Scared to Study Studies? These Scientific Terms Can Help!
Even in the age of instant messaging, not all of us speak the way we write. And surely even fewer people speak the way they would write scientific research.
You could call scientific writing a language of its own.
Of course, the subject of the research presents a challenge in itself. But knowing the subtle differences between a few key words can help make our academic writing more precise — and help us understand when we read it.
For example, the difference between "qualitative" and "quantitative" research can be challenging to remember.
Quantitative research focuses on data you can count and measure — numbers and percentages.
Qualitative research seeks to describe results rather than measure them. This might involve asking people how they feel about different products, or observing how animals behave in different situations.
And while every study will involve some analysis, a "meta-analysis" looks at the results of a number of different studies — perhaps even thousands of them — to see if there are overarching trends between them.
Some words also have different meanings in science than in daily life.
For example, "aim" and "objective" may be synonyms in common speech. But in academic writing, the "aim" is what you hope to achieve, while the "objective" is the list of actions you'll take to achieve that aim.
Similarly, "hypothesis" and "theory" have distinct meanings in science. In science, a "hypothesis" is like an intelligent guess devised before the research is done. Meanwhile, a "theory" is an idea that has been formed to explain how or why the results occurred — after they have been observed.
One final example is that of the "discussion" and the "conclusion."
In a scientific paper, the "discussion" talks about the results and compares them to the hypothesis, and the "conclusion" summarizes the whole study and might recommend future action.
However, if you want to get a quick idea of what a study is about, look right at the top — the "abstract" will usually summarize all the key information as briefly as possible!
