Discussion Section

This section has four purposes, it should:

1. Interpret and explain your results

2. Answer your research question
3. Justify your approach
4. Critically evaluate your study

The discussion section therefore needs to review your findings in the context
of the literature and the existing knowledge about the subject.

You also need to demonstrate that you understand the limitations of your
research and the implications of your findings for policy and practice. This
section should be written in the present tense.

The Discussion section needs to follow from your results and relate back to
your literature review. Make sure that everything you discuss is covered in
the results section.

Starting the Task

Most people are likely to write this section best by preparing an outline,
setting out the broad thrust of the argument, and how your results support
it.

You may find techniques like mind mapping are helpful in making a first
outline. You should start by referring back to your research questions,
discuss your results, then set them into the context of the literature, and
then into broader theory.

Fleshing Out the Detail

Once you have your outline in front of you, you can start to map out how
your results fit into the outline. This will help you to see whether your
results are over-focused in one area, which is why writing up your research
as you go along can be a helpful process. For each theme or area, you
should discuss how the results help to answer your research question, and
whether the results are consistent with your expectations and the literature.

The Importance of Understanding Differences

If your results are controversial and/or unexpected, you should set them fully
in context and explain why you think that you obtained them.

Your explanations may include issues such as a non-representative sample

for convenience purposes, a response rate skewed towards those with a
particular experience, or your own involvement as a participant for
sociological research.

You do not need to be apologetic about these, because you made a choice
about them, which you should have justified in the methodology section.
However, you do need to evaluate your own results against others’ findings,
especially if they are different. A full understanding of the limitations of your
research is part of a good discussion section.

Top Tip

At this stage, you may want to revisit your literature review, unless you
submitted it as a separate submission earlier, and revise it to draw out
those studies which have proven more relevant.

Conclude by summarizing the implications of your findings in brief, and

explain why they are important for researchers and in practice, and provide
some suggestions for further work.

You may also wish to make some recommendations for practice. As before,
this may be a separate section, or included in your discussion. The results
and discussion, including conclusion and recommendations, are probably the
most substantial sections of your dissertation. Once completed, you can
begin to relax slightly: you are on to the last stages of writing!
 Academic Phrases for Writing Results & Discussion
Sections of a Research Paper

The results and discussion sections are one of the challenging sections to
write. It is important to plan this section carefully as it may contain a large
amount of scientific data that needs to be presented in a clear and concise
fashion. The purpose of a Results section is to present the key results of
your research. Results and discussions can either be combined into one
section or organized as separate sections depending on the requirements of
the journal to which you are submitting your research paper. Use
subsections and subheadings to improve readability and clarity. You should
number all the tables and figures, with descriptive titles. Present your results
as figures and tables and point the reader to relevant items while discussing
the results. This section should highlight significant or interesting findings
along with P values for statistical tests. Be sure to include negative results
and highlight potential limitations of the paper. You will be criticised by the
reviewers if you don’t discuss the shortcomings of your research. This often
makes up for a great discussion section, so do not be afraid to highlight
them.
The results and discussion section of your research paper should include the
following:
 Findings
 Comparison with prior studies
 Limitations of your work
 Casual arguments
 Speculations
 Deductive arguments
Academic Phrases, Sentences & Vocabulary
1. Findings:
From the short review above, key findings emerge: __
We describe the results of __,
Which show __
This suggests that __
We showed that __
Our findings on __ at least hint that __
This is an important finding in the understanding of the __
The present study confirmed the findings about __
Another promising finding was that __
Our results demonstrated that __
This result highlights that little is known about the __
A further novel finding is that __
Together, the present findings confirm __
The implications of these findings are discussed in __
The results demonstrate two things.  First, _ Second, __
The results of the experiment found clear support for the __
This analysis found evidence for __
Planned comparisons revealed that __
Our results cast a new light on __
This section summarizes the findings and contributions made. It performs
well, giving good results.
This gives clearly better results than __
The results confirm that this a good choice for __
From the results, it is clear that __
In this section, we will illustrate some experimental results.
This delivers significantly better results due to __
The result now provides evidence to __
It leads to good results, even if the improvement is negligible. This yields
increasingly good results on data.
The result of this analysis is then compared with the __
The applicability of these new results are then tested on __
This is important to correctly interpret the results.
The results are substantially better than __
The results lead to similar conclusion where __
Superior results are seen for __
From these results it is clear that __
Extensive results carried out show that this method improves __
We obtain good results with this simple method. However, even better
results are achieved when using our algorithm.
It is worth discussing these interesting facts revealed by the results of __
Overall, our method was the one that obtained the most robust results.
Slightly superior results are achieved with our algorithm. The result is
equal to or better than a result that is currently accepted.
2. Comparison with prior studies:
The results demonstrated in this chapter match state of the art methods.
Here we compare the results of the proposed method with those of the
traditional methods.
These results go beyond previous reports, showing that __
In line with previous studies __
This result ties well with previous studies wherein __
Contrary to the findings of __ we did not find __
They have demonstrated that __
Others have shown that __ improves __
By comparing the results from __, we hope to determine __
However, in line with the ideas of __, it can be concluded that __
When comparing our results to those of older studies, it must be pointed out
that __
We have verified that using __ produces similar results
Overall these findings are in accordance with findings reported by __
Even though we did not replicate the previously reported __, our results
suggest that __
A similar conclusion was reached by __
However, when comparing our results to those of older studies, it must be
pointed out __
This is consistent with what has been found in previous __
A similar pattern of results was obtained in __The findings are directly in
line with previous findings
These basic findings are consistent with research showing that __
Other results were broadly in line with __
3. Limitations of your work:
Because of the lack of __ we decided to not investigate __
One concern about the findings of __ was that __
Because of this potential limitation, we treat __
The limitations of the present studies naturally include __
Regarding the limitations of __, it could be argued that __
Another limitation of this __
This limitation is apparent in many __
Another limitation in __ involves the issue of __
The main limitation is the lack of __
One limitation is found in this case. One limitation of these methods
however is that they __
It presents some limitations such as __
Although widely accepted, it suffers from some limitations due to __
An apparent limitation of the method is __
There are several limitations to this approach. One limitation of our
implementation is that it is __
A major source of limitation is due to  __
The approach utilised suffers from the limitation that __
The limitations are becoming clear __
It suffers from the same limitations associated with a __
4. Casual arguments:
A popular explanation of __ is that __
It is by now generally accepted that __
A popular explanation is that __
As it is not generally agreed that __
These are very small and difficult to observe. It is important to highlight the
fact that __
It is notable that __
An important question associated with __ is __
This did not impair the __
This is important because there is __
This implies that __ is associated with __
This is indicative for lack of __
This will not be biased by __
There were also some important differences in __
It is interesting to note that, __
It is unlikely that __
This may alter or improve aspects of __
In contrast, this makes it possible to __
This is particularly important when investigating __
This has been used to successfully account for __
This introduces a possible confound in __
This was included to verify that __
5. Speculations:
However, we acknowledge that there are considerable discussions among
researchers as to __
We speculate that this might be due to __
There are reasons to doubt this explanation of __
It remains unclear to which degree __ are attributed to __
However, __ does seem to improve __
This does seem to depend on __
It is important to note, that the present evidence relies on __
The results show that __ does not seem to impact the __
However, the extent to which it is possible to __ is unknown
Alternatively, it could simply mean that __
It is difficult to explain such results within the context of __
It is unclear whether this is a suitable for __
This appears to be a case of __
From this standpoint, __ can be considered as __
To date, __remain unknown
Under certain assumptions, this can be construed as __
Because of this potential limitation, we treat __
In addition, several questions remain unanswered. At this stage of
understanding, we believe__
Therefore, it remains unclear whether __
This may explain why __
6. Deductive Arguments:
A difference between these __ can only be attributable to __
Nonetheless, we believe that it is well justified to __
This may raise concerns about __ which can be addressed by __
As discussed, this is due to the fact that __
Results demonstrate that this is not necessarily true. These findings support
the notion that __ is not influenced by __
This may be the reason why we did not find __
In order to test whether this is equivalent across __, we __
Therefore, __ can be considered to be equivalent for __

How to Separate the Results and Discussion Sections of Your

Manuscript
Scientific manuscripts are published to communicate your research work to
the scientific community. A manuscript published in a reputed journal also
serves as a validation of the work done by you. The body of an original
research article is typically divided into the introduction, methodology, results,
discussion, and conclusion. This division allows the authors to present their
work in an organized manner. However, guidelines may differ across
journals. Some journals may require the results and discussion as one
combined section whereas others may require them as separate sections.

Both formats have their own advantages as well as disadvantages. The

combined approach discusses results immediately after presenting them, thus
saving readers the time they would have otherwise spent on switching
between sections. In contrast, when the two sections are separated, there is
continuity in the discussion and the reader can view and analyze the
complete study in one go as opposed to reading results in between in a
combined section. However, the reader would have to go back to the results
section to correlate the discussion. Both the methods are acceptable, and
there is no right or wrong. Here we discuss the effective separation of the
two sections.

Tips to Effectively Separate the Results and Discussion

Keep in mind the following points when you want to separate the results
and discussion in your manuscript:
1. Stick to presenting your data in the results section.
2. Explain your results in the discussion section.
3. Information given in the results section should not be repeated in the
discussion section.

Communicate Your Results Effectively

The results section is the focus of your research paper. This section
represents the outcome of your work. A well-written result is essential to
generate interest in your findings.

Your results should include:

1. Key outcomes of your study

2. Statistical analyses that represent the significance.
3. A visual representation of your data using figures, tables, and graphs
whenever possible.

Do not represent the same data twice. Choose between a table or a figure
to represent your data. Avoid using both.

Write an Impactful Discussion Section

Only presenting the results is not sufficient. The author needs to explain the
significance of the results. The discussion should narrate a story, include
explanations for observed phenomena, with supporting studies to
justify/validate the findings.

Keep in mind the following points while writing your discussion:

1. Address the problem stated in your introduction

2. Review your findings in the context of supporting literature and existing
knowledge.
3. Critically analyze your results.
4. Include future research directions in your discussion.
5. Avoid repeating information given in the introduction.
6. Derive conclusions unless the journal requires it to be a discrete
section.

We hope these tips help you effectively separate your results and discussion
sections. Do you have any more tips to contribute to our list? Please add
your ideas to our comments section below.