H5 Managing lengthy RESULTS sections

Where you have whole batches of analyses to report, and the RESULTS section starts to become quite lengthy, you need to assist your reader. Help them keep track of where they are by reminding them of why you are doing any particular set of analyses and what you hope to find out. Do your best to prevent them from lapsing into unconsciousness with boredom. Provide useful summaries as you go along, emphasizing the key points and findings from a particular set of analyses and stating what the purpose of the next set of analyses is. Where you can, avoid unnecessary duplication and repetition. On the other hand, do not expect your readers to remember something they were told in the opening paragraph several dense pages of RESULTS earlier. At all times, try to remember that there is a fellow human being at the other end of this process and do your best to keep the reader alert and interested (stopping short of telling jokes). This is a good rule for any writing that you ever do – remember that your reader is human. (Actually, come to think of it, this is probably a good rule for just about anything you do in life.)