64 Science Research Writing When you refer to the work of other researchers, be careful about the location of your reference notation in the sentence; you may accidentally credit someone with work they have not done — perhaps even with your own work! Remember that reference notations do not automatically go at the end of a sentence. It is sometimes appropriate or necessary to mention the eff ects of the procedures you used. However, it is not a good idea to discuss them or comment at this stage. If you go into too much detail you may leave yourself with nothing to write about in the Results section. Interestingly, it is common to provide further details about the methodology in the Results section. Sometimes the Methodology section just provides basic parameters and the method itself is detailed in the Results section in relation to the results obtained. In Sentence 7 'Th is method obtains a precipitate through the addition of BaCl2.2H2O; the resulting precipitate can be washed and stored easily.' the writer provides more detailed information about the method and shows it to have been a good choice. Justifi cation is common throughout this section; as before, the aims are to answer possible criticisms or doubts about your choices, to assure the reader that your choices were made on the basis of good reasons and to give those reasons. We oft en see justifi cation of signifi cant choices and the reason for rejecting alternative options given in full. As mentioned earlier, this is because it is essential that your reader accepts the decisions you made about your methodology. In Sentence 8 'Th e samples were subsequently shipped to ISF for analysis by accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS).' the writer provides more details of the method. It is interesting to note that, as mentioned earlier, you need to do more than just provide details of what you did and used; this is the only sentence in this section that gives details and nothing more — every other sentence has an additional function.
Methodology — Writing Task 65 In Sentence 9 'All tubing used was stainless steel, and although two samples were at risk of CFC contamination as a result of brief contact with plastic, variation among samples was negligible.' the writer mentions a possible diffi culty in the methodology. Doesn't this discuss a result of what was done? No, it's actually saying that the problems in the methodology didn't aff ect the results. Sometimes you do need to mention results in this section, but only if the preliminary results were used to modify or develop the design of the main experiments/simulations. Why should I mention problems in the methodology? Won't it make me look bad? In fact the opposite is true. In the fi rst place, if you don't mention the imperfections in your work, it may look as though you are not aware of them, which gives a very poor impression. So you look far more professional if you do mention them. If you ignore or try to hide imperfections (such as a data set which was too small, equipment or soft ware that was not ideal) and your readers notice them, they will begin to doubt your legitimacy as a researcher, which aff ects their acceptance of your results and conclusions. Second, whenever you fi nish a piece of research, there is a good chance that you have learned enough from the problems encountered during the project to do it better next time. Should you delay writing it up while you repeat the work and improve your technique? What if you learn more this time too; should you delay again while you do it again? And again? If you do, you may never actually write it up. An acceptable option is to write up the research and acknowledge the problems or diffi culties you encountered. In fact, it's not only considered acceptable to mention them in this section, it's much better to do it here rather than wait until the end. It isn't considered appropriate to mention limitations or imperfections for the fi rst time when you are discussing suggestions for future work in the Discussion/Conclusion. But how can I talk about problems in my work without looking like a failure? Use vocabulary that minimises the problem, minimises your responsibility, maximises the good aspects and suggests a solution. In