Conclusion/Discussion

Your discussion section is where you talk about what your results mean and where you wrap up the overall story you are telling. This is where you interpret your findings, evaluate your hypotheses or research questions, discuss unexpected results, and tie your findings to the previous literature (discussed first in your literature review). Your discussion section should move from specific to general.

Here are some tips for writing your discussion section.

  • Begin by providing an interpretation of your results: what is it that you have learned from your research?
  • Discuss each hypotheses or research question in more depth.
  • Do not repeat what you have already said in your results—instead, focus on adding new information and broadening the perspective of your results to you reader.
  • Discuss how your results compare to previous findings in the literature. If there are differences, discuss why you think these differences exist and what they could mean.
  • Briefly consider your study’s limitations, but do not dwell on its flaws.
  • Consider also what new questions your study raises, what questions your study was not able to answer, and what avenues future research could take in this area.

Source: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/670/04/