The (Un)effectiveness of Meniscal Knee Surgery
Throughout the medical community, partial meniscectomies (knee surgeries performed on the meniscus) are widely performed. However, a report titled “Arthroscopic Partial Meniscectomy versus Sham Surgery for a Degenerative Meniscal Tear” published by The New England Journal of Medicine on December 26, 2013 by Raine Sihvonen M.D. et al. suggests that meniscal knee surgery may not be as effective as treating a meniscal tear as doctors believe it to be. In regards to the efficacy of how the article was written, there is no question that it follows a logical order with a thorough use of figures and graphs. The article follows the IMRAD format, nearly always maintains an active voice, incorporates both the present and past tense, and occasionally cites other studies. In all, the article’s formatting contributes to a thorough understanding of the information while simultaneously being concise in its communication.
To begin, the study included a structured abstract, with a background, methods, results, and conclusions section. For the majority of the abstract, the past tense with the active voice was utilized, making the section more concise than if the passive voice were to be used. The abstract gave an insight into the methods, main findings, and implications of the study, and shed light on the study without giving away too much to the reader. Thus, the abstract is both informative and descriptive, providing the reader with a brief overview of the study.
To continue, the rest of the article follows the widely accepted IMRAD format used for research papers. The author opens up the introduction with a brief background of the topic at hand and then goes to introduce the problem at hand, which is the efficacy of meniscal knee surgery in treating a meniscus tear. This problem is substantiated by previous studies cited, which serves to contextualize the information presented later on, as the introduction goes from a broad to a narrow scope of interest as the research problem is more clearly established. Although there was no hypothesis explicitly stated, it is easily seen that the scientists believe that knee surgery will not be any more effective than physical therapy in treating meniscal tears due to the studies they cited. Moving from the introduction section, the methods section is consistently written in the active voice and past tense. The noun “we” is mostly used in each paragraph, indicating that the scientists are directly involved in the procedures conducted. The level of detail included is substantial enough so that others may repeat the same experiment, as within the methods section itself are subsections. These subsections delve into further detail regarding the experiment, allowing for a thorough comprehension of the procedures performed.
Following the sequence of the IMRAD format, the results section directly follows the methods section. The results section is also divided into the different types of outcomes reported which helps the reader in organizing the information presented by the scientists. Hedging verbs were widely avoided in this section, and the past tense and active voice was widely employed in the results section. The results were presented objectively, and no interpretation of the data was included. Numerous tables and figures were referenced, which provides the reader with visual representations of the data. Finally, the discussion section also cites previous studies in order to substantiate their conclusions. Although the scientists stand behind their data, they do acknowledge some of the limitations to where their data is applicable, such as “Our results are directly applicable only to patients with nontraumatic degenerative medial meniscus tears” (Sihvonen et al., 2013). Towards the end of the discussion section, the need for further research is also explored. The use of hedging verbs is limited to few instances, and although the active voice is mainly employed in this section, the tenses switch from past to present tense quite frequently when explaining the data and possible reasons. In all, the discussion section, just as the entire article, strictly follows the IMRAD format and the language of the article allows for a thorough understanding of the information.

References
Sihvonen R, Paavola M, Malmivaara A, Itala A, Joukainen A, Nurmi H, Kalske J, Jarvinen T.L.N. December 26 2013. Arthroscopic Partial Meniscectomy versus Sham Surgery for a Degenerative Meniscal Tear. New England Journal of Medicine.

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