DISCUSSION
The function of the Discussion is to interpret your results in light of what was already known about the
subject of the investigation, and to explain our new understanding of the problem after taking your results
into consideration.
What do your observations mean?
The Discussion will always connect to the Introduction by way of the question(s) or hypotheses you posed
and the literature you cited, but it does not simply repeat or rearrange the Introduction. Instead, it tells
how your study has moved us forward from the place you left us at the end of the Introduction.
1. Do your results provide answers to your testable hypotheses? If so, how do you interpret your
findings? Did the study achieve the goal (resolve the problem, answer the question, support the
hypothesis) presented in the Introduction?
2. Do your findings agree with what others have shown? If not, do they suggest an alternative
explanation or perhaps an unforeseen design flaw in your experiment (or theirs?)
3. Given your conclusions, what is our new understanding of the problem you investigated and
outlined in the Introduction?
Use the active voice whenever possible in this section.
Watch out for wordy phrases; be concise and make your points clearly.
Use of the first person is okay, but too much use of the first person may actually distract the reader from
the main points.
Move from specific to general: your finding(s) → literature → theory → practice.
Organize the Discussion to address each of the experiments or studies for which you presented results;
discuss each in the same sequence as presented in the Results, providing your interpretation of what
they mean in the larger context of the problem.
What conclusions can you draw?
What patterns, principles, relationships do your results show?
How do results relate to expectations and to literature cited in Introduction (agreement,
contradiction, and exceptions)?
How do your results fit into a broader context?
What theoretical implications do your results have?
What plausible explanations are there?
What practical applications might your results have?
Can you extend your findings to other situations, other species? Do they help us understand a
broader topic?
What additional research might resolve contradictions, explain exceptions?
