This is where writers state their position or research 'rationale'. A popular
strategy is to follow this 'position statement' with references to writers who you suggest
support your position. E.g.:
"Language educators implementing content-based instruction must
provide practice in the academic skills students will need ... (Adamson, 1990; ... Mohan,
1990)". [Short, 1994: 583]
It's usual to end your Introduction by indicating your choice of methodology. This
obliges you to acknowledge any author who first developed that approach. E.g.:
"It was decided to adopt the Language Diary method which was
employed by Gibbons in his 1987 study". (Poon, 1993: 2)
The opening of the Methods section is the usual place for more detailed reference
to other researchers' use of your methodology. Take the following example, where the
writer states her intention to 'build on the previous research':
"In order to build on the previous research and extend it to
reflect the widespread use of process-oriented ESL composition pedagogy, the present study
applies the methodology used by Cohen (1987) and McCurdy (1992)". (Ferris, 1995: 36)
More usually, you will be reporting that, at a general level, your findings confirm
what many other academics have found. E.g.:
"...like earlier studies of L2 students' reactions to their
teachers' feedback (Hedgecock & Lewkowicz, 1994; McCurdy, 1992), this study showed
that ESL writing students in general take their teachers' feedback quite seriously and pay
a lot of attention to it". (Ferris, 1995: 47)
Note: The reporting of results alone is unlikely to feature reference to other authors. Only when you interpret those results can you make comparisons with other authors' findings. The above example is also listed as typical of a 'Discussion' section.
This is the section of a report where you interpret your
findings. In both these cases, e.g., the findings seem to confirm the hypothesis of other
researchers:
"This (finding) implies that strategy training can be
incorporated early - as our study shows, even at a pre-intermediate level - in an L2
teaching syllabus, which is in accordance with Savignon's original recommendation".
(Dornyei, 1995: 79).
or
"...like earlier studies of L2 students reactions to their
teachers' feedback (Hedgecock & Lewkowicz, 1994; McCurdy, 1992), this study showed
that ESL writing students in general take their teachers' feedback quite seriously and pay
a lot of attention to it". (Ferris, 1995)
You may have included Interpretation in your Results section, or delay it
to a Discussion section. A 'General Discussion' section allows you to relate your
findings back to the wider literature, notably to the work of other researchers mentioned
in your Introduction. E.g.:
"It is also interesting to note that the results yielded by
this study parallel those reported by both Santos (1988) and Vann et al (1984) in two
ways. First, in terms of relative severity of error types, professors in all three studies
considered errors of word order and relative clause to be among the most serious ... .
Second, all three studies found that faculty in the Social Sciences were the most tolerant
of non-native-speaker writing errors in general". (Janopoulos, 1992: 116)
Last updated 03 March 2003