Imagine this scenario.
You've conducted a six-year study in the wetlands of the Mississippi River Delta to measure
how well two different coastal habitats (mangrove vs. salt marsh) keep pace with sea-level rise.
However, contrary to expectations based on previous research showing that vegetation
promotes land-building by accumulating sediment and organic matter, you find no difference
between the two habitats;
nor do you find an effect when the vegetation is experimentally killed.
In other words, what you have is a classic case of so-called negative results.
What would you do if this happened to you?
Stick the data in a file and forget it?
Forge ahead with writing it up for publication and face possible rejection?
I hesitated to write because I knew that papers with negative results are less likely to be
published, especially in high-profile journals, and if they are published, garner fewer citations
than papers with positive findings.
In this video, I'll describe how I handled this conundrum and ended up with a paper accepted
with minor revision by a high-impact journal.
To begin, I think it's important to recognize that negative findings are important.
Negative results help establish the boundaries of knowledge and identify which circumstances
may not lead to an expected outcome.
For example, does a drug work at all stages of a pathogenic process, or is it ineffective
when administered late in the illness?
If negative results go unreported, we end up with an incomplete picture of what's going
on.
But how should you write up negative findings?
Here are the steps I took to write a paper based on negative results.
One.
Prepare the reader in the introduction for negative findings.
The idea here is to prime the reader in the introduction for what's to come.
The exact way to do this will depend on each situation.
In our paper's introduction, we made the point that previous studies had produced conflicting
results, but that such inconsistencies provided valuable insights about when and where vegetation
might aid in resisting sea-level rise.
Two.
Emphasize what steps were taken, experimentally and statistically, to conduct a rigorous study.
Although it's always important to show that you used up-to-date methods and a solid experimental
design, certain points may need to be emphasized to address potential criticisms about negative
findings.
For example, one possible criticism of negative results is that the experiment did not last
long enough to detect an effect.
To head off such a criticism, we pointed out that our study lasted six years-the implication
being that we allowed plenty of time for a difference to be detected, if one existed.
Three.
Acknowledge the limitations of your study and offer alternative explanations for the
results.
In the process of discussing limitations and alternative interpretations, you can bolster
the argument that your negative results are important to the big picture.
We pointed out, for example, that our findings based on two vegetation types, while relevant
to the Mississippi River Delta, might not apply to other ecosystems dominated by different
plant species.
By addressing the limitations of our study, we helped the reader begin to see our results
within a broader, global context and why they were essential to a complete picture.
Four.
Thoroughly discuss why your results are important to a better understanding of the system under
study.
This step is perhaps the most important one to address when you have negative findings.
Explicitly explain why your negative results are essential to advancing knowledge in your
field.
Don't rely on the reader to figure this out.
For example, we wrote that the lack of an experimental effect in our study was informative
because our findings broadened the understanding of how coastal ecosystems may respond to rising
sea-level rise by documenting an exception to the existing paradigm.
Five.
Point out the broader implications of your findings.
When writing the conclusions, drive home the importance of your negative results by explaining
how they relate to the bigger picture or to an application.
We accomplished this by talking about future conservation and restoration of coastal areas
and the need for complete information about when and where vegetation plays a role in
resisting sea-level rise.
These five points are useful guidelines for writing any paper.
By considering each one in the context of negative results, we crafted a paper that
was accepted for publication in a top journal in the field.
In fact, once it was clear how to effectively present our negative results, the writing
was easy.
Moreover, our data are now published where they can inform and guide those interested
in this research topic-a far better fate than being buried in a file.
Thanks for listening and if you found this information helpful, don't forget to hit the
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