Writing the Methods and Results Sections
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Verb Tense
In the Methods section, use the past tense. For example, “Tissue specimens were examined using frozen section techniques while patients were still in the operating room.”; “We performed PCR analysis….” When describing experiences of human subjects or treatments of materials or animals that took place before the study, you may use the past perfect tense. For example, “In all patients in the study group, previous interferon-alfa therapy had failed. ” Some authors use the present tense in the Methods section, probably because they perform a particular procedure the same way every time for every study. However, this is incorrect. What matters is not how they usually perform a procedure (present tense) but how they performed it (past tense) for the study being described.
Results Section
The Results section is the third major section of a scientific article:
Introduction: What was your hypothesis or purpose? Why did you do the study?
Methods:
What did you do?
Results:
What did you find?
Discussion:
What do your findings mean?
Topics to be covered include:
▪ Purpose and content of the Results section
▪ Suggested structure of the Results section
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Verb tense
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Use of figures and tables
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Use of “data not shown”
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Highlighting important findings
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Strategy for writing the Results section
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