Unit 4 - Overview

Student Outcomes:

As a result of this unit and assignment, students will be able to:

• Identify and explain the function of the four main components of an IMRD paper (introduction, methods, results and discussion);
• Describe and justify variations of the IMRD structure (including Literature Review and Conclusion) within their discipline and across disciplines;
• Analyze the discipline-specific research process;
• Analyze application of the IMRD format to research writing in their discipline;
• Evaluate congruence of expert opinion on discipline-specific writing conventions with published research in their field;
• Create a group presentation analyzing the IMRD format and research process in their disciplines;
• Write a reflective essay on the research process and the use of the IMRD format in their discipline.   

Assignment Description:

The IMRD (Introduction Method Results Discussion) format proposed by Swales (1990, 2004)  is still presented in writing manuals as a foundational pattern for primary-source research articles (e.g, Körner, 2008). However,  variations of IMRD are actually much more widespread (Lin & Evans, 2011) than simple IMRD.

 

Why is it important for students to learn about IMRD variations?  It is very common in academic research articles. Indeed, any  of our students who will later be involved in empirical studies need to be familiar with this format. For the other students their education in academic writing would be incomplete without some knowledge of this important format.

The unit is organized synthetically. Each component and its relationship to the overall IRMD format is presented separately in an inductive fashion for students  themselves to ascertain  the essential characteristics and it culminates in a group presentation andreflective essay in which students will present the discoveries they made based on IMRD papers from their discipline and interviews with experienced researchers

In this unit, students will find a sample IMRD article from their discipline and will watch one or more interviews with an experienced researcher provided by the instructor. Based on these resources, students will complete two assignments in this unit:

1. A group presentation detailing the research process and IMRD format in their discipline;

2. A reflective essay on the research process and IMRD format in their discipline.