Science through IMRaD-colored glasses

Science is an ever-changing, evolving art that has gotten increasingly accurate over the course of centuries. One aspect of science that has allowed it to get so much more precise is the structure in which research papers are written.

Whenever a scientist does research, the only proof that the research happened and the results are substantial comes when the research paper is published. Without the publication of their papers, scientists wouldn’t receive grants, earn money or have any chance of winning a Nobel Prize — which I can only assume is the dream of every scientist doing substantial research.

Every research paper follows the same basic structure called the IMRaD structure (Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion). This structure creates numerous opportunities to make the science more accurate and to expand the cumulative knowledge within all the fields of study. Working with James Gee’s “Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics”, all of the aspects that make up science and how it is practiced, including the IMRaD structure, allow us to look at science as a Discourse.

Christina Haas’ study on one girl’s effort to understand the IMRaD structure and figure out how to read it analytically, aids in the discussion of how important it is to the Discourse of science as a whole.

IMRaD allows scientists to correct each other’s work, build off of the gaps left by previous studies as well as making the research papers a combined, living entity that is always growing and adapting to the needs of the research being done.

Within the science Discourse, one of the most influential aspects are the published works which are found in the form of a research paper. These papers are used by scientists to validate each other’s work as well as get inspiration for new research.

In a paper on the evolution of the research paper in the science disciplines written by A.J. Meadows, “Scientific Paper as an Archaeological Artifact”, he states the purpose of the IMRaD structure for scientists:

“to an insider, they convey rapidly and efficiently information about the research that has been done” (27).

In other words, because these insiders are so well-versed in how the IMRaD structure works, they are able to quickly retrieve the information they need.

Meadows uses the word “insiders” much like James Gee does in his paper on Discourse. Gee describes what the consequences are for someone not in a Discourse to act like they are, saying that it “may very well mark you as a pretender to the social role… (an outsider with pretensions to being an insider)” (10).

He is saying that those outsiders who act as if they are in within a certain group are claiming to be an insider, or someone who is actually in the Discourse and can practice all the elements that the Discourse encompases flawlessly.

For instance, a scientist — the actual insider in this situation — questioning the validity of a certain study would know to look at the methods section, whereas one that was looking for future work would look in the discussion section to figure out what that particular study missed. This is made easy by the IMRaD’s structure as well as the values the insiders have instilled in it over the time the research paper has been around, and those who are not within the Discourse — even those who understand some and are trying to pretend they are fully in — will not be able to use it effectively.

Going back, Meadows uses the word “insiders” in reference to the people within the Discourse of science: the scientists doing the research. Those scientists are able to peruse through the IMRaD papers taking what they need from them and knowing which parts they can ignore. This is aided by the fact that the content within the IMRaD research papers is only that which is pertinent to the study at hand, and Meadows goes further into this when talking about the evolution of the title pages.

Hey says that “as the years pass they simplify and the amount of information is abbreviated to essential elements only” (Meadows 27). Even though he is only referring to the title pages, I believe that it can be extended to the rest of the paper as well.

Only information that is essential to the paper is put in so that scientists don’t have to worry if what they are reading is relevant, they just know all of the information is pertinent.

This process of eliminating waste from the papers is aided by the in-text citations which give reference to a previous study that isn’t crucial to the understanding of the current one, but can be helpful if an insider wanted delve deeper into the subject.

All-in-all, the main goal of the IMRaD structure is passing information efficiently and effectively, and therefore leaving out unimportant nuances and only semi-relevant information allows the reader to quickly get what they need from it.

The IMRaD paper also allows for relationships and connections to form. The way it is structured creates a living body of knowledge because of how studies can perfect and build off one another.

As scientists make new discoveries within a subject, more knowledge is added to print. The process through which this happens is touched on in an IMRaD instructional guide.

“[In the discussion section] connect the findings to other research… discuss flaws in a current study…use those flaws as reason to suggest additional research” (IMRaD cheat sheet).

Those strategies create connections to other texts as well as relationships to other people and their work; it directly tells the writer to make connections. But the beauty of it is also in discussing the flaws of other studies.

The constant scrutiny of scientific work almost guarantees that the correct information will be there. If one scientist does research and finds something, there will likely be several others that review his or her work to make sure it is correct. If not, then the methods section can illuminate where the first scientist went wrong and allow the reviewer to redo the study a correctly to make sure the results are true.

The third piece of the discussion, “use those flaws as reason to suggest additional research,” is probably the part scientists like the most. The honesty in reporting what the study didn’t show allows for other researchers to build off the study and complete the understanding of the subject.

All these connections to other texts and studies that the IMRaD structure creates allows the collective knowledge of some of the smartest people to be constantly growing and perfecting, allowing humans to know as much as possible about the world around us.

In an attempt to know more about how undergraduate college students view scientific texts, Christina Haas of Penn State University studied a girl by the name of Eliza and how she read in each of her four years of undergraduate school.

Haas wrote about Eliza’s experience with scientific texts in her paper, “Learning to Read Biology”, and in this paper, Haas introduces her idea of rhetorical frame. She defines it as including the “participants, their relationships and motives, and several layers of context” (48).

What she is saying is that to read rhetorically, one must take into account all of these aspects, understanding that a paper was written by actual scientists, knowing why they did the research and what other texts it is connected to allows the reader to get a deeper understanding into what is actually going on in the paper.

Being able to read rhetorically is crucial to Biology and in understanding the IMRaD structure because if one looks at a research paper as standalone and not having any context within the overall research on the subject, then the reader isn’t grasping the majority of what the IMRaD structure has to offer.

Research papers are riddled with connections to outside research as well as the context in which the research is being done, and in Eliza’s first two years, she wasn’t seeing that and it was holding her back from the rhetorical reading that she started in her junior year.

While reading the section on Eliza, I could not ignore the connection between Eliza’s start to her work-study job and her real start to rhetorical reading.

If this section were being analyzed by Gee, he would say that this leap forward would be a direct result of her apprenticeship in the lab. Gee describes apprenticeship as one of the only true ways to enter a Discourse because he believes,

“Discourses are not mastered by overt instruction… but by enculturation (“apprenticeship”) into social practices through scaffolded and supported interaction with people who have already mastered the Discourse” (7).

Classroom-like instruction is never what does it, but instead, hands on learning by watching a master and doing the actual things that are done within the Discourse are the ways to learn and be fluent in it.

This apprenticeship in the Discourse of science allowed her to understand how scientists read and analyze research papers. This connection is hard to dismiss because from her freshman to sophomore years she showed very little development in her rhetorical reading skills and it wasn’t until her junior year when she finally leaped ahead and figured out how to read scientific papers efficiently and effectively.

For example, in her junior year she comments on one paper, saying that “they’re not sure if this is how it replicates… they don’t know too much about the microbiology of the virus” (Haas 65). Her recognition of their lack of knowledge is the same recognition that a scientist who is looking for future research would find.

The overt instruction from her first two years wasn’t cutting it. It was holding her back from starting to enter the Discourse of science and only when she started apprenticing and doing actual science did she start to pick up techniques used by people in the Discourse.

This apprenticeship was crucial because even though, up until this point she seemed to be getting away with treating texts as autonomous and not really taking anything out of the IMRaD structure, I have a feeling that if she had carried that into her junior year, her classes would be too difficult for that to be effective.

Also without the boost into the apprentice stage of the Discourse in her junior year, she may have fallen behind on her dream to be a biologist since reading and writing IMRaD research papers are a massive piece of what Biologists do.

If she had gone on without that knowledge then, as Gee points out, her “lack of fluency may very well mark [her] as a pretender to the social role instantiated in the Discourse” (Gee 10). Because the IMRaD structure is so important to the science Discourse, her being marked as a pretender would be detrimental to her success in the field.

Her start to entering the Discourse was well timed so that by her senior year she was doing extremely well at reading IMRaD texts analytically, and therefore should have little trouble transitioning into being a full-fledged member of the Discourse of science.

As Haas’ illuminated for us, Eliza’s entrance to the Discourse of science was marked by her start to practicing the actual elements in science, including reading and writing research papers in the IMRaD structure. Because IMRaD is such a key component to science as a Discourse, understanding it is tantamount to be considered an insider.

It produces immense amounts of connections and the illuminated gaps in discussions pushes to further research in any given subject. This growth and development in the research paper is a driving force behind science, forcing new discoveries to be made, building of of the basis provided by previous research that has been done.

All of these developments create a living being out of the published works, and is therefor a great visual representation of the evolution of science. The research paper has evolved alongside science, conforming to the needs of of the community, allowing for scientists to easily take what they need from the information, and it has taken the form of the IMRaD structure.