IMRAD In Science
The Importance a Format Can Have
Defining Discourse and IMRAD: Probably A Good Place To Start
Science can be a difficult subject for some people to fully comprehend; it is made up of many unique concepts, events and methods. One might say that people who have an understanding of these things, like conventions and lab procedures, are members of the Discourse of science. What is a Discourse? Discourses, as defined by Professor James Paul Gee,
“…are ways of being in the world; they are forms of life which integrate words, acts, values, beliefs, attitudes, and social identities as well as gestures, glances, body positions, and clothes” (Gee 6).
While there are many elements that make up the Discourse of science, I will be focusing on how the understanding and use of Carnegie Mellon University’s IMRaD cheat sheet demonstrates membership in the Discourse. IMRaD, which stands for, Introduction & Importance, Methods, Results, and Discussion, is the format that scientists use when they write papers and/or articles.
These texts can be about about the introduction of an idea, or about the furtherment of an experiment. I will use Christina Haas’s, “Learning to Read Biology: One Student’s Rhetorical Development in College”, Darcy A. Fiano’s, “Primary Discourse and Expressive Oral Language in a Kindergarten Student”, and A.J. Meadows, “The scientific paper as an archaeological artefact” in the process of explaining IMRaD’s importance.
Looking at the the IMRaD format within texts sounds like it would be a relatively straightforward thing, but it isn’t. In order for someone to be able to use and analyze the IMRaD format to full effect they must be able to use rhetorical frame. Use of rhetorical frame means that the reader is able to grasp everything presented in an article. They know that there are several layers in the text, comprised of the information being introduced, the motives of the author, and how the paper may relate to another paper (Haas 48). Rhetorical reading is contrast to autonomous reading, where the reader simply reads everything word for word and leaves mentally empty handed.
Apprenticeship: Somebody’s Gotta Teach You
Learning how to read rhetorically in science requires that one enter into an apprenticeship. An apprenticeship, as defined by Gee is,
“enculturation into social practices through scaffolded and supported interaction with people who have already mastered the Discourse” (Gee 7).
A rather prominent example of using an apprenticeship to become a rhetorical reader can be found within Christina Haas’s, “Learning to read Biology”. In her article, Haas examined a biology student named Eliza as she struggled to comprehend the texts she read in college. As a freshman and sophomore Eliza took everything she read for face value. She didn’t even truly learn the material she read, rather she highlighted and memorized most of the information (Haas 48–49). Now as a junior, Eliza got a new work study job as a researcher in a lab run by one of her professors. This lab became a sort of apprenticeship for her because, “… a graduate student named Shelly, became an important mentor for her during the junior and on into the senior year” (Haas 64).
This apprenticeship marked the beginning of Eliza’s growth, she could now fluently skim-read and was able to recognize that authors of texts were scientists who all had their own motives (Haas 63). By her senior year Eliza was capable of realizing that not all the claims within papers were equal, that some texts were directly related to others, and that not all authors had absolute confidence in their theories (Haas 65–66).
Once someone goes through an apprenticeship that is similar to Eliza’s and learns how to use the rhetorical frame, they will be able to recognize certain components within the IMRaD format. These components are listed by Darcy A. Fiano in her article.
Fiano mentions that there seven “building tasks” for Discourse situations, but the six that are relevant here are significance, practices, identities, relationships, connections and sign systems and knowledge (Fiano 66).
Building Task #1: Practices
No matter the skill level of rhetorical reading, the building task of practices can be quickly spotted. Practices are defined as, “relevant in a certain context and how they are being enacted” (Fiano 67). Practices can so easily be spotted because the very creation of a scientific paper signifies the practice of starting a new experiment, or the continuation of an old one. If the paper is the continuation of an already published idea, then practices is additionally displayed through the citations, which acknowledge that the experiment is not completely original.
Building Task #2: Significance
Who published a paper first is also an instrumental part of the the building task significance, “how the speaker or writer is trying to give significance to things” (Fiano 67). If two rivals are writing articles about an idea that they both happen to share, then whoever publishes the paper first gets all of the glory and credit. As Meadows says,
“…as the scientific community continued to grow, the competition to increase, the feeling grew that it was actually necessary to publish first. Journals were therefore put under pressure to publish papers more quickly” (Meadows 28).
Anyone who tries to take credit for the idea after that initial paper’s publication will be largely ousted by the scientific community.
Rhetorical readers can also see significance in an IMRaD paper because properly formatted papers have four different sections. They are able to tell others why the information is separated and why it is important that the information remain separated,
“To an outsider, the contents of these papers appear to be mystic and wonderful: to an insider, they convey rapidly and efficiently information about the research that has been done” (Meadows 27).
For example, if a member of the Discourse simply wants to find the meat and potatoes of the experiment, they will skip all other sections of the paper and go directly to the Discussion section. On the other hand, if someone is looking for how to conduct an experiment, and the procedure is improperly placed in the Introduction rather than in the Methods section, they will become frustrated because they cannot quickly access the information.
Building Task #3: Identities
A fluent rhetorical reader will also quickly observe that identities, which is defined as, “the identity or identities relevant in a context” (Fiano 67) is present in the IMRaD paper format too. Like practices and significance before it, identities can be seen within the citations. The difference is, identities takes the analyzation of the citations to a deeper level. Rather than just looking at who the original mastermind behind the inception of an idea is, identities focuses on everyone involved in the experiment, and what role they might have played. The closer to the top someone is within the citations, the more important they would be to the experiment. Perhaps Eliza’s college professor who is conducting the experiment to write a thesis paper would be at the top. Next on the list might be one of the main researchers or graduate students in the project, who collect data, like Eliza’s mentor Shelly. Last on the list might be someone who contributed to lab, but didn’t do anything too significant, like Eliza herself.
Building Task #4: Connections
Piecing together puzzle parts, like who had what role in an experiment, can also translate into the building task connections. Connections is defined as, “the relevant connections and disconnections between things and people in a context and how these connections or disconnections are being made or implied” (Fiano 67). Members of the Discourse can see how the sections of the IMRaD paper format connect to each other. When writing the paper some sections can be completed out of sequence, while some cannot without the information from previous sections.
For example, if someone has not actually finished the experiment yet, then there can be no Results section. Without a Results section, there can be no Discussion section because the focal point of the Discussion is to observe and summarize the Results and experiment as a whole. Connections is also perceptible when the reader recognizes the motives behind the author, like Eliza did.
Building Task #5: Relationships
Although similar in name, the building task of relationships is not the same as connections. Relationships are defined as, “relevant in a context and how they are being enacted, recruited, and used” (Fiano 67). Relationships can be a little tricky to notice, but they are present when there are several different ideas being presented in an experiment instead of just a single one. It is observable in how members of the Discourse are able to determine through the sections of Importance & Introduction, Discussion and citations in an IMRaD paper, that some information in the experiment was drawn from the previous works of others. The researcher is not stealing this information, but rather using it to further his/her own ideas/experiment. Moreover, relationships is seen in how scientists communicate with one another through their papers.
One paper may send reverence to the work of the original mind behind a theory, while some papers may blast the original mind as incompetent and idiotic.
Building Task #6 Sign Systems & Knowledge
Everyone knows that as time passes the world changes. New theories are brought forth by scientists and technology advances. The final component that is noticeable in the IMRaD cheat sheet, sign systems and knowledge, “the relevant sign systems and forms of knowledge that are relevant in a context and how they are used and privileged or disprivileged” (Fiano 67), encompasses this idea. Members of the Discourse of science know that the IMRaD format has not always been the go to method for presenting new scientific findings. Originally scientific papers were not too different from a handwritten letter (Meadows 27). Scientific journals gradually became less and less formal as excess and unnecessary information was removed. They also became more standardized, as it says in Meadows,
“ …a detailed study of why papers are constructed the way they are suggests that the layout is a consequence of a long evolution aimed at simplifying the complexity of scientific communication” (Meadows 27).
Knowledge has also changed along with the sign systems. IMRaD papers can be used to release newer and more relevant information to prove that the status quo is either wrong or out of date, just like how people believed Earth was flat until they were proven wrong.
The purpose of this article is to show that the IMRaD paper format is a crucial part of the Discourse of science. The paper should speak for itself, I have shown in detail how only members of the Discourse can successfully analyze IMRaD papers quickly, as well as write their own IMRaD papers. In the paper I also mentioned that all things change over time. There will eventually come a day when the IMRaD format becomes modified, like the formal letters that came before it. It may even be completely scrapped.
As of today however, the IMRaD format is still an irreplaceable staple in the Discourse of science and if you don’t know it, you aren’t in the Discourse.
