Page 55 - English for Writing Research Papers

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S3. In this section, we will ask the question: ‘Under what circumstances will a paper be
rejected?’
S4. In this section we define our approach and show how it can be very naturally used to defi ne

distributions over functions. In the following section we show how this distribution is …
The examples highlight different styles for introducing the topic. S1 and S2 are the
standard approach, using a personal style ( we in S1) and an impersonal style (the
passive form in S2). S3 represents a variation because it asks a question – this may
be a good solution for creating some variety in the way you begin each section.

Note how in S4 the author also refers to future sections. Such references help the
reader to see how the current section fi ts in with the logical progression of the rest
of the paper. However, you should keep such references as short as possible as they
can become quite heavy and annoying for the reader.

3.3 First paragraph of a new section – go directly

to the point
Particularly in shorter papers, you may not have the space to have mini summaries
at the beginning of your section or subsections ( 3.2 ). In any case, readers often don’t
have the time or the inclination to read them. In such cases you need a more direct
approach.

Being direct does not necessarily entail telling the reader what you did, but telling
them what it means. A typical sentence to open the Results section is:

S1. An analysis of the number of words used in English with respect to Italian, showed that the
average sentence in English was 25 words long, whereas in Italian it was 32 words long (see
Table 1). This indicates that when an Italian document is translated into English, there is …

A much more direct approach is to say:

S2. Italian tends to use more words per sentence than English, so when an Italian document is
translated into English, there is …

S2 begins with the main information, and then provides the implications. You do not
necessarily need to tell the reader the exact details of what you did (this would be
more appropriate in Methods) but just what you found.