Revised on Check out our quiz-page with tests about: Martyn Shuttleworth (Mar 6, 2009). If your results are very different, why? The first method is to present the results and add a short discussion explaining them at the end, before leading into the discussion proper. Doing so might raise questions about your initial research design and protocols. Within each subpart of a Discussion, the information should flow as follows: (A) conclusion first, (B) relevant results and how they relate to that conclusion and (C) relevant literature. 2 September 2020. This project has received funding from the, Select from one of the other courses available, https://explorable.com/writing-a-discussion-section, Creative Commons-License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0), European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. There are many different ways to write this section, but you can focus your discussion around four key elements: There is often overlap between the discussion and conclusion, and in some dissertations these two sections are included in a single chapter. Do your results agree with previous research? Even the best research has some limitations, and acknowledging these is important to demonstrate your credibility. Sometimes the recommendations appear in the conclusion. The analysis section is where the writer describes what was done with the data found. There are a few common mistakes to avoid when writing the discussion section of your dissertation. eval(ez_write_tag([[300,250],'explorable_com-medrectangle-4','ezslot_4',340,'0','0']));In this critical part of the research paper, you start the process of explaining any links and correlations apparent in your data. How to write a discussion section. Do your results agree or disagree with previous research? How to Write the Results Section of a Research Paper. Ask yourself these questions: Your overall aim is to show the reader exactly what your research has contributed and why they should care. Reducing wordiness is important when you only have a few paragraphs to devote to the Discussion section! This is very common where the research paper is straightforward, and provides continuity. Most of these components can appear in both sections. Do the results confirm or challenge existing theories? If you left few interesting leads and open questions in the results section, the discussion is simply a matter of building upon those and expanding them. Do your conclusions line up with existing literature? That is the main point of your discussion section, but the process is usually a lot more complex than that. Like Explorable? Suggestions for further research can lead directly from the limitations. Clearly tell us what that piece of missing knowledge was. The discussion should show how your findings fit with existing knowledge, what new insights they contribute, and what consequences they have for theory or practice. For example, one of your graphs may show a distinct trend, but not enough to reach an acceptable significance level. Start this chapter by reiterating your problem statement and research questions and concisely summarising your major findings. The results have been discussed and interpreted in relation to the research objectives. You want to instill confidence in your readers that you have thoroughly examined your results and have objectively assessed them in a way that would benefit the scientific community’s desire to expand our knowledge base. If you’re unsure of the best structure for your research, look at sample dissertations in your field or consult your supervisor. End with a concise summary explaining the big-picture impact of your study on our understanding of the subject matter. If conflicting inferences can be drawn from your results, evaluate the merits of all of them. This means you're free to copy, share and adapt any parts (or all) of the text in the article, as long as you give appropriate credit and provide a link/reference to this page. Don't have time for it all now? Recommendations: what practical actions or scientific studies should follow? Make sure to factor in all results relevant to the questions (even if those results were not statistically significant). The results section should aim to narrate the findings without trying to interpret or evaluate, and also provide a direction to the discussion section of the research paper. You should always put your findings into the context of the previous research that you found during your literature review. When to write a results chapter. It should focus on explaining and evaluating what you found, showing how it relates to your literature review and research questions, and making an argument in support of your overall conclusion. Instead, focus on why. In some types of qualitative research, such as ethnography, the results are often woven together with the discussion.. We want to focus on your findings. Once writing the discussion section is complete, you can move onto the next stage, wrapping up the paper with a focused conclusion. Notice how using parallel structure will eliminate extra narration in the Discussion part since we can anticipate the flow of your ideas based on what we read in the Results segment. Whilst your results may not be enough to reject the null hypothesis, they may show a trend that later researchers may wish to explore, perhaps by refining the experiment. For this purpose, you should criticize the experiment, and be honest about whether your design was good enough. When you organize information the same way in each of these related parts of your journal manuscript, we can quickly see how a certain result was interpreted and quickly verify the particular methods used to produce that result. In the discussion you should explain your results, how they relate to the literature and any implications they might have for future use. If you discovered something unexpected, offer reasons. We develop a rhythm as we read and parallel structures facilitate our comprehension. Use the present tense, which should also be employed in the Introduction. Don’t just repeat all the data you have already reported – aim for a clear statement of the overall result that directly answers your main research question. Relevant recommendations have been made for further research or action. First, there is a brief discussion of the problem, Instead of making statements like “[The first result] was this…,” say, “[The first result] suggests [conclusion].”. If you encountered problems when gathering or analysing data, describe these and explain how they influenced the results. The form of your interpretations will depend on the type of research, but some typical approaches to interpreting the data include: You can organise your discussion around key themes, hypotheses or research questions, following the same structure as your results section. Address any limitations of your study and how relevant they are to interpreting your results and validating your findings. Writing the results section: The results section answers the question W-H-A-T. Depending on your field, you might not include a separate results chapter. College Admissions Essay Editing Services, - University Assignments Editing Services, - Business and Corporate Editing Services, How to Write a Research Paper Introduction, Which Verb Tenses to Use in a Research Paper, How to Write an Abstract for a Research Paper, Common Transition Terms in Academic Papers, Active and Passive Voice in Research Papers, 100+ Verbs That Will Make Your Research Writing Amazing. The practical and/or theoretical implications have been stated. Are your findings very different from other studies? Please click the checkbox on the left to verify that you are a not a bot. Relevant literature and theory has been cited. Similarly, maintain a critical but unapologetic tone. Try not to be too broad in your generalizations to the wider world - it is a small experiment and is unlikely to change the world. Don’t just state that more studies should be done – give concrete ideas for how future work can build on areas that your own research was unable to address. What types of MBA programs are available in 2020-2021? Remember that no significance is not the same as no difference, and you can begin to explain this in your discussion section. Keep the same flow across the Results, Methods, and Discussion sections. At the beginning of your Discussion section, you stated why. You can use it freely (with some kind of link), and we're also okay with people reprinting in publications like books, blogs, newsletters, course-material, papers, wikipedia and presentations (with clear attribution). by If you left few interesting leads and open questions in the results section, the discussion is simply a matter of building upon those and expanding them. Maybe the reason that you did not find a significant correlation is because your sampling was not random, or you did not use sensitive enough equipment. Learn how to construct, style and format an Academic paper and take your skills to the next level. This paper presents the likely results and findings of the proposed research on the social media selections and strategies of companies. Discussion. Make sure your suggestions aren’t ones that should have been conducted during your research! Rather, discuss your findings in the context of answering your hypothesis. This should be no more than one paragraph. Limitations aren’t about listing your errors, but about providing an accurate picture of what can and cannot be concluded from your study. The first part of this post briefly described what to include in the introduction and materials and methods sections of a typical research paper written in the IMRaD format (Introduction, Materials and methods, Results, and Discussion). But in most cases, if you’re doing empirical research, it’s important to report the results of your study before you start discussing their meaning. You can also begin by highlighting the most significant or unexpected results. Alternative explanations of the results have been considered. No problem, save it as a course and come back to it later. Writing a Discussion Section. You have already written the results for your paper and formatted and put together the figures, too. Sprinkle with first person pronouns if needed, but generally, avoid it. The meaning of the results might seem obvious to you, but it’s important to spell out their significance for the reader and show exactly how they answer your research questions. Either you have uncovered something new, or you may have made a major flaw with the design of the experiment. Embrace active voice because it eliminates the awkward phrasing and wordiness that accompanies passive voice. In this part, I'll discuss the results and discussion sections. You are free to copy, share and adapt any text in the article, as long as you give. Make sure to acknowledge any weaknesses in your conclusions and suggest room for further research concerning that aspect of your analysis. Use the other checklists to further improve your dissertation. For example, if your sample size was small or limited to a specific group of people, note that this limits its generalisability. For most research paper formats, there are two ways of presenting and organizing the results. You've included all the important parts of the discussion. Shona McCombes. It is rarely clear-cut, and you will need to interpret your findings. As there is not always a clear separation between the discussion and the conclusion, we have combined them into one checklist. Keep the same flow across the Results, Methods, and Discussion sections. eval(ez_write_tag([[300,250],'explorable_com-box-4','ezslot_1',261,'0','0']));In an ideal world, you could simply reject your null or alternative hypotheses according to the significance levels found by the statistics. Discuss whether your findings agree with current knowledge and expectations. Any limitations of the research have been acknowledged and evaluated. The Aske Stables, Aske, Richmond, North Yorkshire, U.K. 10F, 205, Teheran-ro, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, Republic of Korea, 2850, ShuBLDG, 2-28-10, Ebisu, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, 150-0013, Japan, 01-102, 1F, Building 25, Hanhe Garden, Haidian District, Beijing, China. Focus on the significance of the most noteworthy results. Let’s accept this: Writing a paper is daunting, and sometimes the most difficult and thought-provoking part is writing the ‘discussion’ section. The discussion section is not always about what you found, but what you did not find, and how you deal with that. Finally, after saying all of this, you can make a statement about whether the experiment has contributed to knowledge in the field, or not. Remind us why we should be interested in this research project. Maintain an objective and analytical tone. If so, what do they add to it? Based on the discussion of your results, you can make recommendations for practical implementation or further research. Stating that the results are inconclusive is the easy way out, and you must always try to pick out something of value. Writing a discussion section is where you really begin to add your interpretations to the work. After noting the limitations, you can reiterate why the results are nonetheless valid for the purpose of answering your research questions. If so, why might this be? You'll show that your results can … Do the results of the previous research help you to interpret your own findings? Revised on 2 September 2020. The next big step is to write the discussion. The study demonstrates a correlation between…, Identifying correlations, patterns and relationships among the data, Discussing whether the results met your expectations or supported your, Contextualising your findings within previous research and theory, Explaining unexpected results and evaluating their significance, Considering possible alternative explanations and making an argument for your position, Contrary to the hypothesised association…, The results contradict the claims of Smith (2007) that…. The importance of the results has been emphasized. Retrieved Oct 04, 2020 from Explorable.com: https://explorable.com/writing-a-discussion-section. When you organize information the same way in each of these related parts of your journal manuscript, we can quickly see how a certain result was interpreted and quickly verify the particular methods used to produce that result. Published on 21 March 2019 by Shona McCombes. 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