Writing the Discussion Section

The purpose of the Discussion section is to interpret the results and describe the significance of your finding in light of what is already known about your research problem.  The discussion should explain any new insights or understandings that have resulted from your findings.  It should also describe how your study has advanced the reader's understanding of the research problem and how it moves the field forward.

As you prepare to write the Discussion section, keep in mind that this section should answer the follow key questions:   Do your results provide answers to your hypothesis?  If the answer is yes, how should your findings be interpreted?  Do your finding agree with others in your field?  Do you need to provide new perspectives or alternate explanations if the findings do not agree with previous work in this area?   What new understanding should the reader take away from your research?  Are there any next steps?

Following is a list of tips and guidelines you should consider as you write your Discussion section:

• Use present tense and an active voice when writing. You may write using the first person, but be careful not to overuse it.
• Be concise and clear and avoid the use of jargon.
• Overall, the information in the Discussion should be organized to flow from the general to the specific, linking your findings to previous literature and then discussing how the results can be applied more generally.
• Discuss each results in the same order that you used in the Results section. 
• Subheadings are acceptable if needed to organize your discussion of the results.
• For each result, provide an interpretation of what it means in relation to the larger context of your research problem.
• Do not re-state the results.  You may need to refer the results in a general way but avoid restating data.  For example, you might say "The decline in injuries..." without specifically referring to the data.
• Do not include any new results that were not stated in the Results section.
• Highlight the importance of your findings.  How do they contribute to your field?  Do they fill in gaps in the current knowledge related to your research problem.
• Be sure to consider alternative explanations for your findings and address those in your discussion.
• You should plan to reference the findings of others and discuss how they relate to your findings.  Other studies may corroborate your findings and help you interpret your data or you may be to reinterpret the finding of others based on your results.  This is important to others in your field so spend some time considering what your research contributes to your field of study and be sure to discuss it.
• You may want to refer to future studies you plan to conduct to clarify or further your work.
• Avoid speculation for which you do not have a solid basis in your findings as this may discredit your work.

The following video more fully explains the Discussion section and offers additional guidelines and suggestions.

Resources:

• The Discussion
• How to Write an Effective Discussion
• Sample Paper and Discussion Section