Summary of Goals/ Strategies/ Language Use for Results Sections

This book is running in a long beta. Revisions are currently underway. Check back in January 2025 for updated content.

Here, we will recap the strategies and language use tips for the Results section. In Results, we want to build a case from credible evidence. We can build our case using three sets of goals: Approach the Niche, Occupy the Niche, and Construe the Niche.

A Results section, unmerged with the research Discussion, is specific to the study, but depending on your discipline, you may see the section move from specific to general –meaning that a specific report of results may include some commentary that starts to expand outside the study, but this should be minimal at this point, if seen at all.

Starting with the first goal, Approaching the Niche, we see much of the same information we have seen in other sections–this is old information. This information may be pieces from the Introduction or the Methods that help to reiterate important information for the reader or prepare the reader for the Results. Strategies for this goal include Providing Background, Restate Study Specifics, and Rationalize Study Specifics.

The second goal, Occupy the Niche, is likely the most extensive goal of the Results section. In fact, it is quite common for Results sections to jump right into this goal without providing any old information. Here, we have strategies of Reporting Findings or Indicating Alternative Presentation of Results.

Then, Construe the Niche is for those few occasions when you begin commenting on specific results from the study, but it needs to be emphasized that this is not commentary on the study as a whole. This is left for the Discussion section or sections with combined Results and Discussion. Strategies that you may use include Compare Results with Literature, Explain Results, and Acknowledge Limitations.

Remember that there is no linear order for organizing your content to fulfill these communicative goals. Some communicative strategies are used more extensively than others. Different strategies can be combined to achieve a stronger communicative intent. The use of strategies varies depending on disciplinary conventions.