Fourteen Steps to Writing an Effective Discussion Section
San Francisco Edit
www.sfedit.net The purpose of the Discussion is to state your interpretations and opinions, explain the
implications of your findings, and make suggestions for future research. Its main
function is to answer the questions posed in the Introduction, explain how the results
support the answers and, how the answers fit in with existing knowledge on the topic.
The Discussion is considered the heart of the paper and usually requires several writing
attempts.
The organization of the Discussion is important. Before beginning you should try to
develop an outline to organize your thoughts in a logical form. You can use a cluster
map, an issue tree, numbering, or some other organizational structure. The steps listed
below are intended to help you organize your thoughts. If you need additional help see
our articles Eight Steps to Developing an Effective Manuscript Outline and Twelve
Steps to Developing an Effective First Draft of your Manuscript at
www.sfedit.net/newsletters.htm. To make your message clear, the discussion should be kept as short as possible while
clearly and fully stating, supporting, explaining, and defending your answers and
discussing other important and directly relevant issues. Care must be taken to provide
a commentary and not a reiteration of the results. Side issues should not be included,
as these tend to obscure the message. No paper is perfect; the key is to help the reader
determine what can be positively learned and what is more speculative.
1. Organize the Discussion from the specific to the general: your findings to the
literature, to theory, to practice.
2. Use the same key terms, the same verb tense (present tense), and the same point of
view that you used when posing the questions in the Introduction.
3. Begin by re-stating the hypothesis you were testing and answering the questions
posed in the introduction.
4. Support the answers with the results. Explain how your results relate to expectations
and to the literature, clearly stating why they are acceptable and how they are
consistent or fit in with previously published knowledge on the topic.
3 Pine Ridge Way • Mill Valley, California 94941 • Tel: (415) 383-5203 • Fax: (415) 383-3038
kretchmer@sfedit.net •
www.sfedit.net 5. Address all the results relating to the questions, regardless of whether or not the
findings were statistically significant.
6. Describe the patterns, principles, and relationships shown by each major
finding/result and put them in perspective. The sequencing of providing this information
is important; first state the answer, then the relevant results, then cite the work of
others. If necessary, point the reader to a figure or table to enhance the “story”.
7. Defend your answers, if necessary, by explaining both why your answer is
satisfactory and why others are not. Only by giving both sides to the argument can you
make your explanation convincing.
8. Discuss and evaluate conflicting explanations of the results. This is the sign of a good
discussion.
9. Discuss any unexpected findings. When discussing an unexpected finding, begin the
paragraph with the finding and then describe it.
10. Identify potential limitations and weaknesses and comment on the relative
importance of these to your interpretation of the results and how they may affect the
validity of the findings. When identifying limitations and weaknesses, avoid using an
apologetic tone.
11. Summarize concisely the principal implications of the findings, regardless of
statistical significance.
12. Provide recommendations (no more than two) for further research. Do not offer
suggestions which could have been easily addressed within the study, as this shows
there has been inadequate examination and interpretation of the data.
13. Explain how the results and conclusions of this study are important and how they
influence our knowledge or understanding of the problem being examined.
14. In your writing of the Discussion, discuss everything, but be concise, brief, and
specific.
