Tyler Ortiz

ENGL 21007: Writing for Engineering

Professor von Uhl

March 20, 2023

 

Video Games and Lab Reports: A Dissection of Their Significance

            The effect of video games on different groups of individuals has been an important emerging topic in research since the early 1990’s. As video games have skyrocketed in popularity, it has become a necessity to understand how gaming affects the mind. The three papers that will discussed in this essay are Social Media and Online Gaming with Friends: Implications for Children’s Academic, Social, and Emotional Experiences in Third-through Sixth-Grade Students by Patricia N. Eckardt, Ph.D., Cynthia Eaton, MA, Madeline Craig, Ed.D., and Katherine M. Patterson, Ph. D., Gaming Disorder in Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder by Alayna Murray, Arlene Mannion, June L. Chen, Geraldine Leader, and Gaming Duration and Preferences: Relationships with Psychiatric Health, Gaming Addiction Scores and Academic Success in High School Students by Ferahim Yesilyurt. Each paper dissects different aspects of gaming on the minds of individuals: the paper by Eckardt et al. (2021) discusses the social implications of online gaming in regards to younger students during the pandemic, the paper by Murray et al. (2022) examines the link between autism spectrum disorder and gaming disorder, and the paper by Yesilyurt (2020) establishes the relationship between psychiatric health, gaming disorder, and academic success in high school students. While all three lab reports effectively communicate the questions each scientist is trying to resolve, the methods each used to tackle their stated problems, and what their results mean for future work, the paper by Yesilyurt (2020) ultimately separates itself from the other two by thoroughly evidencing claims with past studies in the introduction, meticulously stating which methods will be used to conduct the study, breaking down the results into more digestible chunks, and effectively formatting the conclusion to link back to original questions.

            The introduction of a lab report is one of the most important aspects of the report because it serves to give the reader context about the background of the topic, what the research questions are for the study, and previous work that has been completed on the subject. In Yesilyurt’s paper (2020), the introduction is constructed extremely well; it gives a quick background on the rapid growth of video games as entertainment, reviews previous studies about how video games can have beneficial and detrimental effects and lays out three distinct research questions. The three questions that Yesilyurt (2020) puts forth are very clearly numerically labeled so a reader can find them immediately, and each question builds off the last to provide a well-rounded dissection on gaming addiction and academic success. In contrast, Eckardt et al.’s paper (2021) has a short introduction that is needlessly separated with subheadings. The background information addressed is minimal and resides in a different section called “theoretical framework” (p. 34); the issue with this subheading is that it confuses readers and could have been better incorporated into the main body of the introduction. The “theoretical framework” section of the introduction is also after the defined research questions, creating a discrepancy between what the reader should know and what the reader is going to learn; the reader cannot fully understand the scope of the research questions without understanding previously completed research, causing a disjointed reading experience. The paper by Murray et al. (2022) is much better at providing the reader with pertinent background information but fails in being concise. Murray et al.’s (2022) title is Gaming Disorder in Adults in Autism Spectrum Disorder, but a large portion of the study discusses the relationship between gelotophobia, the fear of being laughed at, and autism, which can be confusing to readers. Some terms are also frequently used but do not have a definition such as TD; a reader would have to consult a secondary source to understand many sentences in this introduction. Overall, Murray et al.’s (2022) paper seems more directed at an audience that already has a grasp on autism research and not a more general audience, which is alienating for readers without the necessary background knowledge. These introduction paragraphs set the tone for each lap report, to varying degrees of success; Yesilyurt (2020) establishes a thoroughly informed tone, Eckardt et al. (2021) establishes a more casual tone, and Murray et al. (2022) establishes a more clinical tone.

            A good lab report needs to succinctly convey to the redear how the scientists went about solving their issues and then present the results of their experiments in an understandable format. Yesilyurt (2020) is able to efficiently lay out how he formatted the experiments in the methods section of his lab report, going into depth about who participated in the study, where it took place, how the participants completed the study, what data collection tools he used, and how he analyzed the data. He then reported the results with in-depth tables to help visualize the data, with evaluations that highlight important aspects of the data. While some of the data is presented using heavy amounts of jargon, Yesilyurt (2020) does a good job of breaking it down into layman’s terms. The paper by Murray et al. (2022) features a decently written methods section that gives a brief description of how their study took place, leaving out some key details about how the how exactly the study was conducted, but gives a very in-depth description of each measure that was used to analysis the data. Murray et al. (2022) liberally uses tables, line graphs, and bar graphs in the results section to allow readers to quickly understand results of the experiment at a glance, more effectively conveying the data than Yesilyurt’s paper (2020), which featured dense tables with many variables. The paper by Eckardt et al. (2021) contains very simplistic tables, with only short phrases collected straight from the participants featured. This allows their paper to be extremely approachable but upon deeper inspection, it seems to lack substance, and has the reader questioning the comprehensiveness of the experiment conducted. All three papers give a good amount of information regarding how their experiments were conducted, as well as covering the results of their experiments very well.

            The conclusion of a lab report gives the author time to explore the implications of the results and the future work necessary for the subject. The way Yesilyurt (2020) does this is very effective; he directly responds to each of his research questions using a numerical arrangement. This gives the reader a thorough understanding of the purpose and implications of each of the results reported above and how they relate back to the questions stated in the introduction. He also acknowledges the limitations of this experiment, the future work that still needs to be conducted, and drew a complete conclusion that included suggestions. Eckardt et al. (2021) craft a weak discussion and conclusion in comparison; their experiment was intended to generate hypotheses so in that regard, it succeeds. However, a reader might feel that deeper and more numerous experiments might be required to draw any satisfying conclusions. The paper by Eckardt et al. (2021) is less a thorough, conclusion-drawing experiment and more a call to action for the community to complete the work started here. Murray et al. (2022) generates a discussion and conclusion that overstays its welcome but produces a definitive conclusion. The authors of this paper do find a conclusion that directly supports their hypothesis but fail to successfully convince the reader of the purpose of this experiment. The reason they fail in this is because much of the past data directly supported their hypothesis, making a reader feel as if the scientists could have tweaked their research questions or experiment methods to yield a more fruitful conclusion. A conclusion is arguably the most important aspect of a lab report, and each of the three papers utilize different techniques to elucidate the purpose and outcome of their research.

            As a result of rhetorical decisions made by the author, a lab report can come across to a redear in a myriad of ways. The three lab reports discussed in this paper have very different tones, use different strategies to engage their audience, and assign varying degrees of importance to the purpose of their studies. The papers by Yesilyurt (2020) and Murray et al. (2022) come across as much stronger than Eckardt et al. (2021) due to being much more detailed, having better defined methods with previous data to support them, and have much stronger discussion aspects that answers as many questions as they raise. Between Yesilyurt (2020) and Murray et al. (2021), Yesilyurt’s paper (2020) crafts a much more readable and solid paper by keeping the reader engaged throughout every section. Authors like Ferahim Yesilyurt can craft extremely well written lab reports that reach a wide audience and serve an important purpose and are able to do so thanks to effectively employing different writing strategies.

 

References

Murray, A., Mannion, A., Chen, J. L., & Leader, G. (2022). Gaming Disorder in Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Journal of Autism & Developmental Disorders, 52(6), 2762–2769. https://doi-org.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/10.1007/s10803-021-05138-x

Eckardt, P. N., Eaton, C., Craig, M., & Patterson, K. M. (2021). Social Media and Online Gaming with Friends: Implications for Children’s Academic, Social, and Emotional Experiences in Third- through Sixth-Grade Students. Journal for Leadership and Instruction, 20(1), 33–38.

Yesilyurt, F. (2020). Gaming Duration and Preferences: Relationships with Psychiatric Health, Gaming Addiction Scores and Academic Success in High School Students. International Education Studies, 13(12), 111–119.