Comments on the METHODS section of
“Comparative Effectivene of Weight-Lo
Interventions in Clinical Practice”
In this eay, I will analyze and summarize the several writing
eentials of the article named with “Comparative Effectivene of Weight-Lo Interventions in Clinical Practice” from the aspects of contect, language, tense or voice.
Part 1 Comments on the content of each move
According to the explanation in Charpter 4, there are three Moves that should be included in the METHODs section of the medical paper.Firstly, the Move 1 of the methods section generally determines the nature, feature and source of the reached subjects.For example, the first sentence in the Study Population section is “The study population consisted of obese adults who were at least 21 years of age and had one or more cardiovascular risk factors (hypertension,
hypercholesterolemia, or diabetes).” It is explicitly identified the studying people, their age and physical status in this articale.The following example is the first sentence in Oversight section
“Opportunities for Weight Reduction (POWER) trials, each supported by a grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.10,11 For this trial, Healthways, a disease-management company, also
provided support.The Prevention and Control Core of the Baltimore Diabetes Research and Training Center contributed to the data
analysis”.So the names of the institute, company and training center who provided the data and supports are described respectively.Moreover, there is another instance to specify the particular group and their feathers, which is the first sencentce in the second
paragragh of the Study Population section, which is “Participants were recruited from primary care practices in the Baltimore
metropolitan area between February 2008 and February 2009
through physician referral, brochures, and targeted mailings.”
Therefore, the author concretely displayed the range, feature and source of the reaching subjects.
Secondly, the detailed approches and sequential steps are usually depicted in Move 2.The author conducted a randomized, controlled trail to examine the effect of two behavioral weight-lo interventions.One intervention provided patients with weight-lo support
remotely——through the telephone, a study-specific Web site, and e-mail.The other intervention provided in-person support during
group and individual seions, along with the three remote means of support.There was also a control group in which weight lo was self-direct.From the article, we can know that, while those remote interventions had been used in previous work, the motivational
interviewing was the primary approach to interaction with participants.Since it was the modification of the cited methodology, it was detailed and justified.From the study group part, we can also know fine-detail information about weight-lo coach.
There are two typical examples with the sequential conjunctions in the Study Groups section.One is “Participants in both intervention groups were offered weekly contact with coaches during the first 3 months (nine group seions and three individual seions for participants receiving in-person support, and 12 weekly calls for those receiving only remote support).During the next3 months, participants receiving in-person support were offered three monthly contacts (one group seion and two individual seions), whereas the group receiving
only remote support were offered 1 call each month.”, the other is “To ae fidelity to the protocol and to promote motivational
interviewing techniques,a case-management team observed the
coaches and provided feedback monthly for the first 3 months of the study and quarterly thereafter.” The specific experimental steps,
models and methods are all represented in the Study Group, Roal of the PCP and Date Collection sections.It is also presented how the reaching data was gathered and proceed as the “cook book”.Finally, the conclusion and data analysis with comparision are ofen described in Move 3.For example, “The primary outcome was change in weight from baseline to 24 months.” and “The primary analysis was based on the intention-to-treat principle.” In the Statistical Analysis section represent the sentence and the defination of some key
variables.In addition, the comparision approaches are also used in the Statistical Analysis section, such as “percentages of participants in each of the three study groups who met various weight-lo
thresholds were compared with the use of a binomial model.Analyses were conducted with the use of SAS software, version 9.2 (SAS
Institute) or the statistical software system R, version 2.10.0.”
Obviously, the Statistical Analysis section presents the detailed analysis of raw data, adjustment of variables and comparision.Part 2 Comments on the language use
There are several expreions, words, phrase, sentence stuctures
that are worth learning.For instance, “recruite” is often used to define the particular group and their feathers.The sequential conjunctions such as “During the next 3 months”,”thereafter” are the good
expreion for describing the data proceing and sequential steps.Meanwhile, the certain methods verbs are also important in illustrating the research approaches including “collect, analyze, apply, evaluate, follow, obtain, perform, aign, model on, receive”.Furthermore,
“outcome, be based on, be compared with” are useful when analyzed the studing data.
Part 3 Comments on tense or voice
In the method section, the past tense and paive voice are used with seldom changes.For example,
“Participants were recruited from primary care practices in the
Baltimore metropolitan area between February 2008 and February 2009 through physician referral, brochures, and targeted mailings.” and “These approaches were modeled on those tested in previous trials.” are demonstrated this rule.
Part 4 Conclusion
In conclusion, this aignment is important for us to not only
understand how to write the METHODS section of the English
medical paper, but also accumulate the knowledge of structure,
expreion, vocabulary and phrase.Thus, it is neceary to complete more similar tasks to improve our English wirting and reading ability in the future.
