Gong Cheng's Blog

新电脑，悠旋到家了，我这几天，就很兴奋的在折腾她。人的兴趣真的是很有意思的东西，同样是装电脑，为什么家里的这个装起来就这么起劲呢？我先去给她买了个音箱，然后给她装上了乌托邦操作系统。然后，我让她和我另外一台电脑通过NFS(Network File System) 共享一个硬盘，这样无论从哪台电脑 login进去，看见的东西都是一样的。随后发现，我装的是32位的操作系统，要想使用8G内存后面的4G，需要另外装一个extension, 又折腾了一会儿，可以用8G内存了。感觉悠旋的功能很强大，可以上youtube, 可以上pandora, 等等，以后家里的各种重要的计算任务就统统交给她了。 通常上网，用不到8G内存的1G, 9G的swap根本用不上。 4个 core的CPU, 可以用来计算各种我想要解决的科学计算问题。

The following is excerpted from a book “Essentials of Writing Biomedical Research Papers”.

Function, the function of the result section is to state the results of the experiments described in materials and methods section. In addition, the results section directs the reader to figures or tables that present supporting data.

Story line,

The results section continues the story line in different ways in the two types of hypothesis testing story. In type I hypothesis testing paper, all the design of the experiments were stated prior the beginning of the experiments. For hypothesis-testing studies in which the results of one experiment determine what the next experiment will be, the results section describes both the second and the third step. Similarly, for methods papers, the results section states the results of the tests done to determine how well the new method works.  The new method itself is described in the Method section.

Content,

What to include in the results section.

The primary information in the results section is results. However, not every result that you obtained from your experiments or observations need to be included. The results section should report only results that are pertinent to the question posed in the introduction. Results should be included whether or not they support your hypothesis . Both experimental and control results should be included.

The most important data should be presented in figures or tables, where the data are highly visible and easy to read.

What not to include in the results section.

Normally, the results section does not include statements that need to be referenced, such as comparison with others’ results. However, sometime, a brief comparison of one or two sentences which would not fit smoothly into the discussion, it can be included in the results section.

The results section of one type of study – hypothesis-testing studies in which the results of one experiment determine what the next experiment be also includes questions, study design ( over view of the experiments done), answers and, as needed, background, purpose, and reasons in the Results.

Results and Data

Results are different form data. Data are facts often numbers, obtained from experiments and observations. Data can be raw, whereas results are the meaning of the data.

Data: In the 20 control subjects, the mean resting blood pressure was 85+-5 SD mm Hg. In comparison, in the 30 tennis players, the mean resting blood pressure was 94+- mmHg.

Results: The mean resting blood pressure was higher in the in the 30 tennis players than in the 20 control subjects.

In most of the cases, the data should be presented in a figure or a table. In addition to simply saying “was less than”, “was greater than”, “ decreased” or “increased”, you can when appropriate give a general idea of the magnitude of a difference or a change by using a percentage, as in Revision B.

Statistical analysis,

For normally distributed data that have been analyzed statistically, report the mean and a statistics that estimates the variation from the mean and specify which statistics you are reporting. Also give the sample size and the probability values for tests of statistical significance. For non-normally distributed data that have been analyzed statistically, report the median and the interquatile range.  When reporting results of statistical hypothesis tests, it is often useful report 95% confidence intervals in addition to P values so that the reader is better able to judge the biological or clinical significance of the results.

Organization

When the design of the experiments were completely stated, the results section is normally organized chronologically, in the order in which the experiments were done.

When the studies in which one experiment determines the next experiment, the results section is organized in a repeating four part pattern. Ideally, each repeat of the pattern

* Question,

* Overview of the experiments.

* Results

* Answer to the question.

The question in the first paragraph of the results section is the question of the paper. The questions in succeeding paragraph are questions asked as steps toward answering the question of the paper.

The answer stated after each result leads to the next question, thus triggering the next four part pattern ( that is, the next paragraph) of the the results section. An answer at or near the end of the results is the answer to the question asked in the paper. The above pattern is for guiding purpose, other content can be added when appropriate.

Emphasis,

Very different techniques of emphasis are used in Results sections of studies in which one experiment determines what the next experiment will be and results sections of studies in which all experiments are designed in advance. In results sections in which the results of one experiment determine what the next experiment will be, the results are always in the middle of a paragraph, which, as we saw in Chapter 3, is the least visible position. To emphasize the results, you can use a signal at the beginning of the sentence: “We found,” or a variations such as “We observed” or “We detected.” In summary, the main ways to emphasize important results are by omitting data from the text of the Results section and condensing the results. In addition, putting results at the beginning of a paragraph

Verb Tense,

Results of hypothesis testing studies are reported in past tense, because they are discrete events that occurred in the past.