“As a result” is often used as a conjunctive adverbial phrase to indicate cause-and-effect relationships; in this sense, it is synonymous with “therefore,” “hence,” “consequently,” “as a consequence,” and “accordingly.” Here are some sentences in which “as a result” is used in this way.
The molecule has bulky substituents in the ortho positions; as a result, the eclipsed rotamer is energetically disfavored.
The fact that eclipsed rotamer is energetically disfavored is a consequence of the steric bulk of the substituents.
The diphenyl phosphine oxide group is electron withdrawing, and as a result, the central carbon of the allene is electron deficient.
The electron deficiency is a consequence of the presence of the electron-withdrawing group.
In the course of my ESL editing, I often encounter what seems to me a nonstandard use of “as a result,” in which the phrase is used prepositionally to connect a sentence or clause describing an experiment and a second sentence or clause describing the outcome of that experiment. The usage seems particularly common in papers written by authors whose native language is Japanese. Here’s an example:
We investigated the photocatalytic degradation of 17β-estradiol in water and concurrently evaluated the estrogenic activity of the treated water. As a result, 17β-estradiol was totally mineralized to CO2 in a TiO2 suspension under UV irradiation for 3 h.
Some readers will momentarily misinterpret “as a result” as implying that the mineralization was a consequence of, was caused by, the investigation and evaluation. However, the author is actually using “as a result” simply to indicate that the subsequent text describes a result (a finding) of the experiment. That is, “17β-estradiol was totally mineralized to CO2…” constitutes a result of the experiment. The sentence opening could be thought of as an elided form of “As a result of this experiment, we found that…”
Here’s another example:
Serial dilution tests of the JCAbl antibody were performed on the three tissues. As a result, JCAbl reacted with JCV-IMR32 cells and PML tissues at all the dilutions.
Here, again, the authors do not mean that the reaction of the antibody with the tissues was caused by, was a consequence of, the serial dilutions tests. Rather, they mean that the observed result of the experiments was that the antibody reacted with the specified tissues at all dilutions.
I wouldn’t call this use of “as a result” a serious error, but as I pointed out, some readers will find it momentarily distracting. In my opinion, the best revision is simply to replace “as a result” with “we found that”:
We investigated the photocatalytic degradation of 17β-estradiol in water and concurrently evaluated the estrogenic activity of the treated water. We found that 17β-estradiol was totally mineralized to CO2 in a TiO2 suspension under UV irradiation for 3 h.
But you could also revise to any of the following:
We investigated the photocatalytic degradation of 17β-estradiol in water….The results of these experiments indicated that 17β-estradiol was totally mineralized to CO2 in a TiO2 suspension under UV irradiation for 3 h.
When we investigated the photocatalytic degradation of 17β-estradiol in water…, we found that that 17β-estradiol was totally mineralized to CO2 in a TiO2 suspension under UV irradiation for 3 h.
Investigation of the photocatalytic degradation of 17β-estradiol in water and concurrent evaluation of the estrogenic activity of the treated water indicated that 17β-estradiol was totally mineralized to CO2 in a TiO2 suspension under UV irradiation for 3 h.
If anyone can verify that this is an artifact of the Japanese language, I’d be interested to hear about it.