Unpacking challenges of data commentary writing in master’s thesis projects: an insider perspective from chemical engineering

Figures & data

Figure 1. A moves model of data commentary on result-reporting visuals in chemical engineering. The moves should be read from left to right. An example of a data commentary from a master’s thesis in chemical engineering could be a background move realised by submove 1a) reminding the reader of how the data presented in the visual was obtained, followed by a presentation-of-visual move realised by submove 3a) providing a reference to the figure and the main result (e.g. Figure 1 shows that there is an increase in (…)), and last a comment-on-result move realised by submove 3d) giving a cross-reference to where in the master’s thesis the result in the visual is discussed (e.g. This increase will be further discussed in Section 4.2).

Table 1. Students’ and supervisors’ perceptions of what is difficult about writing data commentaries (N students = 9, N supervisors = 5).

Perceptions of what is difficult	N (students), interview 1	N (students) interview 3	N (supervisors)
Aspects of mechanics (language, repetition, layout)	2	2	4
Selecting material	5	2	2
Understanding and/or describing complex phenomena	3	1	1
Commenting on premises/unexpected results	1	1	1
Expressing concepts clearly	1	3	1
Using appropriate structure (order of text)	0	0	1
No difficulty identified	0	3	1

Table 2. Students’ and supervisors’ perceptions of what is important about writing data commentaries (N students = 9, N supervisors = 5).

Perceptions of what is important	N (students) interview 3	N (students) interview 3	N (supervisors)
Clarity (of explanation)	5	8	4
Using appropriate layout	4	1	0
Commenting on implications	0	3	2
Selecting material	1	4	3
Comments on assumptions and background features	1	1	1
Clear in-text references to the figure	1	1	1
Mentioning deviations or errors in the procedure	1	1	0
Integration of text and figure	0	2	2