Writing Strategies for Explain Results

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Explain Results is a Strategy that is used to elucidate what may have caused the results/outcomes. Here, researchers can suggest reasons, hypotheses, speculations and/or assumptions that may account for certain findings or justify the nature of those findings. Explain Results is also a great way to provide meaning or interpretation of the results through deductions and logical connections. Occasionally, researchers will disclose expected or unexpected results, highlight surprising or unsatisfactory findings, and connect findings to initial hypotheses. To achieve these aims, there are several sub-strategies that can be used to Explain Results:

• explicate results to better understand what the results mean
• account for results to identify reasons for why the results occurred
• relate to expectations to connect results to hypotheses or anticipations

The first sub-strategy is to Explicate Results from the present study. This sub-strategy can be used to explain what the results mean by interpreting or making inferences. Here is an example:

a. “These results seem to suggest that individual differences had an impact on students’ writing production.”

This sentence is used to provide preliminary interpretation of the results. It does so by softening the interpretation through the use of the linking verb seem, as in “These results seem to suggest.” In a combined Results and Discussion section, this sentence should be drawn out by connecting the findings to prior research as a way of strengthening understanding of the results in relation to known information in the field. In a Results only section, this sentence may be used to heighten awareness of this principle finding, which will be further elaborated on in the Discussion section as a segue to main contributions or take-home messages. Appear to is another linking verb commonly used when explicating the results.

The second sub-strategy is to Account for Results. Accounting for the results entails explanation of the nature of the results, or why the result occurred. Take a look at the following example:

b. “We claim that this finding may have been motivated by students’ individual differences.”

Again, the language in this sentence is softened by use of the modal verb may. May, might, and could are all common modals used to provide explanation.

The final sub-strategy is to Relate to Expectations. Sometimes, researchers already have expectations for what the results will be. These expectations may be in the form of explicit hypotheses or general assumptions. Whether anticipated or not, the research may want to highlight the connection between findings and/or observations to these expectations. We often see this explanation in the form of phrases like: as expected, surprisingly, noteworthy. Here’s another way to relate results to expectations:

c. “We hypothesized growth in all measures, and that hypothesis was confirmed.”

This sentence takes the Results section just a hair beyond the objective reporting and into the realm of discussion, but further explanation of the significance of this confirmatory statement should be left for the Discussion section.

Let us look closer at some Language Use patterns: