Comparative Analysis of Articles in the Fields of Medicine and Education

Introduction

Research is essential for the growth and development of any science. Only through sound, scientific and critical research can new and old ideas get tested. Research Articles (RA) and Research Papers (RP) are the medium of excellence for communicating new knowledge.

Although RA and RP follow a set of conventions when produced, the characteristics of the field indirectly affect the content of the information presented. Biber and Finegan (1994) explain that a number of factors such as setting, interactivity, role relations among participants, production circumstances, topic, and purpose condition systematic differences among registers. It may also be discussed that, within the same register, productions can have multiple purposes in different degrees. This analysis attempts to compare two RA, one in the medical field and other related to education, and illustrate the singularities that may arise when attempting to communicate research results with different purposes.

Analysis

Roth, Stabell, Ravn, Rodrigues, Lisse, Yazdanbakhsh, Whittle and Aaby’s (2009) article is concerned with the effect of revaccination with BCG in early childhood on mortality, while Sun and Chang’s (2012) paper examines the benefits of the use of blogs in the development of academic writing. Swales and Feak (1994) state that it is in introductions where RA writers compete for acceptance and recognition. In an attempt to provide a guideline to structure introductions, Swales and Feak (1994) developed the Create a Research Space Model (CARS) which provides the basis for our analysis.

Although the introductions of both RA comply with most of the suggested moves in the CARS model, there are some variations as regards content and order. The moves in Sun and Chang’s (2012) paper seem to appear in the order proposed by the model. Move 1 achieves its aim of establishing a research territory, as there is an extended definition of blogs at the start, then a strong theoretical account of the advantages of blogging in foreign language classes and a reference to previous research on the field. The move ends with a description of the difficulties students face when writing in a foreign language. This first part of the introduction provides the grounds for move 2, as Sung and Chang (2012) claim that after their literature review, they found that little research was made on the use of blogs in the field of academic writing. In an attempt to strengthen this idea, the authors employed a useful tool, a rhetorical question, to make readers aware of the significance of their research. The question introduces move 3 which outlines the purposes of the study and explains the tasks selected for the investigation. Neither the results nor the structure of the RP are presented in the introduction, perhaps to avoid audience to stop reading there.

The article by Roth et al. (2009) is slightly different in style in its introduction, mainly because eloquence is not relevant for the scientific community when attempting to reach consensus about a new discovery. Though, clarity of expression and conciseness are of utmost importance in this kind of papers. Move 1 and move 2 appear to be entangled, as the need to show the importance of this research on revaccination is supported by the findings of previous research and experiments in the field. The literature review seems quite extensive and detailed, as it explains the advances in the topic of research over the last century and up to the present. Besides, the scope of the study is particularly narrow, thus there is a need to specify the qualities of previous research. Though it is not written, the importance of the research seems to be implicitly established in all the facts and figures the authors included in the paper. Move 3 occupies the last two paragraphs of the introduction, and once again the purposes for the study are based on the negative findings of previous investigations. There is a short insight of the method but the principal findings are still absent.

According to Swales and Feak (1994), writers in the academic field coincide in some aspects regarding the format and style of the methods section: It should be divided in participants, materials and procedure; these subsections are typed in the left margin, and the tense used is passive voice, among other aspects. However, some differences can be found in the articles analyzed. The method employed in Sun and Chang’s (2012) research is a case study, while Roth et al. (2009) utilize a scientific experiment. Apart from the difference in the method employed, it seems that the authors of both articles wrote the section using different academic conventions. Sun and Chang (2012) have not centered the word Methods at the start of the section as it is suggested (Swales & Feak, 1994). The authors have divided the section in three parts: Participants, procedure and data analysis, and the tense used is past passive. It may be stated that the section is well organized, structured and clear.

The article by Roth et al. (2009) does not present a clear structure of the Methods section. Conversely, the authors divided the research in subsections as setting, study population and routine data collection, intervention, enrolment, randomisation, masking, conduct of the trial, among other parts. In other words, Roth et al.(2009) do not appear to follow the style conventions for writing RP and RA, which are mostly divided in the following parts: Title, Abstract, Acknowledgements, Introduction, Literature review, Methods, Results, Discussions, Recommendations, References, and Appendixes. The mostly used tense is past passive voice, and it may be argued that the section is not ordered but it is very detailed.

Conclusion

Although the authors of both papers follow academic conventions, it may be argued that the research’s purpose has an important role when organizing information within an article. Sun and Chang (2012), and Roth et al. (2009) use organizational patterns to present information similarly, however, they vary the importance they attach to each part.

While Sun and Chang’s (2012)  paper establishes its basis in the interpretation of texts, Roth et al.’s (2009) article finds answers in the analysis of hard evidence. This is supported by the manner the moves within the introduction of both texts are organized. In the educational paper, moves follow the order and the content suggested by the C.A.R.S model but in the medical paper, moves appear to be mixed. Additionally, the methods section seems to be the most differently structured and organized part of both articles.

As regards style and language use, Sun and Chang (2012) develop interpretive arguments, in an attempt to convince readers that the claims are valid. Moreover, the authors use literary devices which make paragraphs and sentences more eloquent with long, complex thoughts. Roth et al.’s (2009) article, on the other hand, focuses on interpreting hard evidence and explaining the meaning of the results in order to find a single right answer. Thus, the authors present information in a style that is exceedingly clear and concise. 

References

 Biber, D. and Finegan, E. (1994). Intra-textual variation within medical research articles. In Oostidjk (Eds.), Corpus based research into language (pp. 201-222). Amsterdam, the Netherlands: Rodopi B.V.

Roth, A. E., Benn, C. S., Ravn, H., Rodrigues, A., Lisse, I. M., Yazdanbakhsh, M., Whittle, H., & Aaby, P. (2009). Effect of revaccination with BCG in early childhood on mortality: Randomised trial in Guinea-Bissau. BMJ, Online first, 1-11. DOI: 10.1136/bmj.cmj.c671

Sun, Y., & Chang, Y. (2012, February). Blogging to learn: Becoming EFL academic writers through collaborative dialogues. Language learning & technology, 16 (46-61). Retrieved from http: //llt.msu.edu/issues/february2012/sunchang.pdf

Swales, J. M., & Feak, C.B. (1994). Academic writing for graduate students: Essential tasks and skills. Ann Harbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press.