The results section is the core that forms a basis for your research paper. a well-written results section allows you to connect your introduction, and literature review to the discussion section by analyzing your research problems.
As such, your results should elaborate on the events during your research and present the data without evaluation and interpretation, allowing your reader to connect the deductions in the body to the relevant data. Unfortunately, your research may yield a huge amount of data, making it hard to determine the information to tackle within your paper.
This article will cover the tips for writing your research results chapter, and tackle the information you ought to tackle within this chapter.
What goes in the results section of a research paper?
Reporting the results of the research can prove a daunting task. The huge amount of data yielded by your research complicates your selection of what to put in the results section of the research paper for the proper expression of your findings.
Ideally, your results should contain data that is relevant for making deductions regarding your research objectives. The results in the research paper should also visualize your identified connections, making for easy analysis by the reader.
Some of the information to tackle in the results chapter include:
- Data relating to your research objectives
- Reports on the participants and the criteria of their selection
- Visual representations of the relationship between various variables
- Explanation of the relationship between data in sentence form
When presenting data, it is best to use charts, pictures, and diagrams to help the reader make the connections you deduced from the information yielded by your research. Also, include a summary after each visual aid to highlight the information within the graph.
However, refrain from relating data with the hypothesis within the results chapter as this ought to be done within the discussion section. Any data that is irrelevant to the objectives should be included within the appendices to avoid confusion for your reader.
How to write results in a research paper
- The introduction
When starting your results chapter, it is critical to repeat your research question, bringing your reader’s focus to the research problems. The introduction also lays a smooth transition into your results, helping the reader identify the considerations you made during your methodology.
- Expressing findings within your paper
Ideally, your results section should organize the information in the order you introduced your research objectives. The primary research problem should carry the larger part of this chapter, helping a reader make out the findings of your research.
Preferably, use subheadings in your paper, to point out the information the reader will encounter in your results. Also worth noting, your results should contain positive and negative results. If the results oppose your hypothesis, tackle them and use the null hypothesis, giving your reader the full scope of your research.
- Designing figures to illustrate your findings
The figures used in your results section should be easy to interpret and compare related data yielded by your research. Each figure should thus be accurate, well-labeled, and titled.
When making visualizations of your data, use a spreadsheet tool you are conversant with to manipulate your data to a favorable graphical visualization for your readers. Alternatively, seek help with these presentations to capture all the essential details within the graphs.
Finally, determine the relationship between data that you hope your reader to make out and elaborate on this information in short sentences to go with the graph. Also, ensure that you number your chart for easy entry in the table of content.
Do’s and don’ts for writing the results section of your research paper
- Do write your results in the past tense as these indicate the actions that were already taken.
- Do write your results concisely, covering only the information that is necessary for your readers to make a deduction
- Avoid speculative words which could support your hypothesis. These words include: ‘implies’, ‘indicates’ etc.
- Additional results and calculations should be covered in the appendices to reduce the length and possibility of confusion in the results section.
- Read various research paper results section examples to familiarize with the style of writing a results section.