“Significant” is one of the most important words in research papers.
But, did you know its usage is different depending on if it is used in a statistical sense
or non-statistical sense? Welcome back to another Uni-edit video.
My name is Antony P and today we will be focusing on the word significant. Ready? Let’s go.
First, let’s establish a dictionary definition.
Significant means to be “worthy of attention”
and then it can be broken into statistical usage and non-statistical usage.
So let's start with the statistical usage.
Statistical Usage of "significant" In this sense, ‘significant’ is
commonly used in the Results section of a research paper to indicate the extent to which a variable
differs from a null hypothesis or baseline measurement based on the P-value,
usually (a P-value of less than point 05) P<0.05.
For example, “There is statistically significant difference between the experiment
and control groups (P<0.05), leading us to reject our null hypothesis.”
This means the quantitative difference between the two groups was large enough
to satisfy the statistical criteria of the analysis comparing the two groups. - In more
simple terms- think back to the definition- the difference is “worthy of attention”.
Now, time for a pro tip. Let's examine this example...
An okay sentence is: “There was a statistically significant difference between the time
taken to extract acid using our method and that taken using the leading conventional method”
But in research writing, concise sentences are preferred, so I revise the okay sentence to::
“Our nutrient extraction method extracted acid significantly faster than the leading conventional
method.” The sentence with “significantly faster” is clearer. Using “significantly”
with an adjective helps the readers easily understand what has been significantly compared.
Now, statistical significance might feel like the most exciting part of reading a research paper.
I mean, most of the big scientific discoveries were derived from statistically significant data.
But there is definitely another usage of the word significant. So let’s keep going! But first,
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Now onto non-statistical usage of "significant" In its non-statistical usage, ‘significant’ is
commonly used to express the importance or relevance of something, generally speaking.
Here is a quick example: “Iron ore is a significant export
contributing to Australia’s economy.” I can replace 'significant' with
'important' like this: “Iron ore is an important export contributing to Australia’s economy.”
The sentence keeps the same meaning.
The meanings of either version are general with no statistical analysis in the research;
there is no data. It just means Australia exports a lot of iron.
Let's recap what we learnt in this video:
The general meaning of significant is: worthy of attention
There is a Statistical usage of significant And a Non-statistical usage of significant
Now you can read journal papers and understand the two different usages of significant. In Part
2 of this video series, we'll look at an advanced usage of the word significant in research writing.
This will be an exciting lesson so click the bell icon to get notified when we post it.
That is all for today, if you have any questions please leave them in the comments below.
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Thanks, and I’ll see you in another video.