Writing the Introduction to a Research

Report
The introduction to a research report accomplishes two goals:

informs the reader by providing

information from the research literature
necessary to
understanding the project;
persuades the reader that the
research question is valid by providing
the gap in the literature.

How are these goals accomplished? The writer provides a brief review of the
literature in the correct order (given below!). The content of the introduction
informs; the organization of the introduction persuades.

5 steps to Writing the Introduction

1) Establish Topic -- quick, concise (what is being studied)

2) Provide significance -- research, practical, clinical (why it is generally
important)
3) Review the relevant literature -- what the expert literature reveals (what we
know already)
4) Point out the gap -- what's missing in the research literature (what we don't
know -- motivation for study)
5) Reveal the research question (and sometimes, hypotheses) -- the specifics of
this research

Establish Topic
You might have noticed while reading in the research literature that research
reports tend to start immediately theres very little warm up material
involved. However, we are so used to writing this way that it may not be
possible to just start at the beginning. If this is the case, go back and cross out
the first couple of lines.

Example of student opening line -- note the courageous writer who manages to
simply eliminate the first few sentences!

Provide Significance
The second step to the introduction is to offer the first bit of persuasion to the
reader: show the importance of the topic by offering something of practical or
research significance. However, it is very important for the writer to understand
that significance does not mean an opinion about why the topic is important.
Rather, the significance comes from the research literature, too. Read the
examples below, then well craft one from the literature on young children and
computers.

Example #1:
Calvert, Strong, and Gallagher. Control as an engagement
featureAMERICAN BEHAVIORAL SCIENTIST, Vol. 48 No. 5, January 2005 578-
589

New interactive media are now integrated into the fabric of childrens
daily lives (Rideout,Vandewater,&Wartella, 2003). Online programs for
very young children are routinely accessible, and promises of enhanced
learning from this potential new form of education abound. For young
children, this means early computer experiences that focus on
preacademic skills, such as prereading activities, can be targeted.

Analysis: The first sentence is the topic sentence. The next two point out a
practical (real world) significance: first, interactive media are available; second,
there may be educational benefits. The reader is now a bit more convinced that
research about very small children and computer programs makes sense.

Example #2:
Plowman and Stephen. Children, Play and Computers, British Journal of
Educational Technology Vol 36 No 2 2005,145157

Pre-school education is a particularly interesting area for investigating

the use of computers. Pre-school environments offer opportunities to
observe the relationship between formal and informal learning, the
balance between learner-centred and adult-directed activities, and the
use of computers by children who are unable to follow text-based
instructions.

Analysis: The topic of the report is laid out in the first sentence. The following
sentence provides research significance in other words, explains why the topic
is useful as an environment for scholarly study.
Example #3
Attitudes Toward Medical and Mental Health Care Delivered Via Telehealth Applications
Among Rural and Urban Primary Care Patients
Appropriate health care services are often not available in many rural
and remote areas, and this problem is expected to intensify in the near
future, exacerbating existing rural health disparities that need to be
addressed (Institute of Medicine, 2004). Telehealth interventions
represent a strategy for potentially addressing such access to care
problems. Although telehealth services do not directly address overall
shortages of clinicians, they can improve access to health services in
rural areas by providing a way for clinicians located in urban areas to
deliver care to rural patients in relatively distant locations. Therefore,
telehealth applications are becoming widely used to provide much needed
medical and mental healthcare services to people in rural areas
(Heinzelmann et al., 2005; Jennett et al., 2003).
Analysis: The topic in this case actually occurs in the second sentence as the
"reply" to the significance laid out in sentence one. The rest of the paragraph
lays out a bit of background on the current state of affairs.
Review the Relevant Literature
Following the first paragraph which introduces the topic and provides
significance, the writer must now review the literature for the reader. The
literature review (hereafter, lit review, the short phrase used by research
writers everywhere) accomplishes many objectives at once. First, the lit review
informs the reader of the most important research needed to understand the
research question. Second, the lit review gives credibility to the writer as
someone who knows what they are talking about. Third, the lit review is
organized so that the research question is validated; in other words, the review
leads the reader to a gap or conflict in the literature.

This is not as complicated as it sounds. Youve got the annotated bibliography to

help organize the literature youve read. Youve got the research question. The
task is to join the two pieces. You'll note as a reader that the lit review is where
you see the most citations; you should also be able to see how well synthesized
material is! In some longer reports where the research is investigating complex
interactions you may see that the lit review is organized using subheadings.
Just as often it is not -- instead, the lit review is organized so that each major
idea is presented in its own paragraph/s. The conventions governing science still
apply: thou shalt make it as easy as possible for the reader to locate
information. For this reason, do not "weave" different ideas together in the
same paragraph. For complex topics, present each part separately, then write a
paragraph that combines the ideas (honestly, this should make it easier to write
-- concepts maps are very useful for planning this section of the paper).
Example
Attitudes Toward Medical and Mental Health Care Delivered Via Telehealth Applications
Among Rural and Urban Primary Care Patients
Recent reviews of empirical data indicate that psychiatric interviews
conducted via telehealth or telepsychiatry are reliable, and that
patients and clinicians who use this medium for clinical services generally
report high levels of satisfaction (Frueh et al.,2000; Hilty et al., 2004;
Monnier et al., 2003; Morland et al.,2003). Although this early research
suggests that clinical needs might be met via telepsychiatry among
mental health patients, little is known about the acceptance of such
applications among broad populations. In other words, although those
who actually receive telepsychiatry services are satisfied, we do not know
how such services are perceived among people who are not seeking
mental health treatment but who might have cause to use such services
in the future. Because telepsychiatry programs are rapidly appearing all
over the world, health services research that addresses the acceptance of
this mode of service delivery is needed to guide development efforts for
 health care systems (Frueh et al., 2000; Frueh et al., 2007; Hilty et al.,
2004; Monnier et al., 2003; Morland et al., 2003; Ruskin et al., 2004).
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) serves as a good test case
for telepsychiatry, as this disorder is prevalent in the general
population at 6% to 14% (Kaplan et al., 1994), and because (compared
with other psychiatric disorders) it is associated with nearly the highest
rate of medical service use (e.g., Greenberg et al., 1999; Kessler et al.,
1999). Additionally, individuals with PTSD may avoid treatment since
avoidance and social isolation are core features of the disorder. Thus, the
impact of additional barriers to care is of particular relevance to this
clinical population. To date, there is preliminary evidence to support the
use of telepsychiatry for PTSD specialty care among combat veterans,
including strong levels of patient satisfaction and comparable clinical
outcomes with traditional face-to-face care (Frueh et al., 2007).
In a cross-sectional survey we sought to examine attitudes towards
medical and mental health care delivered via
telehealth applications in a sample of adult rural and urban primary care
patients. We also sought to examine attitudes among a sub-sample of
patients with PTSD, a group likely to need help accessing a range of
relevant clinical services.
Point out the Gap
The gap in the literature is a conflict or missing piece of information which
your research question will answer. If the research has already been done, then
why waste your time and the readers time with all this work? The gap also
explicitly identifies the contribution a piece of research makes. Its as though
the writer is saying See, Scientific Community, this is what we know but this is
what we do not know. The reader needs to be shown that this gap exists in
order to believe that the research makes a contribution. Providing the gap is
part of the writers job.
Example Attitudes Toward Medical and Mental Health Care Delivered Via Telehealth
Applications Among Rural and Urban Primary Care Patients
There are no extant data on how representative patient populations,
such as primary care users, view telehealth interventions. Satisfaction
with care has only been documented among relatively narrow populations
that have already received mental health care via telehealth.

Reveal the Research Question

The final part of the Introduction is the Research Question this is the part that
everything else has been leading to. This is where the writer presents the
question that will answer the gap as revealed by the literature to be a missing
piece of the topics research puzzle! The RQ may be expressed as either an
actual question or a declarative sentence. Some journals seem to prefer that
research writers express the RQ as a question; some prefer the RQ is
expressed as statement. Following the research question may be a hint of
method, hypotheses, or nothing at all.
Example Attitudes Toward Medical and Mental Health Care Delivered Via Telehealth
Applications Among Rural and Urban Primary Care Patients
What remains unexplored is the acceptability of such services to a
broad group of people who have not yet tried it but who may face real
decisions about how to best access care in the future. These data should
yield useful information regarding patients beliefs toward telehealth
applications and ways in which to address concerns patients may have
with this mode of service delivery.

Writing the Methods Section

The Materials and Methods section is very different from the Introduction. Its
like a recipe for how the research was conducted. The litmus test of a successful
Methods section is that after reading it, the reader could replicate the research.
The ability of a method to be replicated is a key ingredient to judgments of
validity, and is one of the reasons why we are so fond of quantitative studies.

The Materials and Methods section is written in the past tense, and includes the
ingredients of the study (materials) and the process for doing it (methods). At
the most basic, a Methods section has three parts: Participants, Instruments/
Materials, and Procedure.

Participants who or what actually

participated, expressed as number of
participants with appropriate
description (could be demographic
information or other relevant
information)
Instruments materials used to test
participants or gather results, including
machines, apparatus, software
programs as well as descriptions of
surveys (for many school projects,
include a copy of survey instruments in
the appendix of the paper or embedded
as a figure in the text)
Procedure chronological explanation
of exactly what researcher did to gather
data includes mention of
compensation if any was offered.
Because research varies so much, you will encounter many different ways of
expressing these three parts. Regardless of what the sections are called, these
three kinds of information must be explained.

Writing the Results Section

The Results section is where you get to report what the data reveals. However,
you do not get to provide interpretation here. In fact, the rule is results only.
The fun part of what you think the Results means gets written in the
Discussion section.

This does not mean there is no creativity allowed in the Results section. In fact,
the wise writer uses graphs and figures to highlight the most important or
interesting information. Otherwise, arrange the results from most to least
relevant or strong. You will also want to point out results that didnt amount to
much of anything, although this is unsatisfying. The only results that are often
not reported are those with no pattern at all; that is, results that are
uninterpretable.

The Results section may also be divided according to subheadings, especially if

there were very strong trends or if there were multiple phases of the project.
The section itself uses the subheading "Results". Grammatically, results are
reported using the present tense, e.g. "The results show that 79% of men find
the advertisements in Sports Illustrated more useful than the advertisements
in GQ". Also note that the Results section reads more like a well-organized list
than a story.

The fun of results is not so much in the writing as in the analysis itself. Lab
supervisors are famous for entering their domains with cries of "Where is the
data??". Results are analyzed in terms of the hypotheses being tested, variables
chosen,and tests performed.

Preparing Results
Step One: Since the Results section must use both verbal explanation and
numerical explanation, its worth your time to write out a sentence or two
about each of the various relationships you notice in the data. Note that I
didnt say a sentence or two describing each and every result. The reader is
perfectly capable of looking at a bar graph and noting for themselves that
17.2% of first time computer users were between ages 4 and 5. So it is not to
your benefit or the readers to write out a sentence describing every detail.
What to include:
- results that answer the research question (most
important)
- data you can use to outline important trends
- results that you intend to address in the discussion
section
- results of statistical analyses, often in conjunction with
measurements analyzed
- results related to those obtained by other researchers,
especially if they conflict or are controversial
- negative results also
Step Two: Create a couple of interesting figures (graphs, tables) that reveal the
relationships youd most like the reader to notice. These should be results that
most directly answer the research question. Thus crafting figures is a strategic
way of highlighting information by juxtaposing salient results without actually
going so far as to provide interpretation. You also need to have the basic data
available for the reader, and this is where tables are quite useful.
One thing to keep in mind if you create a graph, then it is because you wish
to say something about this information in the Discussion section. Do not create
"kitchen sink" figures where you put all the data just to have it there. If you
used a software program capable of generating results for you, use that to
create figures according to variables. Finally, figures must have text about
them written in the Results section. You cannot just stick in a figure and be
done with it. The main point of the figure should be written out with an
appropriate reference at the end of the sentence, "...(Fig. 1)". All figures require
titles and captions; graphs must have clear labels for X & Y axes.

Step Three: If you are using a stats program, then you should report +/-
significances when appropriate. If using descriptive statistics, do NOT use the
word "significant" anywhere in the Results or Discussion sections.

Writing the Discussion

The discussion section is a framing section, like the Introduction, which returns
to the significance argument set up in your introduction. So reread your
introduction carefully before writing the discussion; you will discuss how the
hypothesis has been demonstrated by the new research and then show how the
field's knowledge has been changed by the addition of this new data. While the
introduction starts generally and narrows down to the specific hypothesis, the
discussion starts with the interpretation of the results, then moves outwards to
contextualize these findings in the general field.

The Discussion section is sort of an odd beast because it is here where you
speculate, but must avoid rambling, guessing, or making logical leaps beyond
what is reasonably supported for your data. The solution that has evolved over
time is to set up the Discussion section as a "dialogue" between Results --
yours and everyone elses'. In other words, for every experimental result you
want to talk about, you find results/models/conclusions from other
publications bearing the relationship to your result that you want the
reader to understand.

Claim -- add new information to

what is already known -- "we are
the first to show"
Corroborate -- support what is
already known -- "similar/same
as to X"
Clarify -- extend or refine what
is already known -- "because X,
also Y" or "because X, not Y"
Conflict -- counter or contradict
what is already known --
"contrary to"
This is how the new data you've generated is "situated" in the field -- by your
careful placement of what is new against that which is already known. Results
can take the form of data, hypotheses, models, definitions, formulas, etc. (I
imagine the Results section like a dance with swords -- sometimes you are
engaging your partner with the pointy end and sometimes you are gliding
alongside them).

Parts of the Discussion Section

Addressing the Hypothesis

* Did the data support your hypothesis?

* How do your findings relate to the previous research?

Problems and Limitations

 * To what extent did your study provide an adequate test of your
Hypothesis?
* What ethical issues were raised?
* What methodological flaws or problems did your encounter?
* Do the data support an alternative theory?

Closing the Closing

* To what other populations can your findings be generalized?

* What are the practical implications of your findings?
* What direction should further research on this topic take?

Examples
Opening Paragraph -- restate RQ, then provide major result
Overall, attitudes and perceptions of both urban and
rural primary care patients in this sample show that they are
generally receptive to the possibility of receiving medical and
psychiatric services via telehealth. Comfort and confidence in
consulting with a provider for a range of medical services and
comfort using telepsychiatry in different settings ranged from
a little bit to moderately.
Prolonged Exposure therapy via telehealth technology was associated
with large reductions in symptoms of PTSD and depression
for veterans diagnosed with combat-related PTSD. In the current
sample, telehealth PE treatment was safe and pragmatically viable.
Treatment noncompletion rates, although higher than average for
our clinic, were in the acceptable range. Overall, the results of this
study support the need for a large-scale randomized controlled
trial.
Corroborate
There is a substantial amount of research documenting
high rates of SUD and PTSD comorbidity.11,15,16 The veteran
described in this case summary is a representative example of
a large subset of patients with comorbid SUD and PTSD.
That is, the patients substance-related difficulties are linked
to his traumatic event exposure and development of PTSD.
To date, there is a growing body of literature
documenting the effectiveness of telehealth for a number of
medical and mental health difficulties.21 There is also preliminary
evidence to support the use of telehealth for PTSD
among combat veterans, including high patient satisfaction
and comparable clinical outcomes with traditional face-toface
care.22 The current case summary lends further support
for the use of telehealth as a means of delivering specialized
PTSD services without significant compromise to the therapeutic
alliance or outcomes.
Extend
Importantly, rural patients, who are more likely to benefit from
telehealth
interventions as a means of improving access to care, are no
more reluctant to use such services than their urban counterparts.
These data are all the more encouraging in light of
extant data, which suggests that attitudes toward mental
health use are positively associated with actual service use
(e.g., Lin and Parikh, 1999; Mackenzie et al., 2004).
Refine
...Although the efficacy of exposure-based therapies in
the treatment of PTSD is well established, there has been
some reluctance to use these therapies in individuals with
co-occurring SUDs because of fear that evoking vivid memories
of trauma exposure would worsen substance use or lead
to relapse or both. However, there is little empirical evidence
to support this belief or to guide the treatment of PTSD in
individuals with co-occurring SUDs. Several preliminary
studies conducted in the past several years suggest that
exposure-based therapy can be used in individuals with cooccurring
SUDs and PTSD as long as careful attention is paid
to substance use.11
The study also shows only small
changes in symptoms for the young people placed on the
waiting list (cf. [1]), therefore confirming the chronic nature
of OCD in young people. This adds to the body of
evidence in favour of CBT for OCD in young people. In
view of the potential problems associated with medication,
the results of this study support the view that young people
with OCD should, therefore, be offered CBT as the firstline
treatment by child and adolescent mental health
services.
Conflict
Other trials of CBT with young people have tended to
concentrate on managing the anxiety or discomfort experienced
when undertaking exposure and response prevention,
e.g. [4, 6, 22]. The effect size observed in this trial is
somewhat less than those seen in previous trials of CBT for
young people with OCD (mean effect size 1.98, Table 3 in
[1]), although the differences in the methods of effect size
calculation make the comparison somewhat problematic.
These results are inconsistent with prior research indicating that
interruptions
negatively affect task performance.5 There may
be several explanations. First, because the participants were
highly experienced IM users, they may frequently converse
with more than one person while performing a concurrent
task. Conversing with one person may not have challenged
the participants multitasking abilities. Relatedly, reading
and IMing at the same time may also not have stretched their
abilities as multitaskers. However, our data contradict this
explanation. We found that average daily IM use was negatively
related to performance on the reading comprehension
test, indicating that expertise did not help participants successfully
complete the task. In fact, expertise with IM predicted
lower scores on the comprehension test.
Limitations
Some study limitations merit comment. This was a
cross-sectional research design that relied on survey data.
Future research designs may benefit from the inclusion of a
qualitative approach to understanding patients perceptions
and concerns regarding telehealth, as well as their suggestions
for making it more user friendly. Additionally, our
sample was predominantly Caucasian, and thus, we do not
know how these results would generalize to ethnic minority
groups. Last, PTSD status in our study was derived from the
PSS-SR, which is not a structured PTSD diagnostic interview.
Thus, our diagnoses are tentative and additional research
using more formal diagnostic assessments of PTSD
and other psychiatric diagnoses may be warranted.
Further Research
Future research efforts are needed to develop effective strategies for
improving the acceptability and ensuring the appropriate use
of telehealth care for those patients who may be positioned to
benefit from it.
It is likely that the current increasing demand for mental health
services in VA and Department of Defense settings will require
the implementation of treatments that have not been adequately
investigated or alternatively, as in the current study, that treatments
with adequate empirical support will be modified or otherwise
flexibly implemented in an attempt to meet the needs of
veterans. Although the scale of the current situation poses challenges
to both service providers and veterans, it also presents
unprecedented opportunities for scientific investigation and
the continued development of evidence-based interventions for
PTSD.

Abstracts
The abstract of a research report summarizes the report, but it is not intended
to be a substitute for reading the article. Instead, the main purpose of an
abstract is to filter information. Librarians use abstracts to manage database
search and retrieval; researchers use abstracts to make initial decisions about
whether an article is relevant to their study.
Abstracts are very brief, but also are accurate and informative. Like the spec
sheet on a new piece of technology, the reader expects the abstract to provide
enough information for intelligent decision-making. To this end, journals now
allow (or even demand) longer abstracts -- though a few still adhere to the 120
words or less rule. Some journals specify the abstract follow a modified "IMRD"
format, with subheadings similar to "objective" -- "method" -- "results" --
"conclusion".Some even go so far to have a second abstract-like text that
provides a genuine overview of article.
For our class, you'll write the more-or-less standard paragraph abstract. There
is no word limit, but the length of the abstract should indicate the length of the
paper, so most of yours will brief. In addition the the abstract, you'll also write
3-5 keywords that could be used to search for your paper. Journals often
request author-supplied keywords in addition to providing database specific
terms.

The abstract contains five basic parts:

* A statement describing the topic

and the questions the research
attempts to answer
o present tense (past tense also
when dealing with historical ideas)
* A brief description of the methods
o past tense
* A brief statement of the major
result/s
o present tense
* A precise indication of the
conclusions of the report
o present/future/modal
* A short list of 3-5 keywords that
permit more accurate retrieval by
readers

Abstracts come in two flavors: unstructured and structured. Both contain

the same information in the same order, but the structured one adds
subheadings to organize the reading experience. Parts included in the abstract
are (in this order!): Topic, RQ, Method, Results, Contribution. Journals will
mandate which form as well as maximum number of words. Journals focusing
on clinically-relevant work often prefer longer, more detailed abstracts --
usually structured -- with the explicit justification that busy health care
professionals need to make informed decisions quickly and effectively, assigning
the goal of decision-making tool to abstracts. This makes the impact of the
abstract greater than a mere filtering device and increases the ethical
responsibility of the writer to provide sufficient and accurate information. (In
particular, do not overstate results and interpretation.) Most psychology
journals still favor the unstructured abstract, and that is what you will write for
your research report.

Note: Key words are first provided by the author, and subsequently, by the
journal, publisher, or host database according to their categorizations (usually
found in the publication information or left side bar in academic search
engines). Some journals provide 2 lists of key words with an article: author-
provided and journal/database-generated.

Writing Titles
It would be great if all titles could be fun, but the fact is, few titles can be both
fun and informative. Instead, the best titles solve the reader's problem of
deciding whether to read the abstract/article by including the most important
information up front. What is the most important information? For the most
part, it is the OUTCOME of the research -- that is, the most important result.
The most successful titles from the reader's point of view make explicit
assertions about the outcome -- acceptable titles often signal only the topic and
leave the reader wondering what happened and whether it is worth reading
further.
The three titles below are ranked from least to most successful. The first is
merely topical -- this was particularly disappointing given the very interesting
outcome of the study! The second is better and makes a concise assertion (is a
whole sentence) about the outcome, but doesn't specify the type of ischemic
injury (which a group of expert readers would have preferred). The advantage
to concision here is that it makes the article more likely to come up in multiple
searches, a useful strategy when a reader could be looking for "estrodiol",
"neuroprotective agents" or "ischemic injury". The third has all the components
a reader most wants -- it asserts an outcome in a whole sentence and includes
some specific information about type of injury. The advantage to a longer title is
that more key words are available to the searcher, so this article is likely to
come up in many different searches: CO, Nrf2 pathway, neuroprotection, focal
cerebral ischemia, cerebral ischemia. The disadvantage to this strategy is the
increased chance of the article coming up when the reader is not looking for
that particular kind of information. Still, there is a good balance between
quantity and quality of information provided.
(1) Junior physicians use of Web 2.0 for information seeking and
medical education: A qualitative study
(2) Estradiol protects against ischemic injury
(3) Carbon monoxide-activated Nrf2 pathway leads to protection
against permanent focal cerebral ischemia