How To Write A Discussion Section In A Dissertation

Date published June 27 2020 by Stella Carter

Well, I thought that it was fun until I started working on it because I had none to guide me. After all, it’s putting an end to months and months of research, hard work, and crying sessions. I knew that it was not going to be simple at all.

I spent weeks and weeks researching how to write a discussion section and after a lot of help online, I was finally able to finish it. Now I feel like I must help other struggling students save their time with the information I have!

Every dissertation has 5 chapters which are:

Introduction
Literature Review
Methodology
Data Collection + Analysis
Discussion or Conclusion

The final chapter is also called Interpretation + recommendations or results and conclusions, so you don’t get confused with it.

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How Many Parts A Dissertation Discussion Chapter Is Divided Into

To make it simpler for you to get done with your discussion chapter easily. A best discussion chapter is divided into 4 parts as follow:

Interpretations: State the meaning behind the results.
Implications: State the importance of results.
Limitations: State what the results can’t tell us.
Recommendations: State the practical and scientific practices that should follow your research.

Each of them may sound like they need to be too long but be careful to not over-write in any of the chapters and keep a balance within them.

Do You Want Some Discussion Section Example

I want to make things easier for you so you can finish your dissertation as soon as possible and what could be the better way than giving you actual discussion section example?

Here Are Some Dissertation Discussion Example For You:

It is proven that anything with actual can make you understand things better and more efficiently. Let’s have a look at a sample paper:

(Image source: Google Images)

As you can see very clearly in the dissertation discussion example image, it gives you a flawless recipe to craft a top quality dissertation discussion chapter anyone has ever seen!

Here a few things that you should notice in the picture above:

Summary of key findings
State your interpretations
Discuss the implications
Acknowledge the limitations
Give your recommendations
What you should leave out of the discussion in dissertation.

Keep reading because we are going to discuss all off these things in-depth below:

Key Findings

You have to start the discussion chapter by summarizing your key findings in just one paragraph.

The best way to start is by stating your research questions and your problem statement again. But be careful to not just repeat everything, keep it concise and straight to point. Just go for a clear statement that answers all your research questions.

The study demonstrates a correlation between…
The analysis confirms…

You can start with similar phrases to have a good impact on the reader. A good choice of words is basic of “how to capture the reader’s attention”.

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Interpretations

The results are obvious to you because you have spent months and months researching it. To the reader, it might not be as obvious so make sure to thoroughly state the importance and significance of the answers for the readers.

The interpretation part must include the following things:

Identification of correlations, relationships, and patterns in the data.
Discussion regarding the results if they met your expectations or supported your hypotheses.
Turning your previous research and theory into context.
Explanation of the unexpected results and evaluation of their significance.
Considering the possible alternative explanations and arguing over your position.

These are the key things you should keep in mind. You may ask why? I guess, if you want to stand out in the crowd, this is the perfect way to get your discussion across the reader(s).

Implications

While you state the interpretations and findings of your research, don’t forget to relate it to all the literature you reviewed and used for the research. The discussion should show how the outcomes and findings of your research correlated with existing knowledge and theories.

While doing so, asking yourself the following questions could help you greatly:

Do your outcome(s) agree with previous research? When they do, what are the additions they make?
Why your findings are very different from other studies?
Do the outcomes from your research confirm or challenge existing theories?
Are there any practical implications from your research and outcomes?

Limitations

Don’t worry if your research has limitations, it’s a makes your research unique!

One thing a lot of people think that limitations are about listing down errors and inabilities. The whole point of limitations is to acknowledge the possibilities and outcomes from your research along with the things that can’t be concluded from your research.

Limitations could either be caused by inconveniences during the research process or due to your overall research design or certain methods. Be careful to mention only mention the limitations directly related to your research and further evaluate their impacts on your research and outcomes.

Recommendations

You can base the recommendations directly from the limitation, a tip that I am giving you under the table, use it wisely.

The recommendations are based on the discussion of your result and most of the time appear in the conclusion. You don’t just have to mention that more studies should be made and other generic answers but instead mention how future studies can be improved and cross the boundaries that your research was unable to do.

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What Not To Mention In The Discussion

There are a few things that you should consider not mentioning in your discussions to avoid any sort of problems such as:

Make sure your results in the discussion section dissertation part isn’t different than the conclusions part.
Avoid speculating any sort of claims that are not supported by your research data.
Don’t make the limitations seem like an issue, use it the right way to increase your credibility!

Conclusion

I told you how to finish off your dissertation in a way that the reader would be slain. You have the power to score great yourself! But in case you’re confused and having problems with your dissertation. You can just hit up DissertationProposal and get your dissertation done professionally!

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