inclusion criteria

• i included things for this reason
• i excluded things for this reason 

a conclusion does two things

• think of the conclusion section as a inverted pyramid in that it contains all of the information that's arguably least relevant to the topic, which might include your personal opinion and/or thoughts and feelings on the matter.

• you can also think of the conclusion as related to the methods/search strategy section. in the methods/search strategy section, the idea is to tabulate all of the information necessary such that another researcher could exactly duplicate your research process to find all of the exact same articles as you did in the exact same way. in this way, you're kind of indirectly communicating with another researcher. the same goes for the conclusion. there, you want to hand over any extra tidbits of information that might someone pick up your trail where you left off. the idea is you want to give another researcher a productive place to begin. that is, you want to specify a few good places to begin and detail why they are in fact good places to begin. you suggest directions for future research. 

both paragraphs together: the search strategy + road map + inclusion criteria

link to research verbs

use research verbs for the road map; that's how to get one of those really good sentences for each subsection i've been talking about, one that

• reviews what the section does in the context of that subsection, using the topoi as a way to make what was already implicit in your reseults section explicit 

methods section draft ; organizing operation = this paper compares, divides, defines, etc.

Remember that

• This methods section that's due this Friday is an opportunity for you to "write yourself into" the language that you want to use for later on. By that I simply mean, use it mostly as an opportunity for you to really push your thinking and try to produce those really good road map sentences like in the example, sentences that explain what organizing operation the section does, possibly in the form of a topoi. The best possible thing that could happen is that you figure out a clearer and more effective way of communicating what you were trying to communicate. The topoi will really help here.
• But this is a more informal exercise. Where it really counts will be in the final literature paper that's due on the 12th. 
• Be sure that this is in a separate document that's labeled appropriately on the blog.
• also remember that you're trying to re-think your search strategy--not the strategy of the other researchers whose articles you read. 
• the purpose of the methods section is to provide enough information so that another researcher could exactly replicate your search process to find all of your same articles in the same way that you did. 
• organizing operation = the research verbs and active verbs we were talking about. the methods section is supposed to be passive, and, although I used active, I didn't use I: I used "This literature review compares..." Either way, you can't use the first or second person ever. No "I." No "We." No "you."

Not just what you plan to do, or what the section does, but how you assembled the sources and put them into conversation with one another

road map + topoi

notice the topoi, which in this case is compare & contrast. the road map isn't an opportunity for you to merely repeat what's in the results section, but to think about what you did there anew and in a different way, say, in terms of

• space or proximity or juxtaposition 
• time or duration or narrative 
• magnitude or size or prevalence
• division or isolation or containment 
• paradox or anomaly or strangeness 
• appearance vs. reality
• more or less likely
• in terms of, as in: but if we think about (a) in terms of (b), or try to use (b) as a key to (a)
• context or setting or environment
• intention vs. context
• definition, redefinition, categorization 
• consequence or implication 
• example, plus what the example is an example of (general to specific)
• motivations or reasons why
• inference, conclusion, proposition

before and after

notice how I (a) write one very long sentence that's contextualized within the specific section it refers to; (b) explain what the section does in terms of its organization logic (i.e., compare and contrast); and then also (c) recapitulate the entire section, with the idea that a busy reader could get the picture of the entire thing without even having to go to the section if he or she needed to

but I do this in one long sentence. also notice the active verb. but what I did was put the subject as "this review." regardless, it's important to note that you can't use the first person at all (neither "I" nor "we"), and that it because the literature review wasn't written as a team, and the first person singular is disallowed by the genre

as a result, it's not as though you need two sentences, each that do different things. you only really need one good sentence that, in a way, makes the reading of the section necessary--and you need to do this for each subsection

conclusion = implications + discussion = fits in to the broader picture + methods = replicate & road map

remember to break up your annotations + methods section addendum

Drake Gossi

Mar 31 at 11:24am

No unread replies.No replies.

Remember that you

• have two annotations due this Sunday, and also
• have to break them up into two audio files (I don't just want one 10 minute file; I want two clearly labeled files)

For the methods section, which is due this next Friday, not today, a week from today (see the schedule (Links to an external site.)), it's supposed to be 2 pages. I wanted to be consistent with the two pages across the board (the discussion, intro, conclusion, etc.), but, for the methods, I understand if it's, say, 1.5: the purpose of this particluar assignment (the methods section) is

• to generate a surplus of language that encompasses your search strategy, with the goal of being so generous with your reasoning that another researcher could exactly replicate your search process to find the exact same articles. That's the goal. Remember to watch the video to where I explain the whole thing (Links to an external site.). But also remember that the goal is 
• to do two things, the search strategy and the road map. Before, you wrote a draft of the road map. I want you to keep drafting it, though this time where it really belongs, which is in the methods/search strategy section. Same with the discussion section. The discussion section you wrote was a draft. You won't really even be able to finish it until you finish Berridge (2016), since only then will you know how your 10 results fit into the field, that source representing for us the field of public health. The discussion section is not a conclusion. Rather, again, it shows how your topic as you articulate it fits into the wider conversation about public health.

But, because of the nature of the search strategy, I can easily imagine people having trouble reaching a full two pages on this one. But stretch yourself. We want more language than we need.

The conclusion will go on to think through the implications of how "a" (your research, what you found to answer your question, etc.) fits into "b" (public health). 

Drake

3-31, in class

Beginning of paper

what to include in a methods section

another methods section

better example of more developed road map; for us, the roadmap goes at the bottom of the methods section; note the passive voice

example of methods section (warning: this example has a scant road map. yours will need to be significantly more developed than this)

You will need to become aware of why some papers are stronger than others and to wrote this up in the method sections probably