How to describe your research contribution

One of the most difficult tasks in writing up research is explaining how your research is new and why it matters. Fortunately, there are a few standard steps writers use to indicate their research contribution. Following these steps helps ensure that readers can understand the purpose and importance of your research. (1) Demonstrate the interest or importance of the research topic. If possible, show in a sentence how your research matters to the general public. (2) Selectively review and summarize the previously published research literature. (3) Show that this research is not complete. Try to articulate a "gap" in the previous research. This gap may be a problem that has not been resolved, a question that has been overlooked, or a new application that has not been considered. You need to show that there is something missing (or unfulfilled) in the current state of research AND that there is a need for this gap to be filled. (4) Present your own research as "filler" for this gap. If you have articulated a problem in previous research, your own study should appear to be a natural solution to this problem. These moves are not necessarily linear: a writer can backtrack at any point and move from discussing a gap in the research (move 3) to again summarizing previous research (move 2). However, these moves do represent the overall trajectory of an introduction to a research article and too much movement back and forth can confuse readers.
-- From Swales, John. Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1990.

Below is an example of how one research introduction briefly included all four moves: Peptic ulcer disease is a chronic disease characterized by frequent recurrences. Recent studies have suggested that the eradication of Helicobacter pylori infection affects the natural history of duodenal ulcer disease such that the rate of recurrence decreases markedly (1-6). However, the interpretation of these results has been complicated by the fact that several of the larger studies did not use control groups or any form of blinding (3, 5, 6). In addition, studies of the effect of H. pylori eradication in patients with gastric ulcer have not been done. We report the results of a randomized, controlled trial in which we evaluated the effect of therapy designed to eradicate H. pylori on the pattern of ulcer recurrence in patients with duodenal or gastric ulcer. The first sentence describes why the research is important. A non-expert audience can easily understand why we want to study this disease. The second sentence summarizes previous research. The third and fourth sentences show problems in this previous research. Note the use of phrases such as however; has been complicated; have not been done that call attention to what is missing or problematic about this research. The last sentence explains how the current study will address the problems just described.

Types of contributions and common phrases used to describe them There are several ways that a research project can be new. Using some of the following categories to describe what is new about your research can help non-experts understand what you are doing. 1. Research can develop and test a new theory or hypothesis. 2. Similarly, research can propose and test a new solution to an existing problem. 3. Research can be extended to new territory. For instance, we might repeat or extend previous research to a new population, a new context, a new gene, a new synthetic material, etc. 4. Research can use new methodology. For instance, a study might be done to address methodological shortcomings of previous studies, adding credibility to these findings. If a project involves new theory or hypotheses, writers will need to explain shortcomings in existing theories. Often this involves bringing in recent research from other settings or combining multiple existing studies in novel ways. Common phrases include we need to reexamine this theory in light of Xs new findings on.. or By putting Q, R, and S together, we can hypothesize that.. or If Y is true, we might hypothesize that. If a project involves a new solution, writers will need to explain existing problems and clarify how their solutions solve these problems. They may also need to compare and contrast a range of alternative solutions and explain why their solution is the best among these alternatives. Projects involving a new solution will also need to eventually test these solutions. Such projects will involve the following broad rhetorical moves Previous mousetraps are inadequate because of X, Y, and Z. To address X, Y, and Z we made the following modifications..We tested our new mousetraps by.We found that our new mousetrap has better X and Y but no improvement was found in Z. If a study is extending research to new territory, writers need to make a case for why this new territory is important to study and show that it has been overlooked by previous research. Appropriate rhetorical moves include previous research has not examined. Or we extend previous research by examining.. or previous research is old and needs to be updated because the context has changed. If a study is using new methodology, then writers need to critique the methods of previous studies (or characterize them as inconclusive) and explain how they will address these flaws. Phrases such as we attempt to verify Xs preliminary results by providing more rigorous controls are appropriate.