Results Redux: The Basic Outline of a Scientific Paper, Part 3: Results

I have already addressed the Results section in “Results - What Results?” in my blog and on Facebook, Tips for Authors #1, posted February 22, 2020. However, there are a few more things to consider.

One of the biggest mistakes that I see in the Results section is beginning with a long discussion of supplemental data. If this is so important that the reader needs to know about it before anything else, it deserves the first figure in the body of the paper! Supplemental means just that—it supplements, i.e. adds to, augments or expands upon, the data at the core of the work. That is why general data mining, control studies, optimizations, and other necessary but boring, due diligence type experiments are relegated to supplemental material. The reader should actually be able to go through the paper, understand what it is about and how the conclusions are supported WITHOUT EVER LOOKING AT THE SUPPLEMENTAL DATA. The hypothesis and its resulting ‘story’ should be clear and complete within the main body of the text. All the absolutely necessary data supporting the conclusions should be in the Results section. Missing data should not be found in the supplement.

It is permissible to just summarize preliminary/supplemental findings in a clause or sentence to set up a figure. For example, “After Blast analysis of the flea genome (see Supplemental Table 1), we identified 10 proteins and used them to test for binding to X (Figure 1). Figure 1 shows that …..” This will focus the reader on the really important data but still indicate either the origin or due diligence of the preliminary work, one of the main purposes for supplemental data.

The data presented in the Results section should be the absolutely critical data needed to test your hypothesis and justify your conclusions. It (and the supplement) does not need to include every piece of data you ever generated in the course of your research or interesting but ultimately unnecessary findings for your hypothesis. Not every piece of data needs to be published, and those interesting results should be saved for your next project.

Another thing to consider, the Results section should not have a lot of citations. This section is all about YOUR work—keep it focused on the results YOU generated and what the data do or do not say. How you develop your argument (i.e. the logical construction of the writing) to justify your conclusions should be very apparent in the presentation of your results. This section is all about you and what you found!

Other considerations:

1. As a mentioned in the Methods section discussion, the order of the Results section should track with the Methods section.

2. Abbreviations and terms should also be consistent between the two sections, as well as throughout the entire document.

3. Abbreviations and terms should also be consistent between figures, as well as formats, colors and shapes. I will be blogging about figures some other time.

4. Be prepared to change figures if you find better ways of labeling things as you write.

5. Every figure or part of a figure needs to have a reference in the text. That is why I suggest using a check-off list or outline prior to writing the section.

6. Each figure or figure part should generate a conclusion or point. This needs to be explicitly stated. “Figure 1a shows that …..” or “Together, these data show that…., suggesting …..” Anything more, e.g. comparisons to other work, belongs in the discussion.