What happened

“Think of it as if it were a ladder where you are first describing the concrete, real world, what actually happened. What did these participants or subjects do when you did this manipulation? What was their response to it? These are your results. Then, you are taking a step back, to ask what these results mean on their own? You’re still just in the context. You’re standing there, the participants have just left the room, and you wonder what does that actually mean, what you just witnessed? What does this gathered insight, this data mean? How do I interpret that result? How do I translate that into the language that I’m using in the paper? Instead of recounting what happened, you use the more abstract terminology for it.”

(Matt Farmer)