Medical Sciences Lab - Week 3

What do the intro and discussion section do?

provide context

what is the Purpose of Intro?

• Focused summary on relevant research - not a review

• Familiarize the audience with relevant and recent research 

• Provide enough info that the audience can understand current research without having to refer to any other journal articles on the topic 

• Creates a “story”: this is what happened before/this is where we are,and this is what we are going to find out to fill in the gap

what is the type of model used for writing an intro?

Research Space Model (used across all fields)

What is move 1

Establish a research territory

What are the steps in move one?

Step 1: Establish the importance of the research topic 

• Find similar info (stats & supporting evidence) to add why research is important
  
  

Step 2: Summarize previous research topics

• Add some context, not too much:the  audience has a good scientific knowledge of topic 

• General to Specific - Inverted Cone 

What is the name of Move 2?

state a gap/inconsistency in previous research to establish niche for present study (5.1)

What is a niche?

• a unique position of a current investigation (to fill the gap of…)

What are the ways to state a gap/consistency in previous research and establish a niche (Move 2)

• Identify a gap in knowlege/ unaddressed issue/ new observation (to fill the gap of…)

• Identify the problem/ limit of previous research (prev research has “this issue” we are going to avoid) 

• Identify inconsistency in scientific literature (some incr some decr) 

• Provide new methods/advancing technology

• Apply clinical setting to “real world”  (done in mouse but not human)

What is move 3?

state the objective of the present study (fill the niche stated in move 2) (5.2)

What are ways to the state the objective of the present study (move 3)

• Explicitly (main obj of study were to determine…)

• Embedded w methods (we analyzed data to…)

• Present as the research question or hypothesis (we hypothesize…) 

what does the topic sentence do?

 main idea that sets up a whole paragraph, then multiple pieces of evidence to support it. 

Anthropomorphism

• giving human qualities to nonhumans 

Expletive at the beginning of sentence (wordiness)

• starting with “there is” or “it is” 

Incorrect word

• affect (verb) vs effect (noun) 

Incorrect clause

•  that (adds info essential to the meaning) vs which (adds additional information that should be preceded by a comma) 

Nonparallel construction (confusing construction)

• failure to use grammatically equal words, phases or clauses 

Nominalization (wordiness)

• unnecessarily using the noun form of a verb 

Redundant categories (wordiness)

• attaching a category to a word that has its category implied 

Redundant pairs (wordiness)

adding words when one word is sufficient

Weak pronoun reference (confusing construction)

• Use of “it”, “this”, “that”, “these”, “those”, “they” and “ which” without clear reference to a noun

when do you use present tense?

• Citing knowledge statements (or claims) that were reported in the primary literature and considered the current knowledge or understanding 

when do you use past tense?

• attributing research findings to researchers who conducted specific studies 

• Presenting findings (methods/actions) from current study being reported

What verb tense is used for introduction, Move 1?

present

What verb tense is used for introduction, Move 2?

past

What verb tense is used for introduction, Move 3?

past

What verb tense is used for introduction, Methods?

Past

what verb tense is used for results?

past

what verb tense is used for the discussion?

present

what are words used to say “in addition” for starting a sentence?

furthermore

in addition

moreover

what are words used to say “in addition” for a phase linkers?

In addition to

What is the words used to say “adversatively” though joining a scentence?

although

even though

What is the words used to say “adversatively” though starting a new sentence?

however

nonetheless

What is the words used to say “adversatively” though phrase linkers?

despite

in spite of

cause and effect words when joining a sentence (subordinators)

because

since

cause and effect words when introducing a complete sentence (sentence connectors)

as a result

therefore

consequently

hence

thus

cause and effect words when phrase linking (introduce a noun phrase)

due to

as a result of

how to add clarification, when using a sentence connector (introducing a new sentence)

in other words

that is (i.e.)

words that show contrast when joining a sentence (subordinators)

while

wheraes

words that show contrast when introducing a complete sentence (sentence connectors)

in contrast

however

in the other hand

conversely

words that show contrast when using a phrase linkers (intro a noun phrase)

unlike

what are words to show illustration when introducing a new sentence (connectors)

for example

for instance

what are words to show intensification when introducing a new sentence (connectors)

on the contrary

as a matter of fact

in fact

Gopen and Swan (1990) recommend structuring scientific prose in a […] way.

predictable and consistent

where should old or new information be placed in the flow or writing?

"Old information" should appear at the beginning of sentences (topic position)

"new information" should be placed at the end (stress position) to maintain continuity.

The flow from one sentence to the next is critical to ensure […] in presenting scientific ideas.

clarity and consistenc

Consistent use of […] helps guide the reader without confusion.

key terms and linking words

flow oftern uses which voice?

passive

when is the passive voice used?

in scientific writing, when the focus is on the object, not the person preforming the action

where is the passive voice used specifically what part of the writing

methods

While active voice is generally considered more […] passive voice helps emphasize the object rather than the agent.

direct and vigorous

what. isthe active voice what is an example?

subject preforms the action

the cat scratched aidan

what is the passive voice what is an example?

suject of the scentence recieves the action

aidan was scratched by the ca

what are some tips for the intro

• (1) second statement is more general than first - switch them 

  • Avoid using term “of great importance” 

• (2) protein Kinase C: don’t just name drop if it does not relate to your objective (too specific) 

• (3) Gap is too vague: what are the gaps? 

• (4) sentence does not contribute to objective 

• (5) work back from here to see what you need to introduce earlier: serum starvation, protein expression levels, changes in protein bands

What are common mistakes of the intro?

• The importance of the topic too far removed form the current experiment 

• Lack of summary of relevant research findings 

• Citing a review source over and over and over again 

• Not reading and citing material thoroughly 

• The knowledge gap is too vague or not specific enough to the current research study 

• Objective overstates what the experiment is about 

why do we cite things

• Put evidence behind your claim 

• Demonstrates your understanding of topic & helps gain the trust of the reader 

• Point reader to og source of information

what are the subheadings of miscitation?

mis quotation

• inaccurate statement

  • major error

  • minor error

• faulty source of info

  • empty reference

bibliographic error

• inaccurate info

  • located in the reference list at the end of an article

  • located in the body text

• discrepancy of citation between the reference list and body text

  • orphan reference

what is a major error of an inaccurate statement

a claim is not shown in this source

or is contradicted by the source

what is a minor error of a inaccurate statemetn

claim is inaccurate but eroor does not change the overall meaning from the referenced source

what is an empty reference:

citing a secondary source rather than a primary source

what is a orphan reference

forget to list the citation in the reference list, but refence it in the text

What claims require siting primary article? 

• Original data 

• Stats 

What claims require citing a review article? 

Opinion 

unnessassary clause

that to or which when you dont need them