Building on an earlier post (here), Andrew Gelman (Columbia--Statistics) discusses two main approaches--or styles--to writing empirical research:
"1. There is a single key finding, a headline result, with everything else being a modification or elaboration of it.
2. There are many little findings, we’re seeing a broad spectrum of results."
Obviously, as Gelman makes clear, either approach can work, and work well. Perhaps more important than one's approach, however, is to make clear which approach your paper adopts.
"If it’s the first sort of paper, please state clearly what is the key finding and what is the evidence for it. If it’s the second sort of paper, I’d suggest laying out all the results (positive and negative) in some sort of grid so they can all be visible at once. Otherwise, as a reader, I struggle through the exposition, trying to figure out which results are the most important and what to focus on."
Comments