Results

Function

🎯 Objectively present your key results, without interpretation, in an orderly and logical sequence using both text and illustrative materials (Tables and Figures)

• Always begins with text, reporting the key results and referring to your figures and tables as you proceed.

• Summaries of the statistical analyses may appear

  • either in the text (usually parenthetically) or

  • in the relevant Tables or Figures (in the legend or as footnotes to the Table or Figure).

• The Results section should be organized around Tables and/or Figures that should be sequenced to present your key findings in a logical order. The text of the Results section should be crafted to follow this sequence and highlight the evidence needed to answer the questions/hypotheses you investigated.

• Important negative results should be reported, too.

Style

• Write the text of the Results section concisely and objectively
• The passive voice will likely dominate here, but use the active voice as much as possible
• Use the past tense
• Avoid repetitive paragraph structures
• Do not interpret the data here

Things to consider for Result section

What are the “results”?

When you pose a testable hypothesis that can be answered experimentally, or ask a question that can be answered by collecting samples, you accumulate observations about those organisms or phenomena. Those observations are then analyzed to yield an answer to the question. In general, the answer is the “key result”.

Notice that the outcome of a statistical analysis is not a key result, but rather an analytical tool that helps us understand what is our key result.

Differences, directionality, and magnitude

Report your results so as to provide as much information as possible to the reader about the nature of differences or relationships. Report the direction of differences (greater, larger, smaller, etc) and the magnitude of differences (% difference, how many times, etc.) whenever possible.

Organize the results section based on the sequence of Table and Figures you’ll include

Prepare the Tables and Figures as soon as all the data are analyzed and arrange them in the sequence that best presents your findings in a logical way.

A good strategy

Note on a draft of each Table or Figure, the one or two key results you want to addess in the text portion of the Results.

Rules to follow

• Each Table or Figure must include a brief description of the results being presented and other necessary information in a legend
  • Table legends go above the Table; tables are read from top to bottom.
  • Figure legends go below the figure; figures are usually viewed from bottom to top.
• When referring to a Figure from the text, “Figure” is abbreviated as Fig.,e.g., Fig. 1. Table is never abbreviated, e.g., Table 1.

The body of the Results section is a text-based presentation of the key findings which includes references to each of the Tables and Figures

• The text should guide the reader through your results stressing the key results which provide the answers to the question(s) investigated.
• You must refer to each Table and/or Figure individually and in sequence, and clearly indicate for the reader the key results that each conveys.
• Key results depend on your questions, they might include obvious trends, important differences, similarities, correlations, maximums, minimums, etc.

Problems to Avoid

• ❌ Do NOT reiterate each value from a Figure or Table

  ✅ only the key result or trends that each conveys.

• ❌ Do NOT present the same data in both a Table and Figure - this is considered redundant and a waste of space and energy.

  ✅ Decide which format best shows the result and go with it.

• ❌ Do not report raw data values when they can be summarized as means, percents, etc.

Report negative results - they are important!

Do not fall into the trap of thinking that results contrary to what you expected are necessarily “bad data”. If you carried out the work well, they are simply your results and need interpretation.

Always enter the appropriate units when reporting data or summary statistics.

• For an individual value, just place the unit after the number

  • E.g., “the mean length was 10 m”

• When including a measure of variability, place the unit after the error value

  • E.g., "…was 10 ± 2.3 m"

• Likewise place the unit after the last in a series of numbers all having the same unit.

  • E.g., “lengths of 5, 10, 15, and 20 m” , “no differences were observed after 2, 4, 6, or 8 min. of incubation”