Evaluate the discussion section of your dissertation or report the discussion section of your dissertation is one of the most important parts of a dissertation, and it's worth the most marks. Interpret and explain your results, answer your research question, justify your approach critically evaluate your study. Perhaps most importantly, the discussion is where you get to have your say and make your voice heard. You need to think very carefully about what your results mean: don't just describe your results, explain them.

How to Create An Outline for An Expository Essay

It's your job to interpret your results for your readers, and your interpretation must be accurate and plausible. You'll also need to critically analyse your work, recognising the limitations and shortcoming of your study and explaining how the work could be improved. The discussion is generally the longest section of your dissertation, and it's a good idea help your readers to follow your lines of reasoning. By dividing the discussion up using sub headings or, at the very least, clear paragraphs , you'll avoid large chunks of text and help your readers navigate a smooth passage through your work. Depending on the conventions of your subject or any specific instructions you've been given, you may choose to include your conclusions in the discussion section or instead choose to have a separate conclusion.

Whichever applies to you, your conclusion is your chance to sum up, draw some firm conclusions, discuss further directions for this area of study and make recommendations.

activity: evaluating your discussion 20 minutes

the discussion section is the most important part of your dissertation, and you'll need to make sure you have all the vital ingredients of a great discussion. The check list below includes a list of the important things you should include in your discussion. You can use this check list as a guide to help you plan and write your discussion, or you can use it after you've written your discussion, to make sure you've missed nothing out. When you're sure you can agree with each statement in the checklist, tick it off. Not every statement will apply to every dissertation, so cross out any that don't apply to your work.

On twitter this week two people asked me for advice for starting the discussion chapter of their thesis / dissertation im going to use the word thesis from now on because i am australian. I didnt feel up to answering in 140 characters or less, so i promised a post on it today. If you are feeling anxious about the discussion section rest assured you are not alone. Theres no one answer that can help everyone because every project is original, so i thought i would offer a few thoughts on it by way of starting a conversation. Describe the discussion chapter as the place where you: critically examine your findings in the light of the previous state of the subject as outlined in the background, and make judgments as to what has been learnt in your work essentially the discussion chapter tells your reader what your findings might mean, how valuable they are and why.

I remember struggling with this section myself and, looking back, i believe there were two sources of anxiety. At the university of melbourne we used to talk about how a good thesis has a ph factor. The ph factor is somewhat elusive and hard to describe, but basically it means you have to make some knowledge claims. you need to have the confidence to say something is true at least, without getting too post modern about it, true within the confines of your thesis. This can feel risky because, if you have been approaching the thesis in the right spirit, you are likely to be experiencing doubt. Most of the rest of the thesis asks us to think analytically or, if you are in a practice based discipline, to make stuff or perhaps, if you are an ethnographer, to observe the world in some way. So the problem of the discussion chapter is a problem of creative thinking and confidence, but there are some stylistic conventions and knowledge issues that complicate the task.

Every thesis needs to have discussion like elements, but they may do it in different ways. In a conventional thesis, what we call the imrad type introduction, methods, results, discussion and conclusion the discussion chapter appears a discrete chapter. Before you worry about the discussion chapter too much, consider whether you need to treat the discussion as a separate section at all. you need to keep in mind that the imrad structure is best used to write up empirical research work the type where you collect data of some kind. In the past i have referred to the imrad formula as the dead hand of the thesis genre a phrase i picked up from my colleague dr robyn barnacle. Its a dead hand because of the role it plays in the imagination of the research community throughout the world.

The imrad formula is the most widely understood format because it is the type most widely described in the how to genre and has a close and abiding relationship to the scientific method. Many students try to make their research fit into the imrad format, when it is not appropriate to do so. I can be easy to feel blocked if you are a non scientist trying to separate out the discussion from the rest of what you are writing. An ethnographer might devote a chapter to each theory they have built from observation. Likewise a historian may break the thesis up into time periods and do critique and evaluation throughout the whole. So i have diagnosed some of the problems, are there any easy solutions? well, the best way to start in my view is just to write, but perhaps start to write without the specific purpose of the discussion chapter in mind. write to try and work out what you think and then re write it later.

Expected Essays for Ib Acio 2013

You can use a couple of basic techniques to help you with this process: try the old compare and contrast technique. Draw up a table describing where your work is similar to others and where it differs. Use the the big machine trick as suggested by howard becker in his book tricks of the trade now only $3.99 on kindle? bargain!. How would the machine work? what would it look like? what parts would it need? what might make the machine break? another useful suggestion from howard becker is the null hypothesis technique write down why the results mean nothing. Sometimes forcing yourself to argue the reverse position can highlight the relationships or ideas worth exploring.

Explain the results to a friend and record yourself, or use voice recognition software to tell your computer some of your preliminary thoughts. Explain the limitations of the work: what is left out or yet to do? sometimes, like the null hypothesis, talking about the limitations can help you better define the contribution your study has made. Do you have any more? are there tricks you have used to help you get your creative juices flowing? the discussion section of a dissertation comes after the results and is the concluding section.