Page 164 - English for Writing Research Papers

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8.9 Present your key findings in a very short sentence

and list the implications

It is crucial that the referee (and readers) are clearly alerted to your key fi ndings, and
that they clearly see (literally on the page) the uses and implications. In S1, the key

finding (i.e. Eq. 2) is part of a 39-word sentence. It does not stand out on the page.
S1. *Equation 2 is the main result of our study and it can be used both in numerical codes to
evaluate the impact of the presence of anomalies in the various samples taken, or for simple
estimates for designing experiments.
There are several ways to improve S1. The first is to use numbers.

S2. Equation 2 is the main result of our study. It can be used: (i) to evaluate in numerical codes
the impact of the presence of anomalies in the various samples taken; or (ii) to make simple
estimates for designing experiments.

In S2, Eq. 2 is now in a sentence of only nine words. A very short initial sentence
when introducing a key finding encourages the reader to pay more attention. Note

also that in S2, the two phrases regarding the uses of Eq. 2 now have the same type

of grammatical construction (infinitive form of verbs – to evaluate the impact, to
make simple estimates). In the OV there was no such parallelism in construction.

If you don’t want to use numbers, an alternative way to rewrite S1 is S3:

S3. Equation 2 is the main result of our study. It can be used for two purposes. Firstly, to evalu-
ate in numerical codes the impact of the presence of anomalies in the various samples
taken. Secondly to make simple estimates for designing experiments.

A third alternative is bullets, see 8.5 .