. Any interpretation of the data should be made in the discussion section.
2. Do not discuss the implications of the results.
Similarly, you should not discuss the implications of the results in the results section. Implications are what the results mean concerning other things, which should be addressed in the discussion section.
3. Do not discuss the limitations of the study.
The limitations of a study are factors that may have affected the study's findings. For example, if a study was only conducted on a small sample of people, this could be considered a limitation. Limitations should not be discussed in the results section; instead, they should be addressed in the discussion section.
4. Do not make recommendations.
Recommendations are suggestions for future action and should not be made in the results section. Recommendations can be made in the discussion section or a separate conclusion section.
5. Do not present new information.
The results section is not the place to present new information; instead, it is only for reporting what was found in the study. Any further information should be shown in the discussion section.
6. Do not use first-person pronouns.
First-person pronouns (e.g., I, we) should not be used in research papers as they make it sound like you are biased. Instead, use third-person pronouns (e.g., he, she, it, and they).
7. Do not make conclusions.
As with interpretation, conclusions about the data should be reserved for the discussion section. The results section should only report what was found, not what it all means.
8. Do not use jargon.
Jargon is the specialized terminology used by people in a particular profession or group and can be hard to comprehend for others. Therefore, it is essential to avoid jargon in scientific writing so that a wider audience can understand the paper.
9. Do not use abbreviations without defining them first.
Abbreviations should be avoided in scientific writing unless they are essential, and if they are used, they should be defined before they are used so that readers will know what they stand for.
10. Do not include raw data in the Results section.
The Results section should only include information that has been analyzed and interpreted. The article's main body does not necessarily need to contain raw data; it should be put in an appendix or other additional material so that readers may consult it if they want.
Conclusion
The Results section of your research paper displays the most important data as your study's data output represents it. By using clear language and a consistent writing style, as well as by stressing and describing the most important findings of their investigations, authors may increase the impact and effectiveness of their research articles. I hope now you have all the tools regarding how to write a results section. We are available to assist, message us and we will get back to you.
