Comparative Article Analysis

Essay

Student: Casey Jerson

Student No. 13788
Course Code: FD1109
Submission Code: CA
 

Table of Contents 
 
  Title                  Page 
 
Introduction                   2 
 
‘How ‘ the Articles were Written                4 
 
Comparison of Structure               6 
 
Conclusion                     8 
 
Reference & Bibliography                        10 
 

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Introduction

The purpose of this article is to examine the structure of 3 documents/articles. It will

first give an overview of the 3 articles including a bit of relevant personal information

of the author. Then I shall attempt to analyze their structures; in looking at the

structures I shall also try to define ‘How’ the article was written which I shall show

dictates the overall structure of an article when the Stimulus-Response Pattern of

writing is applied to these texts. I shall close with a comparison of the articles’

structure and draw conclusions as to whether the article was comprehensive based on

its structure of content.

Overview:

Article 1: An Evolving Map of Design Practice and Design Research

By Dr. Elizabeth Sanders

This article explores the world of design practice and design research as seen by Dr.

Sanders. It states that while the many approaches and theories within the industry are

focused on driving, inspiring and informing the design development process they

compete and complement each other as well. Dr. Sanders is a pioneer in the use of

participatory research methods for the design of products, systems services and

spaces. She is also educated as a social scientist and earned her Ph.D. in the early

1980’s from the Ohio State University. Her primary focus within the design practice

and research industry is to bring human-centered design research to planning and

architecture, which is implicated with-in this document.

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Article 2: Three Environmental Discourses in Human-Computer Interaction
By Elizabeth Goodman
(recipient of the 2009–2010 Intel Ph.D. Fellowship)

This article is a review of the past decade of human-computer interaction relating to

environmental issues as seen through the research of Elizabeth Goodman. Goodman's

research at the School of Information combines human-computer interaction (HCI)

with geography, investigating the design of ubiquitous computing systems for

everyday urban places such as cafes and gardens. This article however

argues/discusses 3 main areas of HCI in relation to environmental issues.

Article 3: A Multilingual Web-based Educational System for Professional Musicians

By Carlos A. Iglesias, Marta Sánchez, Álvaro Guibert, M. J. Guibert and Emilia
Gómez
Emilia Gomez
Ph.D. UPF candidate of the Doctoral Program in "Information and Digital
Communication," working as a researcher at the Music Technology Group of UPF
(Universitat Pompeu Fabra) Barcelona

This paper presents the main results of the eContent HARMOS project. The project

has developed a web based educational system for professional musicians. The main

idea of the project consists of recording master classes taught by highly recognized

maestros and annotates this multimedia material using an educational musical

taxonomy and automatic annotation tools [5]. The article is a report of a project

conducted by a group of persons including Emilia Gomez. In this paper they basically

record their findings and results, which they’ve gathered through out the project.

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‘How’ the Articles Were Written

In analyzing how these documents were written I’m going to look at the inter-linked

relationship between reading and writing. Although the separation between reading

and writing instruction can be traced back as far as the middle ages (Huot, 1988) the

two fields have gradually moved closer together with the advent of constructivism. [2]

Constructivism in a sense boils down to a process called construction of meaning; this

can be further theorized as the construction theory of reading and writing. This theory

is said to have been foreshadowed over 50 years ago when Louise Rosenblatt. (1938)

[3] introduced an approached to literature called reader response.

Born from the foundation of the above theory is the stimulus-response pattern of

writing. This is the pattern, which I believe guides the original structure of an article

within these 4 main categories Question-Answer, Problem-Solution, Cause-Effect,

Effect-Cause and General-Specific.1

Article 1: An Evolving Map of Design Practice and Design Research in this article we

can clearly see the pattern of Question-Answer and General-Specific used not only in

the general structure of the article but also in the article’s outline this helps with the

                                                        
1
Question-Answer
When you generate a question in writing, the reader will expect you to answer the question soon.
Problem-Solution
If you present a problem the reader will expect a solution or an explanation of why no solution is forthcoming.
Cause-Effect, Effect-Cause
Whether you have mentioned a cause first or an effect first, once you have mentioned one, the reader will surely expect you to
mention the other.
General-Specific
When you make a general statement, the reader will expect to be supplied with specifics, which clarify, qualify or explain the
general statement.
 

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exploratory nature of the article as it goes into the evolving world of design practice

and design research.

Article 2: Three Environmental Discourses in Human-Computer Interaction in this

article we can derive the patterns of Cause-Effect/Effect-Cause, Problem-Solution and

General-Specific. Although these can only be derived directly from the content of the

document, the article’s structure still adheres to these patterns for example as to where

the writer posses a question she then seeks to provide a solution for it or explain why

no such solution is forth coming thus resulting in the structure of certain paragraphs

under the Problem-Solution pattern within the Stimulus-Response Pattern.

Article 3: A Multilingual Web-based Educational System for Professional Musicians

in regards to this article we can clearly identify that the General-Specific pattern is

used in determining it’s structure where a general statement or heading is used before

a more specific ingestion of the topic is written.

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Comparison of the Structure of the Articles

In comparing the 3 articles structures within an academic mind-frame I found it

necessary to set a bench mark as to what a standard academic paper/article should

contain. These are as follows: 1. An Introduction (A clear and precise segment that

comes at the very beginning of the article which outlines the purpose of the article) 2.

A Body (This should entail a logical order of the article’s content which should

display insightful knowledge of the topic or topics discussed in the article as well as

extensive research and analysis of the related topic. 3. A Conclusion (Which should

contain a summary of the entire article as well as a good closing argument-proposing

areas for further research. In the Management of a Student Research Project (John A.

Sharp and Keith Howard 1996) the proposed logical order or structure for a research

report was as followed: 1. Introduction, 2. Survey of Prior Research, 3. Research

Design, 4. Results of the Research, 5. Analysis and 6. Summary and Conclusion [4]

Articles 2 and 3 both contain a clear and identifiable Introduction while Article 1 does

not. In Article 1 the author dives right in and does not state her purpose for writing the

article, her reasons for this is unknown but I would like to speculate and say that the

reason for this maybe that this paper was not written as a report for academic

research. Instead it looks like it was intended for a seminar of Design Practice and

Research, following the Question-Answer stimulus-response pattern used by the

author it flows nicely in this manner intriguing the listener/reader as to find out the

answers to the question proposed by a pioneer in the industry.

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Articles 1,2 and 3 all consist of A Body of content which demonstrate all the

characteristics needed for a standard academic paper/article in accordance with the

benchmark. This I would say is due to the fact that all the authors come from highly

academic backgrounds and are no strangers in the field of research.

Only Article2 and 3 contains an identifiable conclusion where as all the articles

propose closing arguments. This I will again speculate is due to the purpose of the

articles, with Article 3 being the only one stated as a report on a project, which

presents the main results achieved in it’s undertaking. I would also use my liberties

and speculate that Article 2 may have been intended as an insightful publication on

the environmental arguments in HCI, primarily due to the way it was written and the

language used.

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Conclusion

In closing I would say that the articles though very different in nature bare similar

traits in structure. As we can see with Articles 1,2 and 3 they all have A Body which

is not surprising as this is where authors will claim to make their point or state their

case and present all the relevant data to back it up which in the case of these texts

seem to be of a more qualitative research approach. In theses articles the Body does

just that with all of them sharing in-depth knowledge of the topic as well as providing

illustrations to guide the reader which probably worked better for Articles 1 and 3 as

these were more of exploratory type articles.

In relation to the Introduction we see that only Articles 2 and 3 have a clearly

identifiable ones, although Article 1 does not have an identifiable Introduction it does

contain 2 opening paragraphs which I would say acts as a purpose statement and

abstract to bring forward her topic of discussion. In the case of Articles 2 and 3 I’d

say that the introductions are indeed more of a necessity than Article 1 reason being

relevant to the purpose of these papers, which I’ve identified in the segment above.

The Introduction presented in those 2 articles helps the reader understand what the

topic of their articles are about, while with Article 1 the topic in itself alerts the reader

to what the article relates to which therefore does not make the text less

comprehensive because it does not contain an identifiable Introduction.

Conclusion of conclusions, while Articles 2 and 3 are the only articles with an

identifiable conclusion all 3 articles again contains strong closing arguments in

relation to future research and development. Reason for this again I would attribute to

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the purpose of the documents with only Article 3 being an academic research report

and Article 2 being an insightful publication on research done on the environmental

issues as it relates to HCI and it’s future they follow more intricately the proposed

logical order of a research project as laid out in the Management of a Student

Research Project [4]. Which is no surprise that they meet all the criteria’s of my set

and applied benchmark above and have a chronological order to their structure which

make them comprehensive to the relevant target audience.

(Word Count: 1600 words)

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Reference List:
[3] Rosenblatt, L. (1938). Literature as exploration. New York: Modern Language
Association. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.
[1] Huot, B. (1988). Reading/writing connections on the college level. Teaching
English in the Two-Year College, 15 (2), 90-98.
[4] Sharp A. John and Howard, Keith, (1996) in The Management of a Student
Research Project (Gower, 2nd ed., 1996, p. 195)
[5] A Multilingual Web-based Educational System for Professional Musicians
By Carlos A. Iglesias, Marta Sánchez, Álvaro Guibert, M. J. Guibert and Emilia
Gómez

[2] Integrating Reading and Writing: Theory To Research to Practice, Donna

McKusick, Essex Community College, Beth Holmberg, Frederick Community
College. Cyndie Marello, Frederick Community College, Elizabeth Little, Carroll
Community College
Available at: www.nade.net/documents/SCP97/SCP97.12.pdf
Accessed: 15.12.09

Bibliography
Neil, James
Qualitative versus Quantitative Research
Available at:
http://wilderdom.com/research/QualitativeVersusQuantitativeResearch.html
Accessed: 14.12.09

Sikazwe, Hector Chapa

Behavioural theories and the impact on human interactions
Available at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/18189933/Behavioural-Theories
Accessed: 14.12.09

  10 
How to Structure your article
Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Available at: http://info.emeraldinsight.com/authors/guides/structure.htm?part=1
Accessed: 14.12.09

Theory of Research
Thames Valley University (Brentford)
Available at: http://brent.tvu.ac.uk/dissguide/hm1u1/hm1u1text2.htm
Accessed: 14.12.09

Dr. Elizabeth B.-N. Sanders

University of Dundee: school of design Duncan of Jordanstone college of Art and
Design
Available at:
http://www.dundee.ac.uk/design/profiles.php?profile=elizabeth-b--n-sanders
Accessed: 14.12.09

Elizabeth Goodman

Ph.D. Student Elizabeth Goodman Awarded Intel Fellowship

Available at:
http://www.ischool.berkeley.edu/newsandevents/news/20091102intelfellowship
Accessed: 14.12.09

Emilia Gomez
Researcher for UPF (Universitat Pompeu Fabra) Barcelona under the Music
Technology Group
Ph.D. UPF candidate of the Doctoral Program in "Information and Digital
Communication," working at the Music Technology Group
Available at:
http://www.iua.upf.es/~egomez/cv.html#education
http://mtg.upf.edu/about/people

Accessed: 14.12.09

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