Thesis >> Results
The Results chapter in a thesis, which follows the Methods, primarily reports clearly and precisely what was found or achieved during the study or experiment. The Results should be presented in a way that is meaningful for the reader and should not contain long lists of raw data. In addition, when considering what to include, the focus should be on the results that fulfill the research gap and provide evidence for the Discussion. The author may include some direct comments about the results but not detailed discussion of the significance and implications of the results.
Read the extract below from the Results of a Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering Thesis investigating resource allocation in wireless networks.
Use the color palette below to paint the sentences which address the following purposes.
- Reference to the objectives of the simulations.
- Reference to the procedures for obtaining the results.
- Reference to a table showing the results.
- Presenting the results shown in a table with the author’s observations of the results.
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The main purpose of the Results in a thesis is to present the data and observations arising from empirical experimental work, computer simulations, calculations, and/or construction of mathematical models. The Results should be confined to reporting results achieved from following the procedures described in the Methods that support the objectives of the study.
The results form the core of the thesis and provide the evidence for the Discussion and any final conclusions drawn on the significance and implications of the study. When writing the Results, the author should consider the story that the results tell and focus on reporting the results that help the reader to understand the story. The author should avoid presenting raw data and long lists of findings as these may be difficult to digest. Instead the author needs to think about what are the key findings that address the research gap.
The Results should focus on reporting facts NOT opinion. There may be brief evaluative comments about the results. However, the author should avoid an extensive discussion of what the results mean, in terms of their significance and implications, as this is the purpose of the Discussion chapter.
The Results typically includes the purposes below:
- Reference to the objectives of the study or analytical procedures followed to obtain the results.
- Statement or overview of key results or findings.
- Description of experimental and numerical results obtained so that the reader can fully understand what was found, achieved or what happened in the study.
- Figures, graphs, charts and graphics to illustrate the results.
- Explanation of what the figures show without extensive interpretation of the results.
- Author’s observations and comments on the results obtained.
The Results should NOT include the following items:
- Results that are irrelevant to the purpose of the study.
- Raw data (data should be transformed into meaningful findings).
- Overly complicated graphs, charts and tables that are difficult to understand.
- Graphics which are not explained.
- Extensive reference and comparison with previous studies.
- Writer’s interpretation and evaluation of what the results mean.
- Significance of the results.
- Application of the results obtained.
Items 5-8 involve the author’s opinion and should thus be included in the Discussion.
Activity 1>> 2
Read the list of statements regarding the purpose and scope of the Results and decide whether they are true or false. Show your answer by clicking on the correct answer
| The purpose of the Results is it to …. | True or False | Answer |
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report the results obtained in experimental work, computer simulations, and/or construction of mathematical models |
True | |
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report facts NOT opinion |
True | |
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highlight key results | True or False
The author needs to draw attention to the most important results that fulfill the research gap.
Check |
True |
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include an interpretation of the data | True or False
This often involves the author’s opinion and so is outside the scope of the Results.
Check |
False |
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communicate the most important findings and tell the reader what has been achieved or found in the context of the research gap. | True or False
The author needs to draw attention to the most important results that fulfill the research gap.
Check |
True |
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include raw data | True or False
The author needs to present the key findings in a meaningful way that answers or solves the research question.
Check |
False |
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discuss the results | True or False
This often involves the author’s opinion so is outside the scope of the Results.
Check |
False |
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make claims about the significance of the findings | True or False
This often involves the author’s opinion so is outside the scope of the Results.
Check |
False |
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provide suggestions for further research | True or False
This often involves the author’s opinion so is outside the scope of the Results.
Check |
False |
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suggest the practical applications of the research finding | True or False
This often involves the author’s opinion so is outside the scope of the Results.
Check | False Note: This often involves the author’s opinion so is outside the scope of the Results. |
Read the sentences below taken from the Results of an Electronic Engineering thesis and decide which ones would fit the purpose and scope of a Results chapter.
Show your answer by clicking on √ or X.
| Examples | √ or X | Answer |
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*ELMs presented a quite favorable computational expense; *NFCs and *NBCs performed better in prediction accuracy, while they were only marginally ahead. More importantly, it implies that, these massive protein sequential and spatial data are not sensitive to different learning mechanisms. | √ or X
Although the first sentence refers to the key finding, the second sentence includes the writer’s evaluation of the result with the use of “”implies”” to suggest interpretation. This extract was taken from Discussion and Conclusion of the thesis.
Check |
X |
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In future studies, when millions or even billions of residues are involved, *NFCs, NBCs and ELMs are recommended for a fast and desirable prediction based on this type of information or data | √ or X
This does not fall into the scope of the Results as the writer is recommending future work.
Check |
X |
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From these tables, we can see that, the proportion of the positive class to the negative one influences the final prediction results. When r = 0.5, which corresponded to a larger positive class, we obtained better precision, recall and F-score values but an unsatisfactory specificity value. | √ or X
This falls within the scope of the Results as the writer is explaining the results shown in the tables displayed.
Check |
√ |
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In order to conduct a comparison between the case where only the mutation feature was used and the case involving both the mutation feature and personal features, we applied the classification model on both these two cases, and the results are presented in Table 2.8. (…) We obtained average classification accuracies of 81.55% and 68.33% for training and testing respectively in the first case (using the mutation feature alone); while 95.41% and 89.94% were achieved in the second case (using both mutation and personal features). | √ or X
Here, the writer is referring to the procedure before reporting results obtained with reference to a table displaying the key results.
Check |
√ |
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Figure 4.4 exhibits the results, where part (a) shows the numbers of potential partners of the observed chains and part (b) presents the statistics on their lengths. |
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More innovative features or information should be explored to improve the prediction performance, and more revolutionary and individualized strategies should be developed to handle this type of data. | √ or X
This is outside of the scope of the Results as the writer is making recommendations for future work.
Check |
X |
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Adapted from: D. Wang, “Deciphering Inter- and Intra-molecular Interactions Based on the Dynamic and Structural Properties of Molecules”, Ph.D dissertation, City University of Hong Kong, Dept. of Elec. Eng., CITYU, Hong Kong, 2014. [Online]. Available: CityU Institutional Repository. *NFC – Neuro Fuzzy Classifier, NBC – Naive Bayesian Classifier, ELM – Extreme Learning Machine Note: (…) indicates that parts of the text have been removed due to space constraints. |
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There is scope for flexibility in the structure of the Results and it is common for a thesis to contain several Results chapters to present different aspects of the overall study. The results should be presented logically rather than chronologically, to help the reader follow the story the results tell and understand their significance and relationship with each other.
When reporting the results, authors usually begin with the most significant results, which are followed by specific results that help the readers understand what was found during the study. Typically, the results are organised and grouped according to the objectives of the research and should include figures, tables, sub-headings to break up the text and enhance the flow.
The title used for the Results can vary according to purpose and engineering field and should be topic specific to reflect its content. The author should thus consider the content of the Results and choose a title that expresses the area clearly.
Examples of headings for the Results include:
- Simulation Results
- Experimental Verifications
- Experimental Results
- Measurements
- Implementation
- Numerical Results
The author may also use an umbrella Results title for the chapter, such as “Experimental Results”, and then divide the chapter into sub-sections using specific names to indicate their content. When writing specific names, the author should use key terms from that section to help guide the reader.
Example 1
Below is an extract taken from the Table of Contents of a Systems Engineering and Engineering Management thesis about improving performance in human-machine systems.
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3.3 Results |
Umbrella title
Specific sub sections
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| Adapted from: N. H. Tsang, “Multi-task performance in processing four-choice spatial stimulus-response (S-R) mappings: Implications for multimodal human-machine interface design”, Ph. D. dissertation, Dept. Syst. Eng. & Eng. Mgt., CITYU, Hong Kong, 2014. [Online]. Available: CityU Institutional Repository. | |
The Results may include the following three communicative moves or features and the steps that help to achieve them.
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Moves |
Steps |
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Background/Introductory statements |
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Reporting of results |
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Adding meaning to the results |
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| Note: The last move “Adding meaning to the results” is the most flexible of the moves and some or all of the steps may not be necessary in the Results chapter. | |
In addition, the Results may be combined with the Discussion, in which case moves associated with each chapter will appear in a cyclical structure. Some writers may also choose to include an introductory section to preview the content and help the reader understand what will follow, and a summary at the end to recapitulate the main findings.
Example 2
Below is an extract from the Results of an Electronic Engineering thesis which focuses on the analysis on the interaction of molecular structures. These extracts show an example of the cyclical structure of the Results with two sets of results reported following two procedures.
Some of the moves associated with Results are indicated in the extract. Key words associated with specific moves are highlighted.
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Moves |
Example |
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Statement of key result (for the whole section) |
5.3 Results |
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Scope of results (indicated by the subheading to organise the text) |
5.3.1 Motion Magnitude Functions of the NucleosomalDNA Chain |
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Reference to procedure followed to obtain results |
The normal mode analysis (NMA) of the nucleosome core particles provided information on their structural deformations. |
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Statement of key result(using normal mode analysis) |
We mainly observed the normal modes corresponding to the smallest eigenvalues of the Hessian matrix H. |
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Reference to preceding stage of experiment which affected results |
In an earlier stage of our study, for each nucleosome core particle, we computed the first 100 essential modes, in which the first 10~15 have similar motion magnitude function curves for the nucleosomal DNA sequences and these curves show a clear sign of periodicity. Hence, we selected the first 10 modes from mode 7 to mode 16 of each nucleosome core particle for investigation. The first six modes were skipped since they represent the gross rigid-body rotation and translation. |
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Reference to figures which illustrate the results |
Part A of Figure 5.3 shows the motion magnitude curves corresponding to different modes of ‘3MGP’, where each point represents a nucleotide. Part C of Figure 5.3 presents the motion magnitudes of two different nucleosome core particles ‘3MGP’ and ‘1AOI’. |
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Highlighting results presented in figures |
From the fluctuation of these curves, we can detect the periodicity from the peak and valley locations. |
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Reference to other sections for further results |
In Sections 5.3.2 and 5.3.3, we will further discuss the relationship between this periodicity detected from the NMA motions and the periodic dinucleotide patterns. |
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Reference to procedure followed to obtain results |
In order to make a comparison with the molecular dynamics (MD) simulation method, we used Gromacs in http://www.gromacs.org/ (similar to AMBER) to simulate the dynamics of the nucleosome core particles. |
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Statement of key result |
Our results indicated that the motion magnitude curves generated by the MD simulations and by the NMA have similar shapes. |
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Reference to a figure which illustrates the results |
As an example, part D of Figure 5.3 displays the motion magnitude curves of nucleosome ‘3KXB’ obtained from the two methods. |
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(1)Highlighting of results presented in figures (Figure 5.3 in the previous sentence) |
(1)The correlation coefficient between the two above-mentioned curves is 0.773, (2) which confirms that the results from the MD simulations and from the NMA are consistent. |
| Adapted from: D. Wang, “Deciphering Inter- and Intra-molecular Interactions Based on the Dynamic and Structural Properties of Molecules”, Ph.D dissertation, City University of Hong Kong, Dept. of Elec. Eng., CITYU, Hong Kong, 2014. [Online]. Available: CityU Institutional Repository. | |
Activity 1>> 2>> 3
Below are the sub-section titles and their opening sentences taken from the Results of a Systems Engineering and Engineering Management thesis investigating multi- task performance.
Match up the titles to their opening sentences by dragging them into the space above the correct extract. Consider the key terms that are used in the titles. To help, one has been done for you.
Secondary Task- Reaction Time (RT) Secondary Task – Response Error Correlation between Root Mean Square Tracking Errors (RMSTEs) andReaction Times (RTs) Comparison in RT with and without Visual Scanning in Dual-task Condition Secondary Task – Response Error Primary Task – Root Mean Square Tracking Error (RMSTE) Comparison of RMSTE with and without Visual Scanning in a Dual-task Paradigm |
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There is a clear link between the heading and each sub-section. The heading includes the key words of the section which express the objective and these key words are repeated early in the text.
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Below is an extract from the Results of an Electronic Engineering thesis investigating the properties of molecules.
Read the extract and highlight the sentences that correspond to the moves below by clicking on the correct colour below and using it to paint the sentences.
- Introductory statement that provides an overview of the results to be covered in the chapter.
- Reference to tables which present the key results
- Reference to procedure followed to obtain results
- The author’s observations of results
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Results and Analysis This chapter will elaborate the experimental results and related analysis for all the predictors introduced in previous chapters, including GOASVM and FusionSVM for single location protein subcellular localization, and mGOASVM, AD-SVM, mPLR-Loc, SS-Loc, HybridGO-Loc, RP-SVM and REP-Loc for multi-location protein subcellular localization. 9.1 Performance of GOASVM 9.1.1 Comparing GO Vector Construction Methods Table 9.1 shows the performance of different Gene Ontology (GO)-vector construction methods on the EU16, HUM12 and the novel eukaryote (NE16) datasets, which are detailed in Tables 8.1, 8.2 and 8.3, respectively. Linear SVMs were used for all cases, and the penalty factor was set to 0.1. For the EU16 and HUM12 datasets, leave-one-out cross-validation (LOOCV) was used to evaluate the performance of GOASVM; for the NE16 dataset, the EU16 training dataset was used for training the classifier, which was subsequently used to classify proteins in the NE16 dataset. Four different GO-vector construction methods were tried, including 1-0 value, term-frequency (TF), inverse sequence-frequency (ISF) and term frequency inverse sequence-frequency (TF-ISF). Evidently, for all the three datasets, term-frequency (TF) performed the best among these four methods, which demonstrates that the frequencies of occurrences of GO terms provide additional information for subcellular localization. (…) |
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Adapted from: S. Wan, “Protein Subcellular Localization: Gene Ontology Based Machine Learning Approaches”, Ph.D dissertation, Elec. and Inf. Eng., POLYU Hong Kong, 2014. [Online]. Available: PolyU Electronic Theses. Note: (…) indicates that parts of the text have been removed due to space constraint. |
Read the extracts from the Results of a Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering thesis which show how moves may be repeated for different aspects of the analysis.
Match the labels to the correct extract by dragging and dropping the labels from the boxes into the left hand column of the table to match the text they describe. Each move should be used only once
-Reference to an objective -Reference to procedure -Reference to a table which illustrates the results -Highlighting results presented in a table -Reference to another aspect of the procedure -Reference to a figure which illustrates the results -Observation of results shown in figure |
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Answer Key
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In the Results, authors should pay attention to appropriate tense choices, as suggested in the table below.
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Simple Past Tense |
Present Simple |
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Authors should also be aware of the need to signpost their work carefully so that the reader can easily follow the flow of ideas and understand the connection between the results reported and the story that they tell. The reader should be able to understand why they are being reported and how they address the research question. Thus, the writer needs to make careful use of linking devices to connect their ideas, but avoid overusing them as this can make the writing seem mechanical. The author needs to consider alternative ways to achieve text cohesion, such as pronouns, ordering of information in a sentence and previewing and reviewing what has been written.
The focus of the Results is to report results and not a discussion of the author’s opinion of the findings. However, the author may also make observations and comments about the results to add meaning and pave the way for any claims made about the significance and implications of the results.
Key language features of the Results include:
- Passive voice to emphasise what was found when the doer is not important.
- Use of Past Simple to report what was found under the experiment conditions.
- Present Simple to emphasise that the results are repeatable, have become a statement of fact or are a generalisation (especially for algorithms, analytical models, statistical analyses and calculations).
- Achieving text cohesion with the use of signposting phrases and linking devices.
- Evaluative language to make observations and comments about the results.
Example 1
Below is an extract from the Results of an Architectural and Civil Engineering Thesis studying the effects of typhoon winds on tall buildings, with some of the key language features highlighted. The writer uses the Past Simple in the Passive Voice to describe what was done and what was observed to take away emphasis from the doer and create a more academic tone.
Click on the highlighted numbers to read an explanation of the language features.
- Present Simple to refer to the focus of the chapter and results shown in a figure.
- Strategies to improve idea flow
- Past Simple to refer to the objectives of the study, procedure, and results.
- Evaluative language to add meaning to the results
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12.3 Field measurement results |
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Adapted from Adapted from: Y. He, oundary layer wind characteristics and wind-induced dynamic responses of a super-tall building”, Ph.D dissertation, Dept. Civil & Archit. Eng., CITYU, Hong Kong, 2012. [Online]. Available: CityU Institutional Repository. Note: (…) indicates that parts of the text have been removed due to space constraints. |
Should Active or Passive Voice be used?
Scientific writers may be unsure whether to use the Active or Passive Voice, as the Active Voice may be advocated because of its relative ease and directness. However, the Results largely focuses on reporting and describing the main findings of the research, which can be done more clearly with the Passive Voice.
The Active Voice places emphasis on the doer of the action, whereas the Passive Voice emphasises the receiver of the action. This means that for academic writing, the Active Voice describes what the author did and what the author found. The Passive Voice removes the author and focuses on what was done, found, or observed in the study, which creates a more formal and less personal tone. However, many authors use a combination of both voices depending on the purpose of the text. It is recommended to check the conventions of the engineering field to get an idea of the preferred voice.
It is quite common for relative clauses containing the Passive Voice to be reduced when they define the subject, by removing the relative pronoun and auxiliary verb. Consider the following examples:
- The results that were obtained in the study showed the success of the device.
- The results obtained in the study showed the success of the device.
- The results that are shown in the figure indicate good agreement.
- The results shown in the figure indicate good agreement.
Signposting and Linking Ideas
In order to help the reader follow the flow of the Results chapter and understand how the results are connected, it is necessary to use signposting phrases that guide the reader through the text.
Table 1
Below is a table containing extracts taken from a Mechanical Engineering thesis about LPG flame length that shows examples of signposting phrases in context.
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Purpose |
Examples in context |
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Previewing content of the text |
This chapter presents fundamental experimental results of laminar burning velocity (LBV). |
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Reference to aim of the study or experiment |
Experiments were conducted to study the laminar burning velocities and flame stability of LPG with various hydrogen fractions under initial condition of 0.1 MPa and 300 K. |
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Highlighting significant results |
It is worth noting that under stoichiometric condition, the ignition energy results in an initial flame speed much higher than that of the stable flame speed for the LPG-H2 flames. |
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Reference to the methods |
The experiment was conducted with a laminar-premixed flame in a combustion chamber. |
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Reporting key results |
The experimental results show that this kind of flame structure is not found in an inverse diffusion flame burning a fuel containing LPG. |
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Comparing sets of results |
A similar elevating effect was also observed in this experiment, especially for fuel-rich and fuel-lean mixtures, of which flame speeds were relatively low. |
| Adapted from: J. Miao, “Combustion, Thermal and Emission Characteristics of Gas-fired Inverse Diffusion Flames Burning Mixed LPG- Hydrogen Fuel”, Ph.D dissertation, Dept. of Mech. Eng, POLYU, Hong Kong. [Online]. Available: PolyU Electronic Theses. | |
Table 2
Below is a table containing language to link ideas in a passage with examples taken from the Results of an Architectural and Civil Engineering Thesis.
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Linking Words |
Examples in context |
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Purpose |
To test the validity of the Engineering Science Data Unit scheme under complex hilly terrain conditions, the probability distribution functions of the selected 600s-length wind speed segments from (…) surface wind database at the Siu Ho Wan station were studied. |
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Comparison and Contrast |
As can be seen, in the south semi-plane (90° clockwise to 270°), quite good agreement between these two sets of results was achieved. |
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Cause and effect |
Since the adopted model scale is 1:2000, the final results may suffer from the errors due to the small scale model. |
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Addition |
The two peaks corresponded to the TC eye-walls (…) while the trough corresponded to the TC eye (…) It was also found that the second peak (…) was relatively larger than the first one appearing at the left front quadrant. This is another typical feature of TCs which reflects the asymmetricity of the translating storm system. |
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Adapted from: Y. He, “Boundary Layer Wind Characteristics and Wind-induced Dynamic Responses of a Super-Tall Building”, Ph.D dissertation, Dept. Civil & Arch. Eng., CITYU, Hong Kong, 2013. [Online]. Available: CityU Institutional Repository. Note: (…) indicates that parts of the text have been removed due to space constraints. |
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Evaluative Language
Results are not self-explanatory so the author needs to add meaning to the results by communicating their understanding of what the results mean to avoid misinterpretation. This means the author may need to include observations and comments about the results to highlight the significance of the results as a way to add meaning. To achieve this, language that boosts or reduces the frequency and quantity of results can be used.
Table 3
Below is a table containing extracts from the Results chapters of two engineering theses which show examples of language used to boost the frequency and quantity of results.
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Purpose |
Example in context |
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Increase or emphasise frequency |
When SP routing is adopted, high degree nodes tend to have a high node usage probability as they are chosen as routers more frequently. *The result shows that each additional emergent patient is predictive of a higher likelihood of violation. * |
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Increase or emphasise quantity |
The nodes with an extremely high degree still have a high node usage probability. * |
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* J. Wu, “Study of Communication Network Performance from a Complex Network Perspective”, Ph.D dissertation, Elec. and Inf. Eng., POLYU Hong Kong, 2014. [Online]. Available: PolyU Electronic Theses. ** Y. Shen, “Dynamic Response Allocation and Optimization in Wireless Relay Networks”, Ph.D dissertation, Dept. Mech. And Biomed.. Eng., CITYU, Hong Kong, 2012. [Online]. Available: CityU Institutional Repository. |
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Table 4
Below is a table containing extracts from the Results chapter of one engineering thesis which show examples of language used to reduce the frequency and quantity of results.
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Purpose |
Example in context |
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Reduce frequency |
Under MD routing, the high degree nodes are rarely used, thus increasing the average transmission distance on a large scale. * |
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Reduce quantity |
This period can be regarded as a moderate congestion state, during which only part of the network is congested. * |
| * J. Wu, “Study of Communication Network Performance from a Complex Network Perspective”, Ph.D dissertation, Elec. and Inf. Eng., POLYU Hong Kong, 2014. [Online]. Available: PolyU Electronic Theses. | |
Activity 1>> 2>> 3
Below is an extract from the Results of an Electrical Engineering thesis with the main verbs in the Passive and Active Voice removed. “(…)” indicates that parts of the text have been removed.
Complete the text, by clicking on the correct verb in each multiple-choice option.
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Click on the numbers to see an explanation of each answer.
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Below are sentences from the Results of a Computer Science thesis investigating collision detection for ellipsoids that have been separated with the opening phrases containing the main subject in the table and the endings containing the main verb in the boxes below.
Match up the sentence fragments by dragging the sentence endings below into the boxes next to their corresponding beginnings. To do this, decide whether the main verb should be Present Simple or Past Simple and Passive Voice or Active Voice. One answer is given.
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…dragging is crucial to an application, the use of the interval arithmetic in the computations may be considered. …dragging depends not only on the degree of the motion, but also varies with different input. …dragging give the average CPU time taken by CD-DISC for colliding and collision-free elliptic disks, respectively. …dragging were run on a PC with a 2.2GHz Intel CPU and the timings are shown in Fig. 10. …dragging was used to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed collision detection algorithm. |
| Sentence Beginnings | |
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A large set of synthesized motions | |
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The experiments | |
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The graphs in Fig. 10(a) and Fig. 10(b) | |
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In general, the computation time | increases as the number of roots of D(t) increases. |
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The robustness of the method | |
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If an error bound | |
| Adapted from: Y. K. Choi, “Collision detection for ellipsoids and other quadrics,” Ph.. dissertation, Dept. Comput. Sci., HKU, Hong Kong, 2008. [Online]. Available: The HKU Scholars Hub. | |
Answer Key
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Below is an extract from the Results of an Electrical Engineering thesis investigating the fabrication of optical fibres with some of the key signposting phrases removed.
Complete the text by clicking on the correct phrases from the choices below.
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Click on the numbers to see an explanation of each answer.
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