Inquiries, Investigations, and Immersion

IMRaD
Discussion

HANDOUT – Sentence Starter for IMRaD: Discussion Moves 1-4

Sentence Starters for Move 1: Summary of the main findings of the study
• This research has investigated ...
• The purpose of the present research was to …
• The study has shown that ...
• An important finding to emerge in this study is ...

Sentence Starters for Move 2: Interpretation/ Connection of the findings to other research
If the result supports your hypothesis…
• Findings in the present study are consistent with the findings of ...
• There are similarities between the present study and those described by ... (your previous
literature)
• These findings suggest ...
• There are several possible explanations for this result. For example, ...
If the result contrasts with your hypothesis…
• Contrary to expectations, this research did not find a significant difference between ...
• This finding was unexpected and suggests that ...
• In contrast to earlier findings, however, no evidence of ... was detected…

Sentence Starters for Move 3: Flaws/Limitation of the Current Study

• These data must be interpreted with caution because ...
• It may be the case that ...
• This finding, while preliminary, suggests that ...
• This finding has implications for ...
• An important issue emerging from these findings is ...
• This research confirms previous findings and contributes to our understanding of…
• However, several limitations need to be considered. For instance, ...
• The research was limited in several ways.

Sentence Starters for Move 4: Presentation of flaws as reasons to suggest additional, future
research
• Further research should be done to investigate the ...
• Future research should concentrate on ...
• More research is needed to better understand ...
• An implication of these findings is that ...
• The findings of this study have a number of important implications for ...