Anecdotal Evidence
In a research paper there might be some cases where you may need to justify your statement by saying that “the instructor asked you to do that” or where you feel I more appropriate to write that “Microsoft Excel was used to make a graph of x versus y”. Information, such as the one mentioned above, is referred to as anecdotal and is considered to be unnecessary. However, in some cases, anecdotal information can also be unfortunate. Papers of the older literature are generally more exciting as well as sound more informative. This is because the researchers almost always report how a conclusion was reached as well as the various paths that let him/her to the conclusion. In other words, the writer actually tells the story of the actual investigation process. In modern papers, generally this information is omitted. This is because of the large amount of literature volume, that people doing search do not have time to go through more material than what is actually needed. In addition, the cost of printing is very high that does not allow you to print any unnecessary information.
The aim of a research paper is to summarize a study and does not require identifying who did what. Any references to the instructor, partners, colleagues, etc are not appropriate for your research paper; hence, should be left out.
Unnecessary background:
Stating the facts or describing the mechanism can be done in your research paper; however, they should be only done to highlight a point or enabling to interpret the results. Furthermore, they should always refer to the present study. You are just wasting your time and that of the reader, if you think you are writing everything you know regarding the subject. Therefore, it is a much better option if you just stick to the appropriate points. You may also need to include reference which you have of the sources of the background information, if you think it is important and is required by the reader.
Including inappropriate material for the reader:
It is not required that you tell your fellow scientists that your study is based upon the field of biochemistry. Instead, the reader should be able to figure on its own that which field your work applies to. Neither, you need to define the terms which are well-known by the intended reader. For instance, you do not need to explain what systolic blood pressure mean if your study consists of physicians.
However, many students make these mistakes which results in them having bad grades. The reader already has many papers read, and irrelevant information is the last thing that the reader would like from the students. Hence, it is advised that you talk-to-the-point in your research paper for which it is important that you are able to distinguish between relevant and irrelevant information. And, using the points above, you should leave the irrelevant content out from your research paper.
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