Lecture 4. Types of Writing: Compositional Peculiarities

4.1 Scientific Articles

Scientific and technical articles and essays are mainly published in journals, magazines and newspapers. They are normally intended to reach a wider audience than research papers. How scientific articles are written depends on who the readers are likely to be. A more scholarly, academic or discipline-specific journal will allow specialized vocabulary, while a piece in a more popular magazine, for example, will present and explain the data in an accessible manner for a wider audience. The writer must know what kind of people he or she is writing for.

Articles and essays need to be a seamless whole: paragraph flowing into paragraph, ideas presented smoothly in logical order. Structurally they can be broken down into these three parts: (a) The introduction; (b) The main body; (c) The conclusion.

Articles and essays need to be well thought out and ordered. How the writer introduces the piece, builds on the introduction through the body, and concludes will largely determine how the information is accepted. Step by step, the writer must present main ideas, supporting evidence, analyses and conclusions in a logical and organized manner. The writing must not wander, but keep to its task of presenting the writer’s information in the clearest possible way.

There are three main kinds of articles and essays. The writer needs to know which type best serves his or her purpose:

Informational or Expository. This type of writing focuses on presenting information, not to persuade but to inform the reader. There should be a minimum of bias. Though the writer is not presenting an argument, the paper still must have a goal: the effective sharing of information.

Explanatory. This type of writing not only presents information, but also provides an explanation or rationale for it. This too should have little or no bias as the goal is to help the reader understand data better.

Argumentative or Persuasive. In this type of writing, the writer does have a viewpoint and is trying to persuade the reader to agree with it. The arguments are planned and thought out logically, in a sequence designed to bring the reader to the writer’s conclusion.

4.2 Research Papers

Research papers are generally written for scientists working in the same field and therefore have a more limited, and more specialized, readership than articles. Research papers can appear in specialist journals or be presented at conferences.

A research paper has a more closely defined structure than an article or essay. There are normally eight sections in a research paper or scientific report, and these tend to follow each other in a fixed sequence. Obviously these may vary, depending on the nature of the research done.

Title

It must precisely describe the report’s contents.

Abstract

An abstract is a brief overview of the report.

Introduction

It includes the purpose of the research, states the hypothesis, gives any necessary background information, and provides a review of pertinent literature.

Methods and materials

This section provides a description of material, equipment and methods used in the research.

Results

It states the results of the research including visual materials as well.

Discussion

This section is an evaluation and interpretation of the hypothesis, with relevant results cited in support.

Conclusion

It includes conclusions to be drawn from the results, conclusions about the hypothesis, implications of the research and results, as well as additional research proposed.

References cited

This section presents a list of the references cited including references to any works cited in the review of literature in the introduction.