THE USE OF THE READING CODES

Results of Findings (ROFs) is one of the reading codes discussed in the previous post. What They Do (WTDs) is another reading code that appears in abstracts and introductions. WTDs code is very easy to spot within the context of journal articles for the simple reason that almost all articles have sentences that begin with "This article examines..." or "The purpose of this paper is …." A WTD simply describes what the author of a paper does in their documents. WTDs appear in the abstract, introduction, and in the past tense in the discussion and conclusion sections (What They Did, WTDD). This code captures the main research question that the author is posing in the text.

Another reading code is the Summary of Previous Literature (SPL), which describes the sentences and paragraphs that summarize the existing findings of the literature on a given topic. For instance, if I publish a journal article on the topic of "weapon usage in parricides in preindustrial South Korea," then a student who discusses the findings of this paper (ROFs) would have to treat that article and its findings as an SPL.

SPLs are the work that others have already done. In fact, in almost any journal article, SPLs will be the most frequently occurring reading code in the literature review section - about 70-80% of any competently executed literature review. The other 20-30% will be composed of a Critique of Previous Literature (CPL), which points out the shortcomings in the existing literature, such as the literature on a given topic is incomplete; something is missing in the literature; the knowledge on the given topic is missing something.

CPL highlight that missing component and logically illustrates a GAP or a shortcoming within the literature. If something is missing in the literature (GAP), then what are the implications of this shortcoming? Why is this GAP significant? How does this absence affect the state of the literature? Why should anyone care about the topic you have selected and the GAPs in research? The answers to those questions constitute the Rationale or RAT.

RATs (the Rationale) is a reading code that in well-written papers appears in the introduction in a coordinated list. Appropriately situated RATs in an introduction are sublime: the authors explain to the readers the significance of their work in a forceful way.

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