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• How to Write a Discussion Section | Tips & Examples

How to Write a Discussion Section | Tips & Examples

Published on August 21, 2022 by Shona McCombes . Revised on July 18, 2023.

The discussion section is where you delve into the meaning, importance, and relevance of your results .

It should focus on explaining and evaluating what you found, showing how it relates to your literature review and paper or dissertation topic , and making an argument in support of your overall conclusion. It should not be a second results section.

There are different ways to write this section, but you can focus your writing around these key elements:

• Summary : A brief recap of your key results
• Interpretations: What do your results mean?
• Implications: Why do your results matter?
• Limitations: What can’t your results tell us?
• Recommendations: Avenues for further studies or analyses

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Table of contents

What not to include in your discussion section, step 1: summarize your key findings, step 2: give your interpretations, step 3: discuss the implications, step 4: acknowledge the limitations, step 5: share your recommendations, discussion section example, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about discussion sections.

There are a few common mistakes to avoid when writing the discussion section of your paper.

• Don’t introduce new results: You should only discuss the data that you have already reported in your results section .
• Don’t make inflated claims: Avoid overinterpretation and speculation that isn’t directly supported by your data.
• Don’t undermine your research: The discussion of limitations should aim to strengthen your credibility, not emphasize weaknesses or failures.

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Start this section by reiterating your research problem and concisely summarizing your major findings. To speed up the process you can use a summarizer to quickly get an overview of all important findings. Don’t just repeat all the data you have already reported—aim for a clear statement of the overall result that directly answers your main research question . This should be no more than one paragraph.

Many students struggle with the differences between a discussion section and a results section . The crux of the matter is that your results sections should present your results, and your discussion section should subjectively evaluate them. Try not to blend elements of these two sections, in order to keep your paper sharp.

• The results indicate that…
• The study demonstrates a correlation between…
• This analysis supports the theory that…
• The data suggest that…

The meaning of your results may seem obvious to you, but it’s important to spell out their significance for your reader, showing exactly how they answer your research question.

The form of your interpretations will depend on the type of research, but some typical approaches to interpreting the data include:

• Identifying correlations , patterns, and relationships among the data
• Discussing whether the results met your expectations or supported your hypotheses
• Contextualizing your findings within previous research and theory
• Explaining unexpected results and evaluating their significance
• Considering possible alternative explanations and making an argument for your position

You can organize your discussion around key themes, hypotheses, or research questions, following the same structure as your results section. Alternatively, you can also begin by highlighting the most significant or unexpected results.

• In line with the hypothesis…
• Contrary to the hypothesized association…
• The results contradict the claims of Smith (2022) that…
• The results might suggest that x . However, based on the findings of similar studies, a more plausible explanation is y .

As well as giving your own interpretations, make sure to relate your results back to the scholarly work that you surveyed in the literature review . The discussion should show how your findings fit with existing knowledge, what new insights they contribute, and what consequences they have for theory or practice.

Ask yourself these questions:

• Do your results support or challenge existing theories? If they support existing theories, what new information do they contribute? If they challenge existing theories, why do you think that is?
• Are there any practical implications?

Your overall aim is to show the reader exactly what your research has contributed, and why they should care.

• These results build on existing evidence of…
• The results do not fit with the theory that…
• The experiment provides a new insight into the relationship between…
• These results should be taken into account when considering how to…
• The data contribute a clearer understanding of…
• While previous research has focused on  x , these results demonstrate that y .

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Even the best research has its limitations. Acknowledging these is important to demonstrate your credibility. Limitations aren’t about listing your errors, but about providing an accurate picture of what can and cannot be concluded from your study.

Limitations might be due to your overall research design, specific methodological choices , or unanticipated obstacles that emerged during your research process.

Here are a few common possibilities:

• If your sample size was small or limited to a specific group of people, explain how generalizability is limited.
• If you encountered problems when gathering or analyzing data, explain how these influenced the results.
• If there are potential confounding variables that you were unable to control, acknowledge the effect these may have had.

After noting the limitations, you can reiterate why the results are nonetheless valid for the purpose of answering your research question.

• The generalizability of the results is limited by…
• The reliability of these data is impacted by…
• Due to the lack of data on x , the results cannot confirm…
• The methodological choices were constrained by…
• It is beyond the scope of this study to…

Based on the discussion of your results, you can make recommendations for practical implementation or further research. Sometimes, the recommendations are saved for the conclusion .

Suggestions for further research can lead directly from the limitations. Don’t just state that more studies should be done—give concrete ideas for how future work can build on areas that your own research was unable to address.

• Further research is needed to establish…
• Future studies should take into account…
• Avenues for future research include…

If you want to know more about AI for academic writing, AI tools, or research bias, make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

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In the discussion , you explore the meaning and relevance of your research results , explaining how they fit with existing research and theory. Discuss:

• Your  interpretations : what do the results tell us?
• The  implications : why do the results matter?
• The  limitation s : what can’t the results tell us?

The results chapter or section simply and objectively reports what you found, without speculating on why you found these results. The discussion interprets the meaning of the results, puts them in context, and explains why they matter.

In qualitative research , results and discussion are sometimes combined. But in quantitative research , it’s considered important to separate the objective results from your interpretation of them.

In a thesis or dissertation, the discussion is an in-depth exploration of the results, going into detail about the meaning of your findings and citing relevant sources to put them in context.

The conclusion is more shorter and more general: it concisely answers your main research question and makes recommendations based on your overall findings.

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How Long Should the Discussion Section Be? Data from 61,517 Examples

I analyzed a random sample of 61,517 full-text research papers, uploaded to PubMed Central between the years 2016 and 2021, in order to answer the questions:

What is the typical length of a discussion section? and which factors influence it?

I used the BioC API to download the data (see the References section below).

Here’s a summary of the key findings

1. The median discussion section was 1,115 words long (equivalent to 43 sentences, or 7 paragraphs), and 90% of the discussion sections were between 482 and 2,230 words.

2. Compared to other sections in a research paper, the discussion was about the same length as either the methods or the results, and double the length of the introduction .

3. The length of the discussion does not differ between review articles and original research articles .

4. The quality of the journal does not influence the length of the discussion section .

Overall length of the discussion section

Here’s a table that describes the length of a discussion section in terms of words, sentences, and paragraphs:

From these data, we can conclude that the discussion sections in most research papers are between 824 and 1,480 words long (32 to 57 sentences).

If you are interested, here are the links to the articles with the shortest and longest discussion sections.

The discussion section constitutes 29.5% of the total word count in a research article, equivalent to the length of either the methods or the results, and double the length of the introduction [source: How Long Should a Research Paper Be? ].

Length of the discussion for different article types

The following table shows the median word count of the discussion section for different study designs:

The data show no clear pattern since the discussions of review articles and original research articles have almost similar word counts. So we can conclude that there is no particular article type that requires a longer discussion section.

Length of the discussion in different journals

In order to study the influence of the journal quality on the length of the discussion section, I ran a Poisson regression that models the discussion word count given the journal impact factor. Here’s the model output:

The model shows that a higher journal impact factor is associated with a slightly longer discussion section. Although statistically significant, this effect is practically negligible since a 1 unit increase in the journal impact factor is associated with an increase of only 0.1% in the discussion word count. For the median article, this means that a 1 unit increase in the journal impact factor is associated with an approximate increase of 1 word in the discussion section.

• Comeau DC, Wei CH, Islamaj Doğan R, and Lu Z. PMC text mining subset in BioC: about 3 million full text articles and growing,  Bioinformatics , btz070, 2019.

Further reading

• How to Start a Discussion Section in Research? [with Examples]
• How Many References to Cite? Based on 96,685 Research Papers
• How Old Should References Be? Based on 3,823,919 Examples

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How to write a discussion section?

Writing manuscripts to describe study outcomes, although not easy, is the main task of an academician. The aim of the present review is to outline the main aspects of writing the discussion section of a manuscript. Additionally, we address various issues regarding manuscripts in general. It is advisable to work on a manuscript regularly to avoid losing familiarity with the article. On principle, simple, clear and effective language should be used throughout the text. In addition, a pre-peer review process is recommended to obtain feedback on the manuscript. The discussion section can be written in 3 parts: an introductory paragraph, intermediate paragraphs and a conclusion paragraph. For intermediate paragraphs, a “divide and conquer” approach, meaning a full paragraph describing each of the study endpoints, can be used. In conclusion, academic writing is similar to other skills, and practice makes perfect.

Introduction

Sharing knowledge produced during academic life is achieved through writing manuscripts. However writing manuscripts is a challenging endeavour in that we physicians have a heavy workload, and English which is common language used for the dissemination of scientific knowledge is not our mother tongue.

The objective of this review is to summarize the method of writing ‘Discussion’ section which is the most important, but probably at the same time the most unlikable part of a manuscript, and demonstrate the easy ways we applied in our practice, and finally share the frequently made relevant mistakes. During this procedure, inevitably some issues which concerns general concept of manuscript writing process are dealt with. Therefore in this review we will deal with topics related to the general aspects of manuscript writing process, and specifically issues concerning only the ‘Discussion’ section.

A) Approaches to general aspects of manuscript writing process:

1. what should be the strategy of sparing time for manuscript writing be.

Two different approaches can be formulated on this issue? One of them is to allocate at least 30 minutes a day for writing a manuscript which amounts to 3.5 hours a week. This period of time is adequate for completion of a manuscript within a few weeks which can be generally considered as a long time interval. Fundamental advantage of this approach is to gain a habit of making academic researches if one complies with the designated time schedule, and to keep the manuscript writing motivation at persistently high levels. Another approach concerning this issue is to accomplish manuscript writing process within a week. With the latter approach, the target is rapidly attained. However longer time periods spent in order to concentrate on the subject matter can be boring, and lead to loss of motivation. Daily working requirements unrelated to the manuscript writing might intervene, and prolong manuscript writing process. Alienation periods can cause loss of time because of need for recurrent literature reviews. The most optimal approach to manuscript writing process is daily writing strategy where higher levels of motivation are persistently maintained.

Especially before writing the manuscript, the most important step at the start is to construct a draft, and completion of the manuscript on a theoretical basis. Therefore, during construction of a draft, attention distracting environment should be avoided, and this step should be completed within 1–2 hours. On the other hand, manuscript writing process should begin before the completion of the study (even the during project stage). The justification of this approach is to see the missing aspects of the study and the manuscript writing methodology, and try to solve the relevant problems before completion of the study. Generally, after completion of the study, it is very difficult to solve the problems which might be discerned during the writing process. Herein, at least drafts of the ‘Introduction’, and ‘Material and Methods’ can be written, and even tables containing numerical data can be constructed. These tables can be written down in the ‘Results’ section. [ 1 ]

2. How should the manuscript be written?

The most important principle to be remembered on this issue is to obey the criteria of simplicity, clarity, and effectiveness. [ 2 ] Herein, do not forget that, the objective should be to share our findings with the readers in an easily comprehensible format. Our approach on this subject is to write all structured parts of the manuscript at the same time, and start writing the manuscript while reading the first literature. Thus newly arisen connotations, and self-brain gyms will be promptly written down. However during this process your outcomes should be revealed fully, and roughly the message of the manuscript which be delivered. Thus with this so-called ‘hunter’s approach’ the target can be achieved directly, and rapidly. Another approach is ‘collectioner’s approach. [ 3 ] In this approach, firstly, potential data, and literature studies are gathered, read, and then selected ones are used. Since this approach suits with surgical point of view, probably ‘hunter’s approach’ serves our purposes more appropriately. However, in parallel with academic development, our novice colleague ‘manuscripters’ can prefer ‘collectioner’s approach.’

On the other hand, we think that research team consisting of different age groups has some advantages. Indeed young colleagues have the enthusiasm, and energy required for the conduction of the study, while middle-aged researchers have the knowledge to manage the research, and manuscript writing. Experienced researchers make guiding contributions to the manuscript. However working together in harmony requires assignment of a chief researcher, and periodically organizing advancement meetings. Besides, talents, skills, and experiences of the researchers in different fields (ie. research methods, contact with patients, preparation of a project, fund-raising, statistical analysis etc.) will determine task sharing, and make a favourable contribution to the perfection of the manuscript. Achievement of the shared duties within a predetermined time frame will sustain the motivation of the researchers, and prevent wearing out of updated data.

According to our point of view, ‘Abstract’ section of the manuscript should be written after completion of the manuscript. The reason for this is that during writing process of the main text, the significant study outcomes might become insignificant or vice versa. However, generally, before onset of the writing process of the manuscript, its abstract might be already presented in various congresses. During writing process, this abstract might be a useful guide which prevents deviation from the main objective of the manuscript.

On the other hand references should be promptly put in place while writing the manuscript, Sorting, and placement of the references should not be left to the last moment. Indeed, it might be very difficult to remember relevant references to be placed in the ‘Discussion’ section. For the placement of references use of software programs detailed in other sections is a rational approach.

3. Which target journal should be selected?

In essence, the methodology to be followed in writing the ‘Discussion’ section is directly related to the selection of the target journal. Indeed, in compliance with the writing rules of the target journal, limitations made on the number of words after onset of the writing process, effects mostly the ‘Discussion’ section. Proper matching of the manuscript with the appropriate journal requires clear, and complete comprehension of the available data from scientific point of view. Previously, similar articles might have been published, however innovative messages, and new perspectives on the relevant subject will facilitate acceptance of the article for publication. Nowadays, articles questioning available information, rather than confirmatory ones attract attention. However during this process, classical information should not be questioned except for special circumstances. For example manuscripts which lead to the conclusions as “laparoscopic surgery is more painful than open surgery” or “laparoscopic surgery can be performed without prior training” will not be accepted or they will be returned by the editor of the target journal to the authors with the request of critical review. Besides the target journal to be selected should be ready to accept articles with similar concept. In fact editors of the journal will not reserve the limited space in their journal for articles yielding similar conclusions.

The title of the manuscript is as important as the structured sections * of the manuscript. The title can be the most striking or the newest outcome among results obtained.

Before writing down the manuscript, determination of 2–3 titles increases the motivation of the authors towards the manuscript. During writing process of the manuscript one of these can be selected based on the intensity of the discussion. However the suitability of the title to the agenda of the target journal should be investigated beforehand. For example an article bearing the title “Use of barbed sutures in laparoscopic partial nephrectomy shortens warm ischemia time” should not be sent to “Original Investigations and Seminars in Urologic Oncology” Indeed the topic of the manuscript is out of the agenda of this journal.

4. Do we have to get a pre-peer review about the written manuscript?

Before submission of the manuscript to the target journal the opinions of internal, and external referees should be taken. [ 1 ] Internal referees can be considered in 2 categories as “General internal referees” and “expert internal referees” General internal referees (ie. our colleagues from other medical disciplines) are not directly concerned with your subject matter but as mentioned above they critically review the manuscript as for simplicity, clarity, and effectiveness of its writing style. Expert internal reviewers have a profound knowledge about the subject, and they can provide guidance about the writing process of the manuscript (ie. our senior colleagues more experienced than us). External referees are our colleagues who did not contribute to data collection of our study in any way, but we can request their opinions about the subject matter of the manuscript. Since they are unrelated both to the author(s), and subject matter of the manuscript, these referees can review our manuscript more objectively. Before sending the manuscript to internal, and external referees, we should contact with them, and ask them if they have time to review our manuscript. We should also give information about our subject matter. Otherwise pre-peer review process can delay publication of the manuscript, and decrease motivation of the authors. In conclusion, whoever the preferred referee will be, these internal, and external referees should respond the following questions objectively. 1) Does the manuscript contribute to the literature?; 2) Does it persuasive? 3) Is it suitable for the publication in the selected journal? 4) Has a simple, clear, and effective language been used throughout the manuscript? In line with the opinions of the referees, the manuscript can be critically reviewed, and perfected. [ 1 ]**

Following receival of the opinions of internal, and external referees, one should concentrate priorly on indicated problems, and their solutions. Comments coming from the reviewers should be criticized, but a defensive attitude should not be assumed during this evaluation process. During this “incubation” period where the comments of the internal, and external referees are awaited, literature should be reviewed once more. Indeed during this time interval a new article which you should consider in the ‘Discussion’ section can be cited in the literature.

5. What are the common mistakes made related to the writing process of a manuscript?

Probably the most important mistakes made related to the writing process of a manuscript include lack of a clear message of the manuscript , inclusion of more than one main idea in the same text or provision of numerous unrelated results at the same time so as to reinforce the assertions of the manuscript. This approach can be termed roughly as “loss of the focus of the study” In conclusion, the author(s) should ask themselves the following question at every stage of the writing process:. “What is the objective of the study? If you always get clear-cut answers whenever you ask this question, then the study is proceeding towards the right direction. Besides application of a template which contains the intended clear-cut messages to be followed will contribute to the communication of net messages.

One of the important mistakes is refraining from critical review of the manuscript as a whole after completion of the writing process. Therefore, the authors should go over the manuscript for at least three times after finalization of the manuscript based on joint decision. The first control should concentrate on the evaluation of the appropriateness of the logic of the manuscript, and its organization, and whether desired messages have been delivered or not. Secondly, syutax, and grammar of the manuscript should be controlled. It is appropriate to review the manuscript for the third time 1 or 2 weeks after completion of its writing process. Thus, evaluation of the “cooled” manuscript will be made from a more objective perspective, and assessment process of its integrity will be facilitated.

Other erroneous issues consist of superfluousness of the manuscript with unnecessary repetitions, undue, and recurrent references to the problems adressed in the manuscript or their solution methods, overcriticizing or overpraising other studies, and use of a pompous literary language overlooking the main objective of sharing information. [ 4 ]

B) Approaches to the writing process of the ‘Discussion’ section:

1. how should the main points of ‘discussion’ section be constructed.

Generally the length of the ‘Discussion ‘ section should not exceed the sum of other sections (ıntroduction, material and methods, and results), and it should be completed within 6–7 paragraphs.. Each paragraph should not contain more than 200 words, and hence words should be counted repeteadly. The ‘Discussion’ section can be generally divided into 3 separate paragraphs as. 1) Introductory paragraph, 2) Intermediate paragraphs, 3) Concluding paragraph.

The introductory paragraph contains the main idea of performing the study in question. Without repeating ‘Introduction’ section of the manuscript, the problem to be addressed, and its updateness are analysed. The introductory paragraph starts with an undebatable sentence, and proceeds with a part addressing the following questions as 1) On what issue we have to concentrate, discuss or elaborate? 2) What solutions can be recommended to solve this problem? 3) What will be the new, different, and innovative issue? 4) How will our study contribute to the solution of this problem An introductory paragraph in this format is helpful to accomodate reader to the rest of the Discussion section. However summarizing the basic findings of the experimental studies in the first paragraph is generally recommended by the editors of the journal. [ 5 ]

In the last paragraph of the Discussion section “strong points” of the study should be mentioned using “constrained”, and “not too strongly assertive” statements. Indicating limitations of the study will reflect objectivity of the authors, and provide answers to the questions which will be directed by the reviewers of the journal. On the other hand in the last paragraph, future directions or potential clinical applications may be emphasized.

2. How should the intermediate paragraphs of the Discussion section be formulated?

The reader passes through a test of boredom while reading paragraphs of the Discussion section apart from the introductory, and the last paragraphs. Herein your findings rather than those of the other researchers are discussed. The previous studies can be an explanation or reinforcement of your findings. Each paragraph should contain opinions in favour or against the topic discussed, critical evaluations, and learning points.

Our management approach for intermediate paragraphs is “divide and conquer” tactics. Accordingly, the findings of the study are determined in order of their importance, and a paragraph is constructed for each finding ( Figure 1 ). Each paragraph begins with an “indisputable” introductory sentence about the topic to be discussed. This sentence basically can be the answer to the question “What have we found?” Then a sentence associated with the subject matter to be discussed is written. Subsequently, in the light of the current literature this finding is discussed, new ideas on this subject are revealed, and the paragraph ends with a concluding remark.

Divide and Conquer tactics

In this paragraph, main topic should be emphasized without going into much detail. Its place, and importance among other studies should be indicated. However during this procedure studies should be presented in a logical sequence (ie. from past to present, from a few to many cases), and aspects of the study contradictory to other studies should be underlined. Results without any supportive evidence or equivocal results should not be written. Besides numerical values presented in the Results section should not be repeated unless required.

Besides, asking the following questions, and searching their answers in the same paragraph will facilitate writing process of the paragraph. [ 1 ] 1) Can the discussed result be false or inadequate? 2) Why is it false? (inadequate blinding, protocol contamination, lost to follow-up, lower statistical power of the study etc.), 3) What meaning does this outcome convey?

3. What are the common mistakes made in writing the Discussion section?:

Probably the most important mistake made while writing the Discussion section is the need for mentioning all literature references. One point to remember is that we are not writing a review article, and only the results related to this paragraph should be discussed. Meanwhile, each word of the paragraphs should be counted, and placed carefully. Each word whose removal will not change the meaning should be taken out from the text.” Writing a saga with “word salads” *** is one of the reasons for prompt rejection. Indeed, if the reviewer thinks that it is difficult to correct the Discussion section, he/she use her/ his vote in the direction of rejection to save time (Uniform requirements for manuscripts: International Comittee of Medical Journal Editors [ http://www.icmje.org/urm_full.pdf ])

The other important mistake is to give too much references, and irrelevancy between the references, and the section with these cited references. [ 3 ] While referring these studies, (excl. introductory sentences linking indisputable sentences or paragraphs) original articles should be cited. Abstracts should not be referred, and review articles should not be cited unless required very much.

4. What points should be paid attention about writing rules, and grammar?

As is the case with the whole article, text of the Discussion section should be written with a simple language, as if we are talking with our colleague. [ 2 ] Each sentence should indicate a single point, and it should not exceed 25–30 words. The priorly mentioned information which linked the previous sentence should be placed at the beginning of the sentence, while the new information should be located at the end of the sentence. During construction of the sentences, avoid unnecessary words, and active voice rather than passive voice should be used.**** Since conventionally passive voice is used in the scientific manuscripts written in the Turkish language, the above statement contradicts our writing habits. However, one should not refrain from beginning the sentences with the word “we”. Indeed, editors of the journal recommend use of active voice so as to increase the intelligibility of the manuscript.

In conclusion, the major point to remember is that the manuscript should be written complying with principles of simplicity, clarity, and effectiveness. In the light of these principles, as is the case in our daily practice, all components of the manuscript (IMRAD) can be written concurrently. In the ‘Discussion’ section ‘divide and conquer’ tactics remarkably facilitates writing process of the discussion. On the other hand, relevant or irrelevant feedbacks received from our colleagues can contribute to the perfection of the manuscript. Do not forget that none of the manuscripts is perfect, and one should not refrain from writing because of language problems, and related lack of experience.

Instead of structured sections of a manuscript (IMRAD): Introduction, Material and Methods, Results, and Discussion

Instead of in the Istanbul University Faculty of Medicine posters to be submitted in congresses are time to time discussed in Wednesday meetings, and opinions of the internal referees are obtained about the weak, and strong points of the study

Instead of a writing style which uses words or sentences with a weak logical meaning that do not lead the reader to any conclusion

Instead of “white color”; “proven”; nstead of “history”; “to”. should be used instead of “white in color”, “definitely proven”, “past history”, and “in order to”, respectively ( ref. 2 )

Instead of “No instances of either postoperative death or major complications occurred during the early post-operative period” use “There were no deaths or major complications occurred during the early post-operative period.

Instead of “Measurements were performed to evaluate the levels of CEA in the serum” use “We measured serum CEA levels”

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General Research Paper Guidelines: Discussion

Discussion section.

The overall purpose of a research paper’s discussion section is to evaluate and interpret results, while explaining both the implications and limitations of your findings. Per APA (2020) guidelines, this section requires you to “examine, interpret, and qualify the results and draw inferences and conclusions from them” (p. 89). Discussion sections also require you to detail any new insights, think through areas for future research, highlight the work that still needs to be done to further your topic, and provide a clear conclusion to your research paper. In a good discussion section, you should do the following:

• Clearly connect the discussion of your results to your introduction, including your central argument, thesis, or problem statement.
• Provide readers with a critical thinking through of your results, answering the “so what?” question about each of your findings. In other words, why is this finding important?
• Detail how your research findings might address critical gaps or problems in your field
• Compare your results to similar studies’ findings
• Provide the possibility of alternative interpretations, as your goal as a researcher is to “discover” and “examine” and not to “prove” or “disprove.” Instead of trying to fit your results into your hypothesis, critically engage with alternative interpretations to your results.

For more specific details on your Discussion section, be sure to review Sections 3.8 (pp. 89-90) and 3.16 (pp. 103-104) of your 7 th edition APA manual

*Box content adapted from:

University of Southern California (n.d.). Organizing your social sciences research paper: 8 the discussion . https://libguides.usc.edu/writingguide/discussion

Limitations

Limitations of generalizability or utility of findings, often over which the researcher has no control, should be detailed in your Discussion section. Including limitations for your reader allows you to demonstrate you have thought critically about your given topic, understood relevant literature addressing your topic, and chosen the methodology most appropriate for your research. It also allows you an opportunity to suggest avenues for future research on your topic. An effective limitations section will include the following:

• Detail (a) sources of potential bias, (b) possible imprecision of measures, (c) other limitations or weaknesses of the study, including any methodological or researcher limitations.
• Sample size: In quantitative research, if a sample size is too small, it is more difficult to generalize results.
• Lack of available/reliable data : In some cases, data might not be available or reliable, which will ultimately affect the overall scope of your research. Use this as an opportunity to explain areas for future study.
• Lack of prior research on your study topic: In some cases, you might find that there is very little or no similar research on your study topic, which hinders the credibility and scope of your own research. If this is the case, use this limitation as an opportunity to call for future research. However, make sure you have done a thorough search of the available literature before making this claim.
• Flaws in measurement of data: Hindsight is 20/20, and you might realize after you have completed your research that the data tool you used actually limited the scope or results of your study in some way. Again, acknowledge the weakness and use it as an opportunity to highlight areas for future study.
• Limits of self-reported data: In your research, you are assuming that any participants will be honest and forthcoming with responses or information they provide to you. Simply acknowledging this assumption as a possible limitation is important in your research.
• Access: Most research requires that you have access to people, documents, organizations, etc.. However, for various reasons, access is sometimes limited or denied altogether. If this is the case, you will want to acknowledge access as a limitation to your research.
• Time: Choosing a research focus that is narrow enough in scope to finish in a given time period is important. If such limitations of time prevent you from certain forms of research, access, or study designs, acknowledging this time restraint is important. Acknowledging such limitations is important, as they can point other researchers to areas that require future study.
• Potential Bias: All researchers have some biases, so when reading and revising your draft, pay special attention to the possibilities for bias in your own work. Such bias could be in the form you organized people, places, participants, or events. They might also exist in the method you selected or the interpretation of your results. Acknowledging such bias is an important part of the research process.
• Language Fluency: On occasion, researchers or research participants might have language fluency issues, which could potentially hinder results or how effectively you interpret results. If this is an issue in your research, make sure to acknowledge it in your limitations section.

University of Southern California (n.d.). Organizing your social sciences research paper: Limitations of the study . https://libguides.usc.edu/writingguide/limitations

In many research papers, the conclusion, like the limitations section, is folded into the larger discussion section. If you are unsure whether to include the conclusion as part of your discussion or as a separate section, be sure to defer to the assignment instructions or ask your instructor.

The conclusion is important, as it is specifically designed to highlight your research’s larger importance outside of the specific results of your study. Your conclusion section allows you to reiterate the main findings of your study, highlight their importance, and point out areas for future research. Based on the scope of your paper, your conclusion could be anywhere from one to three paragraphs long. An effective conclusion section should include the following:

• Describe the possibilities for continued research on your topic, including what might be improved, adapted, or added to ensure useful and informed future research.
• Provide a detailed account of the importance of your findings
• Reiterate why your problem is important, detail how your interpretation of results impacts the subfield of study, and what larger issues both within and outside of your field might be affected from such results

University of Southern California (n.d.). Organizing your social sciences research paper: 9. the conclusion . https://libguides.usc.edu/writingguide/conclusion

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How do I write the discussion section?

Some time ago, on the advice of my good friend and efficiency guru Jason Downs , I read The 80/20 principle: how to achieve more by doing less by Richard Koch.

To be fair, Jason did tell me, in the spirit of efficiency, that I didn’t really need to read  the book. The main message, he said, was in the title – and he was right. Koch claims that 80% of value comes from 20% of the work effort. The trick to an efficient work life, Richard Koch contends, is to identify ‘high value’ work and just do that as much as possible. High value work for me is writing and talking to people; low value work is email. As with most self help books, I finished it and did nothing different.

Then, late last year, my friend Jonathon, one half of the fantastic Research Whisperer team , sent me a spreadsheet analysis of all their blog search terms. His analysis  showed lots of people were looking for  how to make a simple Gantt Chart. Jonathan’s excellent analysis left me wondering: what do readers think is ‘high value work Thesis Whisperer work’ based on their search behaviour?

I immediately dropped everything to repeat the method on Thesis Whisperer, using 10 years of search data from well over 9 million visits. Here’s what I found out:

• Thesis Whisperer has great brand recognition: around 50% of people find their way here through typing variations of the name of the blog (far less people come here by typing in my actual name, Inger Mewburn).
• As I expected, the next most popular search type was writing problems, in various manifestations.
• Third most common search term was ‘How to look clever’, which is both funny and sad. I’m guessing this leads people to this old post  here,  which is a personal favourite

I drilled down a bit to try and find out: what exactly is troubling people about writing? I thought I would find concerns about productivity, feedback, literature reviews, style and voice, perhaps grammar, but it wasn’t: 75% of the thousands of writing related searches were questions and anxieties about the discussion section.  I’ve only written about the discussion section twice in 10 years. That’s not 20% of the effort producing 80% of the reward – It’s more like 0.003% of the effort!

I’ve been teaching writing for over 15 years and reviewed lots of development programs at other universities. I see very few workshops that focus on the discussion section as a separate piece of writing. I guess we assume that supervisors are helping out, but my search data suggests maybe not. I get the anxiety, I really do. The discussion section of the thesis is the heart of the creative endeavour: it’s where you have to be MOST original. Even if you don’t have a section in your thesis called ‘discussion’ (I didn’t) there will still be places in your thesis where you must explicitly make new knowledge in relation to the data you have collected and your analysis.

I reviewed the two posts to see what else I might have to say.  In How do I start my discussion section I offer a description of what the discussion section should contain, how to decide if you need one or not and a grab bag of tactics to go about getting started – each one of which should probably have its own blog post. In The difficult discussion section I describe the section as the ‘problem child’ of the thesis. In that post, I try to walk people through a step by step process for making sense of the mess of writing, findings and analysis that you can end up with towards the end of your degree.

But what should actually go in the discussion section and how should you write it?

I’m indebted to my colleague Josta Heylingers for pointing me at the literature on functional linguistics. Josta uses this literature to teach people how to write discussion chapters at Auckland University of Technology. To do this, she uses the work of  John Swales , and his method of ‘move step analysis’. I touched on this method in my own PhD, and of my PhD students is using move step analysis in her work, so I’ve had to become passingly familiar with the method.

Swales starts by assuming that  texts are social things : every reader has been ‘trained’ on what to expect from different kinds of texts. Job applications ‘sound’ different from grant applications, which sound different than a journal article. So readers are familiar with the linguistic ‘moves’ to expect. These linguistic moves are sort of like dance steps that build together to make a socially recognisable text.

Swales’ move step analysis is a way of breaking down the text dance so you can understand which bits go where and how to put them together in an accomplished performance. Think of any  dance craze  you can name. When I was a teenager, in the 1980s (!) it was ‘ The Nutbush ‘; by the 1990s it was The Macarena . In case you weren’t there, or don’t remember, here’s a helpful video. It’s worth watching, because it’s delightful, and a good way to understand what move step analysis is:

In the video, Jean Eu broke down the Macerana series of steps with the hands, arms and hips, that are put together to form moves. The moves must appear in the right order or sequence to become a dance. If you start with your hands down to your hips instead of out in front of you, you ARE dancing, but it’s NOT the Macarena. People watching you, expecting to see the Macarena, will be confused. If you do the right moves, but not in time with the music, it’s still the Macarena, but anyone watching you will think that you are a bad dancer.

So it is with the Macarena as it is with writing the discussion section of your thesis: use the right steps, build them into a move and do the moves in the right sequence and you will write a ‘socially correct’ text. If you do a socially correct text, the knowledge you are putting forward for consideration can be easily assessed by the reader, because they are not distracted by the bad performance. The steps also give you a formula you can use to give your thoughts about your research findings a shape and form.

So, what does the discussion section dance look like? Let’s start with the big picture. In ‘ The textural organisation of the discussion sections of accounting research articles’, Amnuai says:

“The discussion section is where authors place their ideas about their research findings and consolidate, generalize, and interpret their research outcomes for the benefit of those in their field or for other communities”

Each discipline is different. It’s important to base your moves on what is socially acceptable for your community,  but here is a simple list of basic moves that every discussion section needs to have:

• Restate Results (don’t repeat them!)
• Comment on the results
• Evaluate the Results
• Make suggestions based on the results

The helpful Manchester Academic Phrase Bank ‘discussing the findings’ section , gives you some sentences that you can use as the ‘steps’ for each move. Try some of these sentence starters to get you going:

Restate Results: “The current study found that …” “The results of this study show/indicate that …” “The results of this study did not show that …/did not show any significant increase in …”

Comment on the results: “These results further support the idea of … “These results confirm the association between … “These findings are consistent with  …” “These match/don’t match those observed in earlier studies…” “These results are in line with those of previous studies…” “These findings are in agreement with those obtained by …”

Evaluate the Results: “There are several possible explanations for this result…” “It seems possible that these results are due to …” “The reason for this is not clear but it may have something to do with…” “These data must be interpreted with caution because …” “The present results are significant in at least two major respects.”

Suggestions “There are still many unanswered questions about …” “There is abundant room for further progress in determining.” “Despite these promising results, questions remain.”

Don’t just confine yourself to these sentences though, go and visit the Manchester Academic Phrase Bank where there are hundreds of sentence starters for all parts of the thesis.

Another way to get started is to take a leaf out of Pat Thomson and Barbara Kamler’s book ‘Helping doctoral students write’ by ‘stripping down’ a paragraph from a writer you admire and using it, almost like a garden trellis, to ‘train’ your own text in the right direction. Here’s the first paragraph from a paper in my library by Wajcman  and Rose (2011) Constant Connectivity: Rethinking Interruptions at Work.  This paragraph is clearly part of the ‘summarising the results’ move:

The picture that emerges from the analysis above is one of work practices being reshaped as employees negotiate the constant connectivity intrinsic to contemporary knowledge work. We have established a link between mediated communication and short, fragmented work episodes. What is striking is that the predominant mode of communication during the workday is now tech- nologically mediated rather than face-to-face. However, each communication episode tends to be of a short duration – on average a period of five minutes or less.

Kamler and Thomson suggest you strip out the content. I like using the ‘strike through’ setting on my word processor, like so:

The picture that emerges from the analysis above is one of work practices being reshaped as employees negotiate the constant connectivity intrinsic to contemporary knowledge work . We have established a link between mediated communication and short, fragmented work episodes . What is striking is that the predominant mode of communication during the workday is now tech- nologically mediated rather than face-to-face . However, each communication episode tends to be of a short duration – on average a period of five minutes or less.

You can now insert your own findings in to this cleared out structure. This technique works best if you treat the original framework roughly, so that you produce something almost entirely new. Here’s the reworked paragraph using some concepts I am playing with in my latest work (although I haven’t actually proved any of this, so don’t quote me!):

The picture that emerges from the analysis above is one of many missed opportunities, which seems  intrinsic to the post PhD job search. We have established a link between previous experience of specific work environments and success in job seeking. What is striking is that the strength of this connection is how little the graduates paid attention to the need to articulate their previous industry experience. Each Graduate  tends to be living in a state of what Lovitts calls ‘pluralistic ignorance’.

You might be wondering: is this plagiarism? No because you are not using the original knowledge or ideas, just the structure. You can write a whole discussion section like this if you like, but you would need to find a study with very similar findings. My hunch is that you could have to hijack paragraphs from different texts and stitch them together like a patchwork quilt.

Once you get your head around the idea that there are the ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ kind of textural moves in every kind of academic writing, you have an amazingly powerful writing device that you can deploy on any section of your thesis.

There is so much more to say about the discussion section – I’ll try to get to it again this year. Your question will help me decide what to focus on, so please feel free to leave them in the comments. I’m also interested in your feelings about the discussion section and how you’ve approached constructing them in the past – do you have any suggestions for others?

Related posts

How do I start my discussion section

The difficult discussion section

The textural organisation of the discussion sections of accounting research articles 

Analysis of moves, rhetorical patterns and linguistic features in New Scientist articles

Constant Connectivity: Rethinking Interruptions at Work.

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How To Write A Discussion For A Thesis: An A To Z Guide

Unlock the art of presenting and analyzing research findings to elevate your work and learn how to write a discussion for a thesis.

When writing the discussion section of a thesis, it is crucial to have a clear understanding of its purpose and function. The discussion section of a thesis serves to analyze and interpret the results obtained from the research conducted. This section provides an opportunity for researchers to critically evaluate and discuss the implications of their findings about the research question or objective. But the question is, “How to write a discussion for a thesis?”. We are here to help! Let us give you some important tips to write an effective discussion section. 

Brainstorm Ideas Beforehand

When writing a thesis, brainstorming ideas beforehand is essential to ensure that the discussion of one’s research yields successful and insightful results. Creating an organized list or mind map prior to beginning will help in guiding the scope and vision of your paper. Consider factors specific to the topic you are studying such as relevant role players, literature review sources, potential methods used, etc., while jotting down notes. Afterward, look at it again with fresh eyes and expand on some points further if needed before moving on to outlining key concepts. Make sure that each section is emphasized so they can be highlighted throughout your work easily without losing focus from its purpose statement.

Talking to a friend over a coffee makes a lot of difference. You can also use Mind the Graph (with all new features) to explain to your friend what you are going to include in the discussion. You can take the help of platforms like Miroboard to develop your content and discuss it with your mentors and friends. 

Organize Information Logically

As a follow-up question to “How to write a discussion for a thesis?” is “What all needs to be added to the discussion?”, Once all tangible material around the subject matter has been taken into consideration, arrange them in a way that flow of the information is not disturbed.  Organize them into headings covering general background information followed by subsections exploring every idea more completely. Add arguments made against particular premise topics that support conclusion development towards harmony within the final. Such a draft makes it an effortless grade-worthy assessment obtainable through thoroughness. As expectations change across different faculties when format composition many students find benefit in taking breaks between drafts. It allows the emergence of something new as compared to what was already crafted. Give yourself time to re-read the draft a couple of times before you proceed with submission.

Background And Overview Of The Study

This section provides an opportunity to analyze the findings in the context of existing literature and theoretical frameworks. A researcher should try to engage readers by giving complete details of what their results are indicating. When obtained results are reviewed carefully it surely leads to the emergence of observations. The purpose of the Discussion section in a thesis is to provide a critical analysis and interpretation of the research findings in relation to the research question or objective. This allows researchers to draw meaningful conclusions, identify limitations of the study, propose recommendations for future research, and provide practical implications for the field of study.

Addressing Previous Studies

The discussion section serves as a platform for researchers to engage in a scholarly dialogue by comparing and contrasting their findings with existing literature and theories. Addressing previous studies in the discussion section of a thesis is critical to building a strong argument. This requires one to carefully review the previous literature, draw connections between it, and critically analyze them to provide meaningful new insights into the current research problem at hand.

Be sure you have all information collected from prior studies available for reference while brainstorming so that any potential relation may come more easily – such as if there are specific theories mentioned throughout different papers used in comparison or supporting evidence found within works by other authors relevant to your own investigation’s results.  Additionally, considering how knowledge presented relates both theoretically and practically will help connect pieces together and potentially lead down pathways which had not been explored before then. This type of critical thinking paired with close evaluation is essential for creating a thorough discussion on pertinent topics regarding your thesis subject matter.

After forming relationships related directly back to what was done previously, formulating personal opinions based on those conclusions (but still accurately representing facts) comes second allowing writers room to express themselves without going beyond professional boundaries

Discussing Unanswered Questions

An effective discussion of a research thesis should also explore unanswered questions from the research. This is important as it helps to further develop knowledge and identify potential areas for further analysis, which could be taken on by another researcher or yourself in the future.

Furthermore, it creates an awareness among researchers focusing their attention on certain aspects so they may benefit from other’s inquiries channeling them towards valid solutions giving innovators new ideas drawing inspiration

AnalyZing Limitations Of The Current Study

By highlighting any limitations that were encountered during your investigation, you can show readers what opportunities exist moving forward with this topic more thoroughly than has been done before you. Through discussing these limitations and unresolved questions clear paths are open to take when continuing work on these topics later down the line potentially leading to additional findings through different methods. 

Referencing Sources Correctly

Referencing all the sources correctly in the thesis gives the reader a chance to refer to cross reference if needed. It is important to reference all the sources in order to give credit where it’s due. Referencing also helps readers understand the research process and its development, as well as how various works are related or connected.

Moreover, referencing allows researchers to be transparent about their work by providing evidence for any claims made throughout a thesis paper. This transparency makes your arguments more reliable and trustworthy since you can back up every statement that has been written down through proper references from credible academic journals or books. In addition, it will also provide the reader with a better understanding of your paper by allowing them to explore further into the topics you have discussed in more detail and gain deeper insight into these matters. 

Referencing is important when writing a thesis because it provides evidence that supports or backs up any claims made throughout its content; this helps strengthen arguments presented within the text while demonstrating thorough research has been conducted prior to producing such work. It should be noted that referencing allows readers to access primary sources for themselves which adds credibility and validity to one’s argumentation due to having direct

E.g: Referencing styles by Oxford Academics 

Writing Style Guidelines

Several journals and publication houses would have their format-related guidelines for the article writing. To be able to publish the research it is required to follow their guideline. Academic Universities also follow the latex-based format for thesis, it would be helpful to download the guide and write the section accordingly. 

Writing style guidelines help make sure that all parts of your dissertation or thesis look unified and consistent throughout its entirety. It mainly deals with the formatting part such as page margins, font size, and type, which makes sure that every chapter looks similar in terms of presentation even though their content may vary from each other drastically due to the different topics discussed therein.

Use MTG To Explain Your Results In The Discussion Section!

Mind the Graph platform is built to help your research at each stage. Be it abstract formation or result explanation. We are here to make your task easy. With all new graph preparation tools and loads of icons, we bring you new heights to your discussion writing. The platform is equipped to help you incorporate bar graphs, pie charts, and line graphs. The most attractive discussion section is just a click away. For more details Sign Up for free and enjoy browsing through our free templates to help you communicate your observations better.

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How to Write Your Thesis Discussion Section

The discussion section is the most critical aspect of your thesis. It is written after presenting your data in the results section. This article explains how to structure your thesis discussion section and what content is required.

What is the thesis discussion section?

The thesis discussion includes explanations and interpretations of your results in the context of your thesis question and  literature review , discusses their implications, acknowledges their limitations, and gives recommendations. In doing so, you make an argument to support your conclusion .

What should the thesis discussion section include?

• A summary of your key findings

This analysis does not support the theory that…

• The answer to your thesis question

These findings confirm our hypothesis that…

• An interpretation of your findings

Our findings agree with the theory proposed by Jones (2019)…

• The implications of your findings

The data provide new evidence of…

• The limitations of your findings (i.e., what can’t the results tell us)

This study only included individuals living in urban areas, and the results may not be generalizable to populations in rural areas…

• Suggestions of practical applications of your findings

X should be taken into consideration when…

• Recommendations for further scientific investigations

Further studies are necessary to…

What should the thesis discussion section not include?

• A restatement of all your results
• The introduction of new results . All results in the discussion section must have been presented in the results section.
• Speculations that can’t be supported by your data
• Results that do not directly relate to your thesis question or hypothesis
• Tables and figures (these are usually included in the results section)

How does the discussion overlap with other thesis sections?

The content in the thesis discussion section overlaps with the results section — the results section presents the data, and the discussion section interprets it. The structure of the discussion section differs according to the type of research ( quantitative vs. qualitative ). In qualitative research, such as in the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) domain, the discussion and results from sections are often combined. In thesis studies involving quantitative research, such as in the Sciences domain, these sections are usually written separately.

The content in the thesis discussion section also overlaps with the conclusion section — the discussion section presents a detailed analysis and interpretation of the data, and the conclusion section summarizes the main findings of the discussion. The discussion and conclusion sections may also be combined into a single section in some fields of study. If you are unsure of which structure to use, ask your supervisor for guidance and check the requirements of your academic institution.

How to write a thesis discussion

The discussion section of a thesis starts with an interpretation of the results and then places the findings in the general context of the field of study.

The discussion section is the most critical section of your thesis and will probably be the hardest to write. The discussion section of a thesis starts with an interpretation of the results and then places the findings in the general context of the field of study. This section also demonstrates your ability to think critically and develop innovative solutions to problems based on your findings, resulting in a deeper understanding of the research problem.

Because it can be daunting to write the thesis discussion section in one go, first prepare a draft according to the following steps:

• Prepare an outline that broadly states your argument and how your results support it.
• Strengthen your argument by mapping out how your results fit into the outline.
• Place unexpected or controversial results in context and describe what may have caused them.
• Go back to your literature review to identify any studies that you might want to delve into in greater detail given the findings of your study.
• Identify study limitations.
• Briefly summarize the importance and implications of your findings.
• Recommend any practical applications of your study findings.
• Suggest future work that could build on your findings or address study limitations.

Once you are happy with your draft, it’s time to finalize the thesis discussion section. Use the steps below as a guideline:

• First, restate your thesis question and hypothesis that were stated in the introduction.
• Then, use your findings to support the answer to your thesis question.
• Defend your answers by discussing other studies with correlating results.
• Explain how your findings consistently fit in with the current literature and mention how they address knowledge gaps in the field.
• Mention studies that conflict with your findings, and try to explain possible causes of these contradictions (e.g., population size, inclusion and excision criteria, differences in data collection and analysis methods).
• Address any unexpected findings. Describe what happened and then discuss the potential causes (e.g., a skewed response rate, sampling bias, or changes in the equipment used). Because they could have been caused by a flawed sampling method or an incorrect choice of methodology, carefully check that you have adequately justified your methodological approach. In extreme cases, you may need to restructure your hypothesis or rewrite your introduction.
• Research studies are expected to have limitations and weaknesses. Mention all of them and how they may have impacted the interpretation and validity of your findings. Some limitations could highlight areas that require further study.
• Summarize the practical applications and theoretical implications of your findings.
• Recommend potential areas for future research.

How do I interpret my results?

The thesis discussion section must concisely interpret the results and assign importance to them. This is achieved by:

• Identifying relationships, patterns, and correlations in the data
• Discussing whether the findings support your hypothesis
• Considering alternative explanations while also justifying your chosen explanation
• Emphasizing novel results and explaining how they fill knowledge gaps
• Explaining unexpected results and determining their significance

How do I discuss the implications of my results?

The discussion section of your thesis explains how your findings fit in with and contribute to the existing literature. This refers back to the literature review section of your thesis. The following questions should be addressed:

• Are your findings supported by other studies, and do they add to the body of knowledge or address a gap?
• Do your findings disagree with other studies? If so, determine or suggest the reason(s) why.
• Do your findings challenge or support existing theories?
• What are the practical implications of your findings?

How do I acknowledge the limitations of my study?

It is expected that all studies will have limitations. When discussing your study limitations, don’t undermine your findings . A good discussion of the limitations will strengthen your study’s credibility.

Examples of study limitations: sample size, differences in methods used for data collection or analysis, study type (e.g., retrospective vs. prospective), inclusion/exclusion criteria of the study population, effects of confounders, researcher bias, and robustness of the data collection method.

How do I make recommendations for future research?

Recommendations should either be included in the discussion or the conclusion section of your thesis, but not in both. This could include:

• Addressing questions related to your study that remain unanswered
• Suggesting a logical progression of your research study using concrete ideas
• Suggesting future work based on the study limitations you have identified

Example: Future studies using a larger sample size from multiple sites are recommended to confirm the generalizability of our findings. Example: We suggest that the participants are re-interviewed after 5 years to determine how their perception of this traumatic experience has changed.

Tips for writing the thesis discussion section

• Use subheadings to break down the discussion into smaller sections that identify key points.
• Maintain consistency with the introduction  and  literature review sections. Use the same point of view, tone, and terminology.
• Be concise .
• Be logical. Present the discussion in the same sequence as the results unless there is an unexpected or novel finding that should be emphasized first.
• Do not use jargon, and define all technical terms and abbreviations/acronyms.
• Cite all sources. The majority of references cited in the thesis discussion section should be recent (i.e., published within the past 10 years).
• Avoid plagiarism .

A thesis is the most crucial document that you will write during your academic studies. For professional thesis editing and thesis proofreading services , visit Enago Thesis Editing for more information.

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Review Checklist

Are your  key findings summarized in the thesis discussion section?

Have you  interpreted your findings in the context of your thesis question?

Have you shown how your findings fit in by  discussing differences and similarities with current literature as well as any gaps in the literature that your findings address?

Have you  explained the significance of your findings?

Have you  contemplated alternative explanations for your findings?

Have you  explained the practical and/or theoretical implications of your findings?

Have you identified and  evaluated the limitations of your study?

Have you  recommended practical actions or areas that require further studies based on your findings?

What tense is used to write the thesis discussion section? +

Use the present tense when referring to established facts. Use the past tense when referring to previous studies.

What is the difference between the discussion and conclusion sections of a thesis? +

The  discussion section is a detailed analysis and interpretation of the study results that place them in context with the associated literature. The  conclusion section is much shorter than the discussion section. It mentions the main points of the discussion section, tells the reader why your research is important, and makes recommendations based on your study findings.

What is the difference between the results and discussion sections of a thesis? +

The results section objectively reports the study findings without speculation. The discussion section interprets the findings, puts them into context, and assigns importance to them.

How Do I Write the Discussion Chapter?

Reflecting on and Comparing Your Data, Recognising the Strengths and Limitations

• First Online: 19 October 2023

Cite this chapter

• Sue Reeves   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-3017-0559 3 &
• Bartek Buczkowski   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-4146-3664 4  

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The Discussion chapter brings an opportunity to write an academic argument that contains a detailed critical evaluation and analysis of your research findings. This chapter addresses the purpose and critical nature of the discussion, contains a guide to selecting key results to discuss, and details how best to structure the discussion with subsections and paragraphs. We also present a list of points to do and avoid when writing the discussion together with a Discussion chapter checklist.

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Braun V, Clarke V (2013) Successful qualitative research: a practical guide for beginners. SAGE Publications, London

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McGregor SLT (2018) Understanding and evaluating research: a critical guide. SAGE Publications, Los Angeles, CA

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PLOS (2023) Author resources. How to write discussions and conclusions. Accessed Mar 3, 2023, from https://plos.org/resource/how-to-write-conclusions/ . Accessed 3 Mar 2023

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Cottrell S (2017) Critical thinking skills: effective analysis, argument and reflection, 3rd edn. Palgrave, London

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Bartek Buczkowski

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Reeves, S., Buczkowski, B. (2023). How Do I Write the Discussion Chapter?. In: Mastering Your Dissertation. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41911-9_9

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How to Write a Discussion Section for a Research Paper

We’ve talked about several useful writing tips that authors should consider while drafting or editing their research papers. In particular, we’ve focused on  figures and legends , as well as the Introduction ,  Methods , and  Results . Now that we’ve addressed the more technical portions of your journal manuscript, let’s turn to the analytical segments of your research article. In this article, we’ll provide tips on how to write a strong Discussion section that best portrays the significance of your research contributions.

What is the Discussion section of a research paper?

In a nutshell,  your Discussion fulfills the promise you made to readers in your Introduction . At the beginning of your paper, you tell us why we should care about your research. You then guide us through a series of intricate images and graphs that capture all the relevant data you collected during your research. We may be dazzled and impressed at first, but none of that matters if you deliver an anti-climactic conclusion in the Discussion section!

Are you feeling pressured? Don’t worry. To be honest, you will edit the Discussion section of your manuscript numerous times. After all, in as little as one to two paragraphs ( Nature ‘s suggestion  based on their 3,000-word main body text limit), you have to explain how your research moves us from point A (issues you raise in the Introduction) to point B (our new understanding of these matters). You must also recommend how we might get to point C (i.e., identify what you think is the next direction for research in this field). That’s a lot to say in two paragraphs!

So, how do you do that? Let’s take a closer look.

What should I include in the Discussion section?

As we stated above, the goal of your Discussion section is to  answer the questions you raise in your Introduction by using the results you collected during your research . The content you include in the Discussions segment should include the following information:

• Remind us why we should be interested in this research project.
• Describe the nature of the knowledge gap you were trying to fill using the results of your study.
• Don’t repeat your Introduction. Instead, focus on why  this  particular study was needed to fill the gap you noticed and why that gap needed filling in the first place.
• Mainly, you want to remind us of how your research will increase our knowledge base and inspire others to conduct further research.
• Clearly tell us what that piece of missing knowledge was.
• Answer each of the questions you asked in your Introduction and explain how your results support those conclusions.
• Make sure to factor in all results relevant to the questions (even if those results were not statistically significant).
• Focus on the significance of the most noteworthy results.
• If conflicting inferences can be drawn from your results, evaluate the merits of all of them.
• Don’t rehash what you said earlier in the Results section. Rather, discuss your findings in the context of answering your hypothesis. Instead of making statements like “[The first result] was this…,” say, “[The first result] suggests [conclusion].”
• Do your conclusions line up with existing literature?
• Discuss whether your findings agree with current knowledge and expectations.
• Keep in mind good persuasive argument skills, such as explaining the strengths of your arguments and highlighting the weaknesses of contrary opinions.
• If you discovered something unexpected, offer reasons. If your conclusions aren’t aligned with current literature, explain.
• Address any limitations of your study and how relevant they are to interpreting your results and validating your findings.
• Make sure to acknowledge any weaknesses in your conclusions and suggest room for further research concerning that aspect of your analysis.
• Make sure your suggestions aren’t ones that should have been conducted during your research! Doing so might raise questions about your initial research design and protocols.
• Similarly, maintain a critical but unapologetic tone. You want to instill confidence in your readers that you have thoroughly examined your results and have objectively assessed them in a way that would benefit the scientific community’s desire to expand our knowledge base.
• Recommend next steps.
• Your suggestions should inspire other researchers to conduct follow-up studies to build upon the knowledge you have shared with them.
• Keep the list short (no more than two).

How to Write the Discussion Section

The above list of what to include in the Discussion section gives an overall idea of what you need to focus on throughout the section. Below are some tips and general suggestions about the technical aspects of writing and organization that you might find useful as you draft or revise the contents we’ve outlined above.

Technical writing elements

• Embrace active voice because it eliminates the awkward phrasing and wordiness that accompanies passive voice.
• Use the present tense, which should also be employed in the Introduction.
• Sprinkle with first person pronouns if needed, but generally, avoid it. We want to focus on your findings.
• Maintain an objective and analytical tone.

Discussion section organization

• Keep the same flow across the Results, Methods, and Discussion sections.
• We develop a rhythm as we read and parallel structures facilitate our comprehension. When you organize information the same way in each of these related parts of your journal manuscript, we can quickly see how a certain result was interpreted and quickly verify the particular methods used to produce that result.
• Notice how using parallel structure will eliminate extra narration in the Discussion part since we can anticipate the flow of your ideas based on what we read in the Results segment. Reducing wordiness is important when you only have a few paragraphs to devote to the Discussion section!
• Within each subpart of a Discussion, the information should flow as follows: (A) conclusion first, (B) relevant results and how they relate to that conclusion and (C) relevant literature.
• End with a concise summary explaining the big-picture impact of your study on our understanding of the subject matter. At the beginning of your Discussion section, you stated why  this  particular study was needed to fill the gap you noticed and why that gap needed filling in the first place. Now, it is time to end with “how your research filled that gap.”

Discussion Part 1: Summarizing Key Findings

Begin the Discussion section by restating your  statement of the problem  and briefly summarizing the major results. Do not simply repeat your findings. Rather, try to create a concise statement of the main results that directly answer the central research question that you stated in the Introduction section . This content should not be longer than one paragraph in length.

Many researchers struggle with understanding the precise differences between a Discussion section and a Results section . The most important thing to remember here is that your Discussion section should subjectively evaluate the findings presented in the Results section, and in relatively the same order. Keep these sections distinct by making sure that you do not repeat the findings without providing an interpretation.

Phrase examples: Summarizing the results

• The findings indicate that …
• These results suggest a correlation between A and B …
• The data present here suggest that …
• An interpretation of the findings reveals a connection between…

Discussion Part 2: Interpreting the Findings

What do the results mean? It may seem obvious to you, but simply looking at the figures in the Results section will not necessarily convey to readers the importance of the findings in answering your research questions.

The exact structure of interpretations depends on the type of research being conducted. Here are some common approaches to interpreting data:

• Identifying correlations and relationships in the findings
• Explaining whether the results confirm or undermine your research hypothesis
• Giving the findings context within the history of similar research studies
• Discussing unexpected results and analyzing their significance to your study or general research
• Offering alternative explanations and arguing for your position

Organize the Discussion section around key arguments, themes, hypotheses, or research questions or problems. Again, make sure to follow the same order as you did in the Results section.

Discussion Part 3: Discussing the Implications

In addition to providing your own interpretations, show how your results fit into the wider scholarly literature you surveyed in the  literature review section. This section is called the implications of the study . Show where and how these results fit into existing knowledge, what additional insights they contribute, and any possible consequences that might arise from this knowledge, both in the specific research topic and in the wider scientific domain.

Questions to ask yourself when dealing with potential implications:

• Do your findings fall in line with existing theories, or do they challenge these theories or findings? What new information do they contribute to the literature, if any? How exactly do these findings impact or conflict with existing theories or models?
• What are the practical implications on actual subjects or demographics?
• What are the methodological implications for similar studies conducted either in the past or future?

Your purpose in giving the implications is to spell out exactly what your study has contributed and why researchers and other readers should be interested.

Phrase examples: Discussing the implications of the research

• These results confirm the existing evidence in X studies…
• The results are not in line with the foregoing theory that…
• This experiment provides new insights into the connection between…
• These findings present a more nuanced understanding of…
• While previous studies have focused on X, these results demonstrate that Y.

Step 4: Acknowledging the limitations

All research has study limitations of one sort or another. Acknowledging limitations in methodology or approach helps strengthen your credibility as a researcher. Study limitations are not simply a list of mistakes made in the study. Rather, limitations help provide a more detailed picture of what can or cannot be concluded from your findings. In essence, they help temper and qualify the study implications you listed previously.

Study limitations can relate to research design, specific methodological or material choices, or unexpected issues that emerged while you conducted the research. Mention only those limitations directly relate to your research questions, and explain what impact these limitations had on how your study was conducted and the validity of any interpretations.

Possible types of study limitations:

• Insufficient sample size for statistical measurements
• Lack of previous research studies on the topic
• Methods/instruments/techniques used to collect the data
• Limited access to data
• Time constraints in properly preparing and executing the study

After discussing the study limitations, you can also stress that your results are still valid. Give some specific reasons why the limitations do not necessarily handicap your study or narrow its scope.

Phrase examples: Limitations sentence beginners

• “There may be some possible limitations in this study.”
• “The findings of this study have to be seen in light of some limitations.”
•  “The first limitation is the…The second limitation concerns the…”
•  “The empirical results reported herein should be considered in the light of some limitations.”
• “This research, however, is subject to several limitations.”
• “The primary limitation to the generalization of these results is…”
• “Nonetheless, these results must be interpreted with caution and a number of limitations should be borne in mind.”

Discussion Part 5: Giving Recommendations for Further Research

Based on your interpretation and discussion of the findings, your recommendations can include practical changes to the study or specific further research to be conducted to clarify the research questions. Recommendations are often listed in a separate Conclusion section , but often this is just the final paragraph of the Discussion section.

Suggestions for further research often stem directly from the limitations outlined. Rather than simply stating that “further research should be conducted,” provide concrete specifics for how future can help answer questions that your research could not.

Phrase examples: Recommendation sentence beginners

• Further research is needed to establish …
• There is abundant space for further progress in analyzing…
• A further study with more focus on X should be done to investigate…
• Further studies of X that account for these variables must be undertaken.

Consider Receiving Professional Language Editing

As you edit or draft your research manuscript, we hope that you implement these guidelines to produce a more effective Discussion section. And after completing your draft, don’t forget to submit your work to a professional proofreading and English editing service like Wordvice, including our manuscript editing service for  paper editing , cover letter editing , SOP editing , and personal statement proofreading services. Language editors not only proofread and correct errors in grammar, punctuation, mechanics, and formatting but also improve terms and revise phrases so they read more naturally. Wordvice is an industry leader in providing high-quality revision for all types of academic documents.

For additional information about how to write a strong research paper, make sure to check out our full  research writing series !

Wordvice Writing Resources

• How to Write a Research Paper Introduction 
• Which Verb Tenses to Use in a Research Paper
• How to Write an Abstract for a Research Paper
• How to Write a Research Paper Title
• Useful Phrases for Academic Writing
• Common Transition Terms in Academic Papers
• Active and Passive Voice in Research Papers
• 100+ Verbs That Will Make Your Research Writing Amazing
• Tips for Paraphrasing in Research Papers

Additional Academic Resources

•   Guide for Authors.  (Elsevier)
•  How to Write the Results Section of a Research Paper.  (Bates College)
•   Structure of a Research Paper.  (University of Minnesota Biomedical Library)
•   How to Choose a Target Journal  (Springer)
•   How to Write Figures and Tables  (UNC Writing Center)

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How to Write an Effective Thesis Discussion

Writing an effective thesis discussion can be challenging because it is so open ended. The purpose of the discussion is to (1) interpret your results, (2) discuss the significance of your results, (3) place your work in the context of previous work, (4) discuss the limitations of your study, and (5) suggest next steps to advance understanding and/or to improve real-world situations. The discussion section should expand upon ideas presented in the introduction, literature review, and results, and sometimes even the materials and methods. It should convince the reader that your work was worthwhile.

General considerations

Throughout a thesis or other scholarly manuscript, the results of completed studies should be described in the past tense (e.g. "36 of 43 patients showed improvement with treatment A, while only 25 of 44 patients showed improvement with treatment B"). In contrast, present tense is used to describe ideas that currently appear to be true based on available evidence (e.g. "treatment A is more effective than treatment B for most patients"). A good thesis discussion will typically progress from discussing specific results to discussing broader concepts that currently appear to be true.

You should include citations and modifying statements as needed (e.g. "Previous work by Lee et al. (2017) found no difference in the effectiveness of treatment A compared to treatment B. However , their study was limited to patients in advanced stages of the disease."). You will also need to include suggestions for further research, which can be described in present tense (e.g. "Additional studies are needed to determine. . .") or future tense (e.g. "Future studies will determine . . .").

I will now move into more detailed suggestions for each part of the discussion. Notice the occasional use of first-person pronouns (e.g. "I suggest. . ." or "We believe. . ."), which is now generally acceptable in many fields if used sparingly. Check the specific guidelines provided by your graduate program (and target journal). Also notice the use of subheadings to break the text into shorter sections on specific topics, which is recommended for any long manuscript.

Discussion part 1: Interpret your results

Your discussion should relate directly to the research question(s) you presented in the introduction, so a good way to start the discussion is to clearly restate your research question(s) (e.g. "The current study aimed to determine whether treatment A or treatment B was better for patients with condition X.") The discussion section follows the results section, so the next obvious step is to state what you can conclude from your results (e.g. "We found that a higher percentage of patients showed improvement with treatment A than with treatment B, and therefore conclude that treatment A is more effective than treatment B for most patients with condition X").

There are two general strategies for structuring the discussion of results. The first strategy is to discuss the results in the same order as they were presented in the results section. Alternatively, you can discuss your most interesting or surprising results first. This second strategy is most effective when the results are especially novel. As with any manuscript, the goal is to keep your reader engaged.

In some fields, the thesis discussion is expected to include comments on all of the results, even minor results that may not be statistically significant (e.g. "Treatments C, D, and E produced results that were statistically indistinguishable from placebo, leading to the conclusion that they were ineffective at the concentrations tested."). Note that you should not just state the results (e.g. "Treatments C, D, and E produced results that were statistically indistinguishable from placebo"), but should also state a conclusion (e.g. "they were ineffective at the concentrations tested").

In some other fields, brief comments on minor results are typically included in the results section, and the discussion section is used to elaborate on the most noteworthy results. In some cases, it may be appropriate to write a combined "results and discussion" section, where results are presented alongside initial conclusions, and broader implications are discussed toward the end. Check the requirements for your graduate program (and target journal).

Discussion part 2: Discuss the significance of your results

Clearly explain what is gained from your research. Sometimes a study is very significant (e.g. These results are among the first to show that treatment A is more effective than treatment B for condition X."). Other times—especially for undergraduate or master's theses based on a few months of data collection—the results primarily provide information about what doesn't work (e.g. "These results indicate that treatments C, D, and E are ineffective at physiologically relevant concentrations.)

Discuss some of the possibilities that your research opens up (e.g. "These results raise the possibility that early treatment could improve daily life for patients with mild cases of condition X, and might even delay disease progression.) but do not overstate (e.g. "These results prove that early treatment will improve daily life for patients with mild cases of condition X, and will delay disease progression."). Be optimistic but realistic, whether your results are highly significant or not (e.g. "These results suggest that the solubility of molecules like C, D, and E need to be improved before they can be effective.").

Discussing the significance of your results (part 2 of this essay) is a natural extension of discussing what your results mean (part 1 in this essay), and may not require a separate section.

Discussion part 3: Place your work in the context of previous work

Put your work into a broader context. Here you should revisit some of the previously published work that was described in your introduction and literature review, and clarify how your work expands upon or challenges that work. Most importantly, you should discuss how your work advances understanding in your research field.

For a thesis based on disappointing data, your ability to effectively discuss previous work and potential future work can support the argument that you have developed the necessary skills to move forward in research. These skills are further demonstrated by many other aspects of a well-researched and well-written thesis.

In some cases, your results may reveal unexpected connections. This may require you to discuss additional bodies of work in the discussion section, which can become a second literature review section. As you may be starting to see, there are many different topics you can include in your discussion section. You need to choose your topics carefully, and cover them in sufficient but not overwhelming detail. You want your discussion to cover all essential information, remain a manageable length, and retain the reader's interest. All of the different possibilities can make writing your discussion section very challenging.

If your results contradict previous work, you need to provide some possible explanations. As a rationale scholar, it is especially important to consider all reasonable options. It could be that (1) the earlier work was flawed, incomplete, or not exactly comparable to your work, or (2) your work is flawed, incomplete, or not exactly comparable to the earlier work. You might not be able to determine the exact cause of the discrepancy, but contradictions provide an obvious way to transition into the next section.

Discussion part 4: Discuss the limitations of your study

Every study has limitations, and here you should discuss the major limitations of your research. What can't the results tell us? In what situations are the findings not relevant or well supported? There may be limitations due to your sample population, experimental techniques, data analysis, etc. Discuss these limitations honestly, but then explain why your study is useful despite these limitations. You might point out that your study included multiple different populations, different experimental techniques, alternative methods of data analysis, etc. You might also emphasize that your conclusions are limited to a subset of a larger population, and that additional work needs to be done to determine whether the same conclusions apply to a larger population. This brings us to our next point.

Discussion part 5: Suggest next steps to advance understanding and/or to improve real-world situations

Once you've placed your work into a broader context, you can imagine the future possibilities. Here you might discuss questions that remain to be answered, or questions that have been newly raised by your work. There might be specific studies that would be an obvious extension of your work, and/or exploratory studies that would shed light on promising areas for novel research. Alternatively, you might suggest ways in which your research could be applied to real-world situations to improve outcomes.

Many manuscripts and presentations end with a discussion of possible next steps. I tend to like this type of ending for discussions of basic research, such as which genes are activated in which cells. However, other people recommend always ending with conclusions, where you restate the main findings of your research in a compact form. This might involve a separate "conclusions" section or as a final paragraph in the "discussion" section. Ending with conclusions makes a lot of sense for studies that might directly impact real-world situations (e.g. Treatment A it more effective than treatment B for condition X.).

In any event, you should follow departmental recommendations, and end with a compelling and memorable message for your readers.

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How To Write A Thesis Discussion Chapter

Did you just realize you need to work a bit more on your thesis and write something called a “thesis discussion” chapter? We know most students don’t know what this is or why it is important. After all, you are not an expert academic writer. This is probably the first time you’re writing a thesis. To avoid being penalized and make sure you understand what the thesis discussion chapter is, we have put together this blog post.

We will explain what this chapter is and why it is useful. We will also show you a step-by-step guide on how to write the best possible master’s thesis discussion section. And if you need an example or some help with this section, don’t skip the end of the article.

What Is a Thesis Discussion Chapter?

Let’s start from the beginning. What is the master’s or Ph.D. thesis discussion chapter? This section is often one of the most difficult to write. It’s not because it should be too long, but because you need to present your findings in great detail and support your arguments with accurate scientific data.

In other words, the discussion section of a thesis should be like a very detailed presentation of your findings; a presentation that both explains and interprets the results of your research.

In many cases, you need to put your findings in context, taking into consideration previous research . You could also make some suggestions related to future research. Yes, this sounds like a very complicated thing to do. However, it’s not that difficult to write results and discussions in the thesis.

Why Is the Discussion Chapter of a Thesis Important?

A discussion in thesis writing is the section that comes after the Results section. There is a reason why it’s placed there. While you may be able to discuss your findings in the Results section in some cases, most often you have to discuss them in a completely separate section. Also, some universities require you to place your recommendations in a separate section, so be sure to check the guidelines of your school.

If you want to know why the discussion chapter in the thesis is so important (and so difficult to write), here are some of the most important benefits of writing this section perfectly:

• You show the thesis committee that you’ve understood the results of your study or experiments. Of course, this means you didn’t simply copy the paper, or parts of the paper, from somewhere.
• The discussion section clearly explains what your findings mean, how you got them, and how well they are supported by scientific evidence. By explaining your findings, even a person with no previous industry experience can understand what the results mean and why they are important.
• Academics may not trust your data or your results. The discussion in a thesis shows everyone how the data was collected. Also, this section is used to shed more light on your findings and show your readers how your research fills the knowledge gap.

However, we are certain you want to know the most important reason why you should dedicate ample time to writing this section. Well, the main reason is the grade you get on your work. As we’ve said previously, the discussion chapter is very important. Be careful when writing a discussion for a thesis because you can lose valuable points if you don’t do a great job.

Learn How to Write a Discussion Chapter in a Thesis

We know that you want to learn how to write a discussion chapter in a thesis; and that you want to learn how to write this section as fast as possible. Because writing the discussion section is such a difficult task, you should dedicate a lot of time to it. And remember, if you need help with the discussion chapter, you can always count on our seasoned academic writers for some professional help. Let’s show you how to write a thesis discussion in just a couple of steps:

• The first thing you need to do is summarize the key findings. For this, you need to read your Results section carefully and write down the most important data.
• Use the findings you’ve identified in step 1 to write a phrase or two that present the results and that answer the research question of your thesis. You can start the discussion chapter of a thesis with something like “The data obtained suggest that … [answer to research question]”.
• Write several paragraphs, each discussing and interpreting one single finding. You can identify correlations, put your findings in context, discuss previous research, discuss alternative explanations, and even talk about how your findings support or refute your hypotheses.
• The next paragraph of the discussion in the thesis should discuss the implications of your findings and nothing else. What are the practical applications of your findings? Do your findings meet your expectations? Do they support your hypotheses? How are the results of your study different from other studies?
• If you know of some limitations, you need to discuss them as well. Use a new paragraph for this. What are the limitations of your research methods? Were there any obstacles you couldn’t overcome? Don’t talk about errors, just about limitations.
• The final paragraph, which acts as a conclusion, is used to present your recommendations. You can suggest that further research is needed or show your readers how your findings can be implemented in real life. If you recommend future research, be very specific. What exactly needs to be researched further so that the knowledge gap is filled?

Getting a Great Results and Discussion Thesis Example

If you were wondering what to discuss in the discussion thesis, the steps above already provide all the information you need. We are also very confident the quick guide above managed to show you how to write the discussion section of the thesis. All that is left now is to show you how you can get maximum points on your thesis discussion section. Don’t worry, you don’t have to rewrite it or send it to use for editing.

You just need a great results and discussion thesis example. Yes, this should be everything you need to get the maximum points. Why? Because an example shows you exactly how to properly structure your writing. It shows you how each paragraph should look like and what it should contain. You probably already know that following a great example is much easier than trying to do something all by yourself.

Unfortunately, it’s not enough to know how to write a discussion thesis. You need a great example. We know the first thing you will try to do is go online and search for this on Google. You will get plenty of results, of course. However, please note that most of these “samples” are very poorly written. Most of them are plagiarized and over 90% are written in a way that your professor would strongly disapprove of. And of course, you are unable to use any of the text because that would constitute plagiarism.

We Can Help You Today

Now that we’ve shown you how to write a discussion chapter in your Ph.D. thesis, we are happy to give you some more good news. You can get 100% original results and discussion sample thesis from our expert academic writers. Yes, our thesis writers will write the discussion section for you as quickly as possible. All we need is some information about the methods you’ve used and the results of your research.

You can use our perfectly written (and proofread) sample to get some great ideas, or you can include it in your thesis. After all, you are free to use the sample as you see fit. What we can guarantee is that you will get very good points in your thesis discussion chapter.

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Writing your Dissertation:  Results and Discussion

When writing a dissertation or thesis, the results and discussion sections can be both the most interesting as well as the most challenging sections to write.

You may choose to write these sections separately, or combine them into a single chapter, depending on your university’s guidelines and your own preferences.

There are advantages to both approaches.

Writing the results and discussion as separate sections allows you to focus first on what results you obtained and set out clearly what happened in your experiments and/or investigations without worrying about their implications.This can focus your mind on what the results actually show and help you to sort them in your head.

However, many people find it easier to combine the results with their implications as the two are closely connected.

Check your university’s requirements carefully before combining the results and discussions sections as some specify that they must be kept separate.

Results Section

The Results section should set out your key experimental results, including any statistical analysis and whether or not the results of these are significant.

You should cover any literature supporting your interpretation of significance. It does not have to include everything you did, particularly for a doctorate dissertation. However, for an undergraduate or master's thesis, you will probably find that you need to include most of your work.

You should write your results section in the past tense: you are describing what you have done in the past.

Every result included MUST have a method set out in the methods section. Check back to make sure that you have included all the relevant methods.

Conversely, every method should also have some results given so, if you choose to exclude certain experiments from the results, make sure that you remove mention of the method as well.

If you are unsure whether to include certain results, go back to your research questions and decide whether the results are relevant to them. It doesn’t matter whether they are supportive or not, it’s about relevance. If they are relevant, you should include them.

Having decided what to include, next decide what order to use. You could choose chronological, which should follow the methods, or in order from most to least important in the answering of your research questions, or by research question and/or hypothesis.

You also need to consider how best to present your results: tables, figures, graphs, or text. Try to use a variety of different methods of presentation, and consider your reader: 20 pages of dense tables are hard to understand, as are five pages of graphs, but a single table and well-chosen graph that illustrate your overall findings will make things much clearer.

Make sure that each table and figure has a number and a title. Number tables and figures in separate lists, but consecutively by the order in which you mention them in the text. If you have more than about two or three, it’s often helpful to provide lists of tables and figures alongside the table of contents at the start of your dissertation.

Summarise your results in the text, drawing on the figures and tables to illustrate your points.

The text and figures should be complementary, not repeat the same information. You should refer to every table or figure in the text. Any that you don’t feel the need to refer to can safely be moved to an appendix, or even removed.

Make sure that you including information about the size and direction of any changes, including percentage change if appropriate. Statistical tests should include details of p values or confidence intervals and limits.

While you don’t need to include all your primary evidence in this section, you should as a matter of good practice make it available in an appendix, to which you should refer at the relevant point.

For example:

Details of all the interview participants can be found in Appendix A, with transcripts of each interview in Appendix B.

You will, almost inevitably, find that you need to include some slight discussion of your results during this section. This discussion should evaluate the quality of the results and their reliability, but not stray too far into discussion of how far your results support your hypothesis and/or answer your research questions, as that is for the discussion section.

See our pages: Analysing Qualitative Data and Simple Statistical Analysis for more information on analysing your results.

Discussion Section

This section has four purposes, it should:

• Interpret and explain your results
• Answer your research question
• Justify your approach
• 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.

Some universities require a separate section on recommendations for policy and practice and/or for future research, while others allow you to include this in your discussion, so check the guidelines carefully.

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; check out our page: Creative Thinking for some ideas about how to think through your ideas. 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.

This is likely to be one of the longest sections of your dissertation, and it’s a good idea to break it down into chunks with sub-headings to help your reader to navigate through the detail.

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.

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 summarising 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!

Continue to: Dissertation: Conclusion and Extras Writing your Methodology

See also: Writing a Literature Review Writing a Research Proposal Academic Referencing What Is the Importance of Using a Plagiarism Checker to Check Your Thesis?

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How to Write a Dissertation Discussion Chapter: Guide & Examples

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Dissertation discussion section is a chapter that interprets the results obtained from research and offers an in-depth analysis of findings. In this section, students need to analyze the outcomes, evaluate their significance, and compare them to previous research. The discussion section may also explore the limitations of the study and suggest further research perspectives.

If you are stuck with your thesis or dissertation discussion chapter, you are in the right place to complete this section successfully. This article will outline our best solutions and methods on how to write the discussion of a dissertation or thesis. We also will share advanced dissertation discussion examples to help you finalize your PhD work.  Feel like academic writing gives you hassles? Remember that you can always rely on academic experts qualified in your field to get professional dissertation help online .

What Is a Dissertation Discussion?

First and foremost, students need to have a clear understanding of what dissertation discussion is. This is not the same as your results section , where you share data from your research. You are going deeper into the explanation of the existing data in your thesis or dissertation discussion section. In other words, you illustrate practical implications of your research and how the data can be used, researched further, or limited.  What will make your discussion section of a dissertation excellent:

• clear structure
• practical implication
• elaboration on future work on this topic.

This section should go after research methodology and before the dissertation conclusion . It should be directly relevant to questions posed in your introduction.  The biggest mistake you can make is to rewrite your result chapter with other words and add some limitations and recommendation paragraphs. However, this is an entirely different type of writing you need to complete.

Purpose of a Dissertation Discussion Chapter

A dissertation discussion section is critical to explaining students’ findings and the application of data to real-life cases. As we mentioned before, this section will often be read right after the dissertation methods . It evaluates and elaborates on findings and helps to understand the importance of your performed thesis research.  A dissertation discussion opens a new perspective on further research on the same field or topic. It also outlines critical data to consider in subsequent studies. In a nutshell, this is the section where you explain your work to a broad audience.

Structure of a Dissertation Discussion Section

Let’s start your writing journey of this research part with a clear delineation of what it should include and then briefly discuss each component. Here are some basic things you need to consider for an excellent discussion chapter of dissertation :

• Brief summary It does not mean copying an introduction section. However, the first few paragraphs will make an overview of your findings and topic.
• Interpretations This is a critical component of your work — elaborate on your results and explain possible ways of using them.
• Implication Research work is not just 100+ pages of text. Students should explain and illustrate how it could be used for solving practical problems.
• Constraints This is where you outline your limitations. For instance, your research was done only on students, and it may have different results with elderly people.
• Recommendations You can also define possible ways of future research on the exact topic when writing a discussion for your thesis or dissertation. Tell readers, for example, that it would be helpful to run similar research in other specific circumstances.

How to Write a Dissertation Discussion Chapter?

One of the most commonly asked questions for our experts is how to write the discussion section of a dissertation or thesis. We understand why it can be complicated to get a clear answer. Students often think that this section is similar to the result chapter and just retells it in other words. But it is not so. Let’s go through all steps to writing a discussion in a dissertation, and share our best examples from academic papers.

1. Remind Your Research Questions & Objectives

Writing the discussion chapter of a dissertation is not a big deal if you understand its aim and each component in a text structure. First of all, you need to evaluate how your results help to answer research questions you defined in the beginning. It is not about repeating the result, you did it in previous paragraphs.  However, dissertation or thesis discussion should underline how your findings help to answer the research problem. Start writing from a brief intro by recalling research questions or hypotheses . Then, show how your results answer them or support a hypothesis in your work.

2. Sum Up Key Findings

Next part of your discussion for dissertation is to provide a short summary of previous data. But do not respite the same summary paragraphs from results or introduction of a dissertation . Here researchers should be more thoughtful and go deeper into the work’s aims.  Try to explain in a few sentences what you get from running research. For instance, starters usually write the statement that “our data proves that…” or “survey results illustrate a clear correlation between a and b that is critical for proving our working hypothesis…”.  A discussion chapter of your dissertation is not just a fixation on results but a more profound summary connected to research goals and purpose. Here is an example: Summary of Findings Example

According to the data, implementing the co-orientation theory was successful and can be used for the same circumstances in the future. As we found, most participants agreed with the importance of those theses on the five fundamental reforms. It means that the results identified a successful government work in choosing the messages to communicate about examined reforms. At the same time, the situation is not so favorable with implementing the principles of two-way symmetrical communications. According to the results, people did not feel that the government had a mutual, open, and equal dialogue with the public about the reforms.

3. Interpret the Results

The most critical part of a discussion section is to explain and enact the results you’ve got. It is the most significant part of any text. Students should be clear about what to include in these paragraphs. Here is some advice to make this elaboration structured:

• Identify correlations or patterns in the data for dissertation discussion.
• Underline how results can answer research questions or prove your hypothesis.
• Emphasize how your findings are connected to the previous topic studies.
• Point out essential statements you can use in future research.
• Evaluate the significance of your results and any unexpected data you have.
• What others can learn from your research and how this work contributes to the field.
• Consider any possible additional or unique explanation of your findings.
• Go deeper with options of how results can be applied in practice.

Writing a dissertation discussion chapter can be tough, but here is a great sample to learn from. Example of Interpretations in Disssertation Discussion

Our study underlines the importance of future research on using TikTok for political communication. As discussed above, TikTok is the most commonly used social media platform for many young voters. This means that political discussion will also move to this platform. Our research and typology of political communication content can be used in the future planning of effective political campaigns. For example, we can assume that “play videos” have enormous potential to facilitate complicated topics and provide specific agenda settings. We also identified additional affordances of TikTok used for political communication, such as built-in video editors, playlists for specific topics, a green screen for news explainers, and duets for reflection on news and discussion. It means that these features make TikTok suitable for efficient political communications.

4. Discuss How Your Findings Relate to the Literature

Here we came to the implications of your findings for the dissertation discussion. In other words, this is a few sentences on how your work is connected to other studies on the same research topic or what literature gap you are going to fill with the data and research you launched. Remember to mention how your study address the limitations you have discovered while writing a literature review .  First, outline how your hypothesis relates to theories or previous works in the field. Maybe, you challenged some theories or tried to define your own. Be specific in this section. Second, define a practical implementation of your work. Maybe, it can support recommendations or change legislation.  Discussion chapter of a thesis is a place where you explain your work, make it valuable, and incorporate additional meaning for some specific data.  Example of Implications in Disssertation Discussion

As we pointed out in the literature review, there are few works on using TikTok affordances for political communications, and this topic can be expanded in the future. Government institutions have already understood the importance of this platform for efficient communication with younger audiences, and we will see more political projects on TikTok. That is why expanding research on using TikTok for political communication will be enormous in the following years. Our work is one of the first research on the role of emerging media in war communication and can be used as a practical guide for government's strategic planning in times of emergencies.

5. Mention Possible Limitations

It is pretty tricky to conduct research without limitations. You will always have some, which does not mean that your work is not good. When you write a discussion chapter in a thesis or dissertation, focus on what may influence your results and how changing independent variables can affect your data collection methods and final outcomes.  Here are some points to consider when you structure your dissertation discussion limitation part:

• If results can change in case you change the reference group?
• What will happen with data if it changes circumstances?
• What could influence results?

Critical thinking and analysis can help you to outline possible limitations. It can be the age of the reference group, change of questionnaire in a survey, or specific use of data extraction equipment. Be transparent about what could affect your results.  Example of Complications

Although this study has provided critical first insights into the effects of multimodal disinformation and rebuttals, there are some limitations. First and most importantly, the effects of multimodal disinformation and rebuttals partially depend on the topic of the message. Although fact-checkers reduce credibility of disinformation in both settings, and attitudinal congruence plays a consistent role in conditioning responses to multimodal disinformation, visuals do not have the same impact on affecting the credibility of news on school shootings and refugees.

6. Provide Recommendations for Further Research

Writing a dissertation discussion also makes a connection to possible future research. So, other scientists may complete that. While elaborating on possible implementations of your study, you may also estimate future approaches in topic research.  Here are some points to consider while your discussion in thesis writing:

• Outline questions related to your topic that you did not answer in defined study or did not outline as research questions. There are other possible gaps to research.
• Suggest future research based on limitations. For example, if you define surveyed people’s age as a limitation, recommend running another survey for older or younger recipients.

Example of Recommendations

As we mentioned before, our study has some limitations, as the research was conducted based on data from United State citizens. However, for a better understanding of government communication practices, it would be productive to implement the same research in other countries. Some cultural differences can influence the communication strategies the government uses in times of emergency. Another possible way to examine this topic is to conduct research using a specific period of time. For future studies, it will be beneficial to expand the number of survey recipients. 

7. Conclude Your Thesis/ Dissertation Discussion

You are almost done, the last step is to provide a brief summary of a section. It is not the same as a conclusion for whole research. However, you need to briefly outline key points from the dissertation discussion.  To finalize writing the discussion section of a dissertation, go through the text and check if there is no unimportant information. Do not overload the text with relevant data you did not present in the result section. Be specific in your summary paragraphs. It is a holistic view of everything you pointed out. Provide a few sentences to systemize all you outlined in the text. Example of a Concluding Summary in a Dissertation Discussion Section

To summarize, Airbnb has expertise in communicating CSR and CSA campaigns. We defined their communication strategy about the program for Ukrainian refugees as quite successful. They applied all the principles of CSR communication best practices, used dialogic theory to engage with the public on social media, and created clear messaging on applying for the program. Airbnb examples of CSR communication can be used by other businesses to create a communication strategy for unplanned CSR campaigns. Moreover, it can be further researched how Airbnb's CSR campaign influenced the organizational reputation in the future. 

Dissertation Discussion Example

If we need to share one piece of practical advice, it would be to use thesis or dissertation discussion examples when writing your own copy. StudyCrumb provides the best samples from real students' work to help you understand the stylistic and possible structure of this part. It does not mean you need to copy and paste them into your work.  However, you can use a  dissertation discussion example for inspiration and brainstorming ideas for breaking writing blocks. Here’s a doctoral thesis discussion chapter example.

Dissertation Discussion Writing Tips

Before reading this blog, you should already know how to write a thesis discussion. However, we would share some essential tips you need to have in mind while working on the document. 

• Be consistent Your dissertation discussion chapter is a part of bigger research, and it should be in line with your whole work.
• Understand your reader You are writing an academic text that will be analyzed by professionals and experts in the same field. Be sure that you are not trying to simplify your discussion.
• Be logical Do not jump into a new line of discussion if you did not delineate it as a research question at the beginning.
• Be clear Do not include any data that was not presented in the result section.
• Consider word choice Use such terms as “our data indicate…” or “our data suggests…” instead of “the data proves.”
• Use proper format Follow the formatting rules specified by a specific paper style (e.g., APA style format , MLA format , or Chicago format ) or provided by your instructor.

Bottom Line on Writing a Dissertation Discussion Chapter

At this stage, it should not be a question for you on how to write a discussion chapter in a PhD thesis or dissertation. Let’s make it clear. It is not a result section but still a place to elaborate on data and go deeper with explanations. Dissertation discussion section includes some intro, result interpretations, limitations, and recommendations for future research. Our team encourages you to use examples before starting your own piece of writing. It will help you to realize the purpose and structure of this chapter and inspire better texts! If you have other questions regarding the PhD writing process, check our blog for more insights. From detailed instruction on how to write a dissertation or guide on formatting a dissertation appendix , we’ve got you covered.

Order dissertation discussion from our proficient writers. They will take a significant burden off of you. Instead, they will carry out high-level academic work in a short time.

FAQ About Dissertation Discussion Chapter

1. where does a discussion section go in a dissertation.

Dissertation discussion section is used to go right after the result chapter. The logic is simple — you share your data and then go to the elaboration and explanation of it. Check the sample thesis we provide to students for details on structure.

2. How long should a dissertation discussion chapter be?

It is not a surprise that dissertation discussion chapter is extremely significant for the research. Here you will go into the details of your study and interpret results to prove or not your hypothesis. It should take almost 25% of your work. 

3. What tense should I use in a dissertation discussion?

Thesis or dissertation discussion used to have some rules on using tenses. You need to use the present tense when referring to established facts and use the past tense when referring to previous studies. And check your text before submission to ensure that you did not miss something.

4. What not to include in a dissertation discussion section?

The answer is easy. Discussion section of a dissertation should not include any new findings or describe some unsupported claims. Also, do not try to feel all possible gaps with one research. It may be better to outline your ideas for future studies in recommendations.

Joe Eckel is an expert on Dissertations writing. He makes sure that each student gets precious insights on composing A-grade academic writing.

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Tips for writing a PhD dissertation: FAQs answered

From how to choose a topic to writing the abstract and managing work-life balance through the years it takes to complete a doctorate, here we collect expert advice to get you through the PhD writing process

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Embarking on a PhD is “probably the most challenging task that a young scholar attempts to do”, write Mark Stephan Felix and Ian Smith in their practical guide to dissertation and thesis writing. After years of reading and research to answer a specific question or proposition, the candidate will submit about 80,000 words that explain their methods and results and demonstrate their unique contribution to knowledge. Here are the answers to frequently asked questions about writing a doctoral thesis or dissertation.

What’s the difference between a dissertation and a thesis?

Whatever the genre of the doctorate, a PhD must offer an original contribution to knowledge. The terms “dissertation” and “thesis” both refer to the long-form piece of work produced at the end of a research project and are often used interchangeably. Which one is used might depend on the country, discipline or university. In the UK, “thesis” is generally used for the work done for a PhD, while a “dissertation” is written for a master’s degree. The US did the same until the 1960s, says Oxbridge Essays, when the convention switched, and references appeared to a “master’s thesis” and “doctoral dissertation”. To complicate matters further, undergraduate long essays are also sometimes referred to as a thesis or dissertation.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines “thesis” as “a dissertation, especially by a candidate for a degree” and “dissertation” as “a detailed discourse on a subject, especially one submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of a degree or diploma”.

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The title “doctor of philosophy”, incidentally, comes from the degree’s origins, write Dr Felix, an associate professor at Mahidol University in Thailand, and Dr Smith, retired associate professor of education at the University of Sydney , whose co-authored guide focuses on the social sciences. The PhD was first awarded in the 19th century by the philosophy departments of German universities, which at that time taught science, social science and liberal arts.

How long should a PhD thesis be?

A PhD thesis (or dissertation) is typically 60,000 to 120,000 words ( 100 to 300 pages in length ) organised into chapters, divisions and subdivisions (with roughly 10,000 words per chapter) – from introduction (with clear aims and objectives) to conclusion.

The structure of a dissertation will vary depending on discipline (humanities, social sciences and STEM all have their own conventions), location and institution. Examples and guides to structure proliferate online. The University of Salford , for example, lists: title page, declaration, acknowledgements, abstract, table of contents, lists of figures, tables and abbreviations (where needed), chapters, appendices and references.

A scientific-style thesis will likely need: introduction, literature review, materials and methods, results, discussion, bibliography and references.

As well as checking the overall criteria and expectations of your institution for your research, consult your school handbook for the required length and format (font, layout conventions and so on) for your dissertation.

A PhD takes three to four years to complete; this might extend to six to eight years for a part-time doctorate.

What are the steps for completing a PhD?

Before you get started in earnest , you’ll likely have found a potential supervisor, who will guide your PhD journey, and done a research proposal (which outlines what you plan to research and how) as part of your application, as well as a literature review of existing scholarship in the field, which may form part of your final submission.

In the UK, PhD candidates undertake original research and write the results in a thesis or dissertation, says author and vlogger Simon Clark , who posted videos to YouTube throughout his own PhD journey . Then they submit the thesis in hard copy and attend the viva voce (which is Latin for “living voice” and is also called an oral defence or doctoral defence) to convince the examiners that their work is original, understood and all their own. Afterwards, if necessary, they make changes and resubmit. If the changes are approved, the degree is awarded.

The steps are similar in Australia , although candidates are mostly assessed on their thesis only; some universities may include taught courses, and some use a viva voce. A PhD in Australia usually takes three years full time.

In the US, the PhD process begins with taught classes (similar to a taught master’s) and a comprehensive exam (called a “field exam” or “dissertation qualifying exam”) before the candidate embarks on their original research. The whole journey takes four to six years.

A PhD candidate will need three skills and attitudes to get through their doctoral studies, says Tara Brabazon , professor of cultural studies at Flinders University in Australia who has written extensively about the PhD journey :

• master the academic foundational skills (research, writing, ability to navigate different modalities)
• time-management skills and the ability to focus on reading and writing
• determined motivation to do a PhD.

How do I choose the topic for my PhD dissertation or thesis?

It’s important to find a topic that will sustain your interest for the years it will take to complete a PhD. “Finding a sustainable topic is the most important thing you [as a PhD student] would do,” says Dr Brabazon in a video for Times Higher Education . “Write down on a big piece of paper all the topics, all the ideas, all the questions that really interest you, and start to cross out all the ones that might just be a passing interest.” Also, she says, impose the “Who cares? Who gives a damn?” question to decide if the topic will be useful in a future academic career.

The availability of funding and scholarships is also often an important factor in this decision, says veteran PhD supervisor Richard Godwin, from Harper Adams University .

Define a gap in knowledge – and one that can be questioned, explored, researched and written about in the time available to you, says Gina Wisker, head of the Centre for Learning and Teaching at the University of Brighton. “Set some boundaries,” she advises. “Don’t try to ask everything related to your topic in every way.”

James Hartley, research professor in psychology at Keele University, says it can also be useful to think about topics that spark general interest. If you do pick something that taps into the zeitgeist, your findings are more likely to be noticed.

You also need to find someone else who is interested in it, too. For STEM candidates , this will probably be a case of joining a team of people working in a similar area where, ideally, scholarship funding is available. A centre for doctoral training (CDT) or doctoral training partnership (DTP) will advertise research projects. For those in the liberal arts and social sciences, it will be a matter of identifying a suitable supervisor .

Avoid topics that are too broad (hunger across a whole country, for example) or too narrow (hunger in a single street) to yield useful solutions of academic significance, write Mark Stephan Felix and Ian Smith. And ensure that you’re not repeating previous research or trying to solve a problem that has already been answered. A PhD thesis must be original.

What is a thesis proposal?

After you have read widely to refine your topic and ensure that it and your research methods are original, and discussed your project with a (potential) supervisor, you’re ready to write a thesis proposal , a document of 1,500 to 3,000 words that sets out the proposed direction of your research. In the UK, a research proposal is usually part of the application process for admission to a research degree. As with the final dissertation itself, format varies among disciplines, institutions and countries but will usually contain title page, aims, literature review, methodology, timetable and bibliography. Examples of research proposals are available online.

How to write an abstract for a dissertation or thesis

The abstract presents your thesis to the wider world – and as such may be its most important element , says the NUI Galway writing guide. It outlines the why, how, what and so what of the thesis . Unlike the introduction, which provides background but not research findings, the abstract summarises all sections of the dissertation in a concise, thorough, focused way and demonstrates how well the writer understands their material. Check word-length limits with your university – and stick to them. About 300 to 500 words is a rough guide ­– but it can be up to 1,000 words.

The abstract is also important for selection and indexing of your thesis, according to the University of Melbourne guide , so be sure to include searchable keywords.

It is the first thing to be read but the last element you should write. However, Pat Thomson , professor of education at the University of Nottingham , advises that it is not something to be tackled at the last minute.

How to write a stellar conclusion

As well as chapter conclusions, a thesis often has an overall conclusion to draw together the key points covered and to reflect on the unique contribution to knowledge. It can comment on future implications of the research and open up new ideas emanating from the work. It is shorter and more general than the discussion chapter , says online editing site Scribbr, and reiterates how the work answers the main question posed at the beginning of the thesis. The conclusion chapter also often discusses the limitations of the research (time, scope, word limit, access) in a constructive manner.

It can be useful to keep a collection of ideas as you go – in the online forum DoctoralWriting SIG , academic developer Claire Aitchison, of the University of South Australia , suggests using a “conclusions bank” for themes and inspirations, and using free-writing to keep this final section fresh. (Just when you feel you’ve run out of steam.) Avoid aggrandising or exaggerating the impact of your work. It should remind the reader what has been done, and why it matters.

How to format a bibliography (or where to find a reliable model)

Most universities use a preferred style of references , writes THE associate editor Ingrid Curl. Make sure you know what this is and follow it. “One of the most common errors in academic writing is to cite papers in the text that do not then appear in the bibliography. All references in your thesis need to be cross-checked with the bibliography before submission. Using a database during your research can save a great deal of time in the writing-up process.”

A bibliography contains not only works cited explicitly but also those that have informed or contributed to the research – and as such illustrates its scope; works are not limited to written publications but include sources such as film or visual art.

Examiners can start marking from the back of the script, writes Dr Brabazon. “Just as cooks are judged by their ingredients and implements, we judge doctoral students by the calibre of their sources,” she advises. She also says that candidates should be prepared to speak in an oral examination of the PhD about any texts included in their bibliography, especially if there is a disconnect between the thesis and the texts listed.

Can I use informal language in my PhD?

Don’t write like a stereotypical academic , say Kevin Haggerty, professor of sociology at the University of Alberta , and Aaron Doyle, associate professor in sociology at Carleton University , in their tongue-in-cheek guide to the PhD journey. “If you cannot write clearly and persuasively, everything about PhD study becomes harder.” Avoid jargon, exotic words, passive voice and long, convoluted sentences – and work on it consistently. “Writing is like playing guitar; it can improve only through consistent, concerted effort.”

Be deliberate and take care with your writing . “Write your first draft, leave it and then come back to it with a critical eye. Look objectively at the writing and read it closely for style and sense,” advises THE ’s Ms Curl. “Look out for common errors such as dangling modifiers, subject-verb disagreement and inconsistency. If you are too involved with the text to be able to take a step back and do this, then ask a friend or colleague to read it with a critical eye. Remember Hemingway’s advice: ‘Prose is architecture, not interior decoration.’ Clarity is key.”

How often should a PhD candidate meet with their supervisor?

Since the PhD supervisor provides a range of support and advice – including on research techniques, planning and submission – regular formal supervisions are essential, as is establishing a line of contact such as email if the candidate needs help or advice outside arranged times. The frequency varies according to university, discipline and individual scholars.

Once a week is ideal, says Dr Brabazon. She also advocates a two-hour initial meeting to establish the foundations of the candidate-supervisor relationship .

The University of Edinburgh guide to writing a thesis suggests that creating a timetable of supervisor meetings right at the beginning of the research process will allow candidates to ensure that their work stays on track throughout. The meetings are also the place to get regular feedback on draft chapters.

“A clear structure and a solid framework are vital for research,” writes Dr Godwin on THE Campus . Use your supervisor to establish this and provide a realistic view of what can be achieved. “It is vital to help students identify the true scientific merit, the practical significance of their work and its value to society.”

How to proofread your dissertation (what to look for)

Proofreading is the final step before printing and submission. Give yourself time to ensure that your work is the best it can be . Don’t leave proofreading to the last minute; ideally, break it up into a few close-reading sessions. Find a quiet place without distractions. A checklist can help ensure that all aspects are covered.

Proofing is often helped by a change of format – so it can be easier to read a printout rather than working off the screen – or by reading sections out of order. Fresh eyes are better at spotting typographical errors and inconsistencies, so leave time between writing and proofreading. Check with your university’s policies before asking another person to proofread your thesis for you.

As well as close details such as spelling and grammar, check that all sections are complete, all required elements are included , and nothing is repeated or redundant. Don’t forget to check headings and subheadings. Does the text flow from one section to another? Is the structure clear? Is the work a coherent whole with a clear line throughout?

Ensure consistency in, for example, UK v US spellings, capitalisation, format, numbers (digits or words, commas, units of measurement), contractions, italics and hyphenation. Spellchecks and online plagiarism checkers are also your friend.

How do you manage your time to complete a PhD dissertation?

Treat your PhD like a full-time job, that is, with an eight-hour working day. Within that, you’ll need to plan your time in a way that gives a sense of progress . Setbacks and periods where it feels as if you are treading water are all but inevitable, so keeping track of small wins is important, writes A Happy PhD blogger Luis P. Prieto.

Be specific with your goals – use the SMART acronym (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timely).

And it’s never too soon to start writing – even if early drafts are overwritten and discarded.

“ Write little and write often . Many of us make the mistake of taking to writing as one would take to a sprint, in other words, with relatively short bursts of intense activity. Whilst this can prove productive, generally speaking it is not sustainable…In addition to sustaining your activity, writing little bits on a frequent basis ensures that you progress with your thinking. The comfort of remaining in abstract thought is common; writing forces us to concretise our thinking,” says Christian Gilliam, AHSS researcher developer at the University of Cambridge ’s Centre for Teaching and Learning.

Make time to write. “If you are more alert early in the day, find times that suit you in the morning; if you are a ‘night person’, block out some writing sessions in the evenings,” advises NUI Galway’s Dermot Burns, a lecturer in English and creative arts. Set targets, keep daily notes of experiment details that you will need in your thesis, don’t confuse writing with editing or revising – and always back up your work.

What work-life balance tips should I follow to complete my dissertation?

During your PhD programme, you may have opportunities to take part in professional development activities, such as teaching, attending academic conferences and publishing your work. Your research may include residencies, field trips or archive visits. This will require time-management skills as well as prioritising where you devote your energy and factoring in rest and relaxation. Organise your routine to suit your needs , and plan for steady and regular progress.

How to deal with setbacks while writing a thesis or dissertation

Have a contingency plan for delays or roadblocks such as unexpected results.

Accept that writing is messy, first drafts are imperfect, and writer’s block is inevitable, says Dr Burns. His tips for breaking it include relaxation to free your mind from clutter, writing a plan and drawing a mind map of key points for clarity. He also advises feedback, reflection and revision: “Progressing from a rough version of your thoughts to a superior and workable text takes time, effort, different perspectives and some expertise.”

“Academia can be a relentlessly brutal merry-go-round of rejection, rebuttal and failure,” writes Lorraine Hope , professor of applied cognitive psychology at the University of Portsmouth, on THE Campus. Resilience is important. Ensure that you and your supervisor have a relationship that supports open, frank, judgement-free communication.

If you would like advice and insight from academics and university staff delivered direct to your inbox each week, sign up for the Campus newsletter .

Authoring a PhD Thesis: How to Plan, Draft, Write and Finish a Doctoral Dissertation (2003), by Patrick Dunleavy

Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day: A Guide to Starting, Revising, and Finishing Your Doctoral Thesis (1998), by Joan Balker

Challenges in Writing Your Dissertation: Coping with the Emotional, Interpersonal, and Spiritual Struggles (2015), by Noelle Sterne

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Dissertation Structure & Layout 101: How to structure your dissertation, thesis or research project.

By: Derek Jansen (MBA) Reviewed By: David Phair (PhD) | July 2019

So, you’ve got a decent understanding of what a dissertation is , you’ve chosen your topic and hopefully you’ve received approval for your research proposal . Awesome! Now its time to start the actual dissertation or thesis writing journey.

To craft a high-quality document, the very first thing you need to understand is dissertation structure . In this post, we’ll walk you through the generic dissertation structure and layout, step by step. We’ll start with the big picture, and then zoom into each chapter to briefly discuss the core contents. If you’re just starting out on your research journey, you should start with this post, which covers the big-picture process of how to write a dissertation or thesis .

*The Caveat *

In this post, we’ll be discussing a traditional dissertation/thesis structure and layout, which is generally used for social science research across universities, whether in the US, UK, Europe or Australia. However, some universities may have small variations on this structure (extra chapters, merged chapters, slightly different ordering, etc).

So, always check with your university if they have a prescribed structure or layout that they expect you to work with. If not, it’s safe to assume the structure we’ll discuss here is suitable. And even if they do have a prescribed structure, you’ll still get value from this post as we’ll explain the core contents of each section.  

Overview: S tructuring a dissertation or thesis

• Acknowledgements page
• Abstract (or executive summary)
• Table of contents , list of figures and tables
• Chapter 1: Introduction
• Chapter 2: Literature review
• Chapter 3: Methodology
• Chapter 4: Results
• Chapter 5: Discussion
• Chapter 6: Conclusion
• Reference list

As I mentioned, some universities will have slight variations on this structure. For example, they want an additional “personal reflection chapter”, or they might prefer the results and discussion chapter to be merged into one. Regardless, the overarching flow will always be the same, as this flow reflects the research process , which we discussed here – i.e.:

• The introduction chapter presents the core research question and aims .
• The literature review chapter assesses what the current research says about this question.
• The methodology, results and discussion chapters go about undertaking new research about this question.
• The conclusion chapter (attempts to) answer the core research question .

In other words, the dissertation structure and layout reflect the research process of asking a well-defined question(s), investigating, and then answering the question – see below.

To restate that – the structure and layout of a dissertation reflect the flow of the overall research process . This is essential to understand, as each chapter will make a lot more sense if you “get” this concept. If you’re not familiar with the research process, read this post before going further.

Right. Now that we’ve covered the big picture, let’s dive a little deeper into the details of each section and chapter. Oh and by the way, you can also grab our free dissertation/thesis template here to help speed things up.

The title page of your dissertation is the very first impression the marker will get of your work, so it pays to invest some time thinking about your title. But what makes for a good title? A strong title needs to be 3 things:

• Succinct (not overly lengthy or verbose)
• Specific (not vague or ambiguous)
• Representative of the research you’re undertaking (clearly linked to your research questions)

Typically, a good title includes mention of the following:

• The broader area of the research (i.e. the overarching topic)
• The specific focus of your research (i.e. your specific context)
• Indication of research design (e.g. quantitative , qualitative , or  mixed methods ).

For example:

A quantitative investigation [research design] into the antecedents of organisational trust [broader area] in the UK retail forex trading market [specific context/area of focus].

Again, some universities may have specific requirements regarding the format and structure of the title, so it’s worth double-checking expectations with your institution (if there’s no mention in the brief or study material).

Acknowledgements

This page provides you with an opportunity to say thank you to those who helped you along your research journey. Generally, it’s optional (and won’t count towards your marks), but it is academic best practice to include this.

So, who do you say thanks to? Well, there’s no prescribed requirements, but it’s common to mention the following people:

• Your dissertation supervisor or committee.
• Any professors, lecturers or academics that helped you understand the topic or methodologies.
• Any tutors, mentors or advisors.
• Your family and friends, especially spouse (for adult learners studying part-time).

There’s no need for lengthy rambling. Just state who you’re thankful to and for what (e.g. thank you to my supervisor, John Doe, for his endless patience and attentiveness) – be sincere. In terms of length, you should keep this to a page or less.

Abstract or executive summary

The dissertation abstract (or executive summary for some degrees) serves to provide the first-time reader (and marker or moderator) with a big-picture view of your research project. It should give them an understanding of the key insights and findings from the research, without them needing to read the rest of the report – in other words, it should be able to stand alone .

For it to stand alone, your abstract should cover the following key points (at a minimum):

• Your research questions and aims – what key question(s) did your research aim to answer?
• Your methodology – how did you go about investigating the topic and finding answers to your research question(s)?
• Your findings – following your own research, what did do you discover?
• Your conclusions – based on your findings, what conclusions did you draw? What answers did you find to your research question(s)?

So, in much the same way the dissertation structure mimics the research process, your abstract or executive summary should reflect the research process, from the initial stage of asking the original question to the final stage of answering that question.

In practical terms, it’s a good idea to write this section up last , once all your core chapters are complete. Otherwise, you’ll end up writing and rewriting this section multiple times (just wasting time). For a step by step guide on how to write a strong executive summary, check out this post .

Need a helping hand?

Table of contents

This section is straightforward. You’ll typically present your table of contents (TOC) first, followed by the two lists – figures and tables. I recommend that you use Microsoft Word’s automatic table of contents generator to generate your TOC. If you’re not familiar with this functionality, the video below explains it simply:

If you find that your table of contents is overly lengthy, consider removing one level of depth. Oftentimes, this can be done without detracting from the usefulness of the TOC.

Right, now that the “admin” sections are out of the way, its time to move on to your core chapters. These chapters are the heart of your dissertation and are where you’ll earn the marks. The first chapter is the introduction chapter – as you would expect, this is the time to introduce your research…

It’s important to understand that even though you’ve provided an overview of your research in your abstract, your introduction needs to be written as if the reader has not read that (remember, the abstract is essentially a standalone document). So, your introduction chapter needs to start from the very beginning, and should address the following questions:

• What will you be investigating (in plain-language, big picture-level)?
• Why is that worth investigating? How is it important to academia or business? How is it sufficiently original?
• What are your research aims and research question(s)? Note that the research questions can sometimes be presented at the end of the literature review (next chapter).
• What is the scope of your study? In other words, what will and won’t you cover ?
• How will you approach your research? In other words, what methodology will you adopt?
• How will you structure your dissertation? What are the core chapters and what will you do in each of them?

These are just the bare basic requirements for your intro chapter. Some universities will want additional bells and whistles in the intro chapter, so be sure to carefully read your brief or consult your research supervisor.

If done right, your introduction chapter will set a clear direction for the rest of your dissertation. Specifically, it will make it clear to the reader (and marker) exactly what you’ll be investigating, why that’s important, and how you’ll be going about the investigation. Conversely, if your introduction chapter leaves a first-time reader wondering what exactly you’ll be researching, you’ve still got some work to do.

Now that you’ve set a clear direction with your introduction chapter, the next step is the literature review . In this section, you will analyse the existing research (typically academic journal articles and high-quality industry publications), with a view to understanding the following questions:

• What does the literature currently say about the topic you’re investigating?
• Is the literature lacking or well established? Is it divided or in disagreement?
• How does your research fit into the bigger picture?
• How does your research contribute something original?
• How does the methodology of previous studies help you develop your own?

Depending on the nature of your study, you may also present a conceptual framework towards the end of your literature review, which you will then test in your actual research.

Again, some universities will want you to focus on some of these areas more than others, some will have additional or fewer requirements, and so on. Therefore, as always, its important to review your brief and/or discuss with your supervisor, so that you know exactly what’s expected of your literature review chapter.

Now that you’ve investigated the current state of knowledge in your literature review chapter and are familiar with the existing key theories, models and frameworks, its time to design your own research. Enter the methodology chapter – the most “science-ey” of the chapters…

In this chapter, you need to address two critical questions:

• Exactly HOW will you carry out your research (i.e. what is your intended research design)?
• Exactly WHY have you chosen to do things this way (i.e. how do you justify your design)?

Remember, the dissertation part of your degree is first and foremost about developing and demonstrating research skills . Therefore, the markers want to see that you know which methods to use, can clearly articulate why you’ve chosen then, and know how to deploy them effectively.

Importantly, this chapter requires detail – don’t hold back on the specifics. State exactly what you’ll be doing, with who, when, for how long, etc. Moreover, for every design choice you make, make sure you justify it.

In practice, you will likely end up coming back to this chapter once you’ve undertaken all your data collection and analysis, and revise it based on changes you made during the analysis phase. This is perfectly fine. Its natural for you to add an additional analysis technique, scrap an old one, etc based on where your data lead you. Of course, I’m talking about small changes here – not a fundamental switch from qualitative to quantitative, which will likely send your supervisor in a spin!

You’ve now collected your data and undertaken your analysis, whether qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods. In this chapter, you’ll present the raw results of your analysis . For example, in the case of a quant study, you’ll present the demographic data, descriptive statistics, inferential statistics , etc.

Typically, Chapter 4 is simply a presentation and description of the data, not a discussion of the meaning of the data. In other words, it’s descriptive, rather than analytical – the meaning is discussed in Chapter 5. However, some universities will want you to combine chapters 4 and 5, so that you both present and interpret the meaning of the data at the same time. Check with your institution what their preference is.

Now that you’ve presented the data analysis results, its time to interpret and analyse them. In other words, its time to discuss what they mean, especially in relation to your research question(s).

What you discuss here will depend largely on your chosen methodology. For example, if you’ve gone the quantitative route, you might discuss the relationships between variables . If you’ve gone the qualitative route, you might discuss key themes and the meanings thereof. It all depends on what your research design choices were.

Most importantly, you need to discuss your results in relation to your research questions and aims, as well as the existing literature. What do the results tell you about your research questions? Are they aligned with the existing research or at odds? If so, why might this be? Dig deep into your findings and explain what the findings suggest, in plain English.

The final chapter – you’ve made it! Now that you’ve discussed your interpretation of the results, its time to bring it back to the beginning with the conclusion chapter . In other words, its time to (attempt to) answer your original research question s (from way back in chapter 1). Clearly state what your conclusions are in terms of your research questions. This might feel a bit repetitive, as you would have touched on this in the previous chapter, but its important to bring the discussion full circle and explicitly state your answer(s) to the research question(s).

Next, you’ll typically discuss the implications of your findings . In other words, you’ve answered your research questions – but what does this mean for the real world (or even for academia)? What should now be done differently, given the new insight you’ve generated?

Lastly, you should discuss the limitations of your research, as well as what this means for future research in the area. No study is perfect, especially not a Masters-level. Discuss the shortcomings of your research. Perhaps your methodology was limited, perhaps your sample size was small or not representative, etc, etc. Don’t be afraid to critique your work – the markers want to see that you can identify the limitations of your work. This is a strength, not a weakness. Be brutal!

This marks the end of your core chapters – woohoo! From here on out, it’s pretty smooth sailing.

The reference list is straightforward. It should contain a list of all resources cited in your dissertation, in the required format, e.g. APA , Harvard, etc.

It’s essential that you use reference management software for your dissertation. Do NOT try handle your referencing manually – its far too error prone. On a reference list of multiple pages, you’re going to make mistake. To this end, I suggest considering either Mendeley or Zotero. Both are free and provide a very straightforward interface to ensure that your referencing is 100% on point. I’ve included a simple how-to video for the Mendeley software (my personal favourite) below:

Some universities may ask you to include a bibliography, as opposed to a reference list. These two things are not the same . A bibliography is similar to a reference list, except that it also includes resources which informed your thinking but were not directly cited in your dissertation. So, double-check your brief and make sure you use the right one.

The very last piece of the puzzle is the appendix or set of appendices. This is where you’ll include any supporting data and evidence. Importantly, supporting is the keyword here.

Your appendices should provide additional “nice to know”, depth-adding information, which is not critical to the core analysis. Appendices should not be used as a way to cut down word count (see this post which covers how to reduce word count ). In other words, don’t place content that is critical to the core analysis here, just to save word count. You will not earn marks on any content in the appendices, so don’t try to play the system!

Time to recap…

And there you have it – the traditional dissertation structure and layout, from A-Z. To recap, the core structure for a dissertation or thesis is (typically) as follows:

• Acknowledgments page

Most importantly, the core chapters should reflect the research process (asking, investigating and answering your research question). Moreover, the research question(s) should form the golden thread throughout your dissertation structure. Everything should revolve around the research questions, and as you’ve seen, they should form both the start point (i.e. introduction chapter) and the endpoint (i.e. conclusion chapter).

I hope this post has provided you with clarity about the traditional dissertation/thesis structure and layout. If you have any questions or comments, please leave a comment below, or feel free to get in touch with us. Also, be sure to check out the rest of the  Grad Coach Blog .

Psst... there’s more!

This post was based on one of our popular Research Bootcamps . If you're working on a research project, you'll definitely want to check this out ...

36 Comments

many thanks i found it very useful

Glad to hear that, Arun. Good luck writing your dissertation.

Such clear practical logical advice. I very much needed to read this to keep me focused in stead of fretting.. Perfect now ready to start my research!

what about scientific fields like computer or engineering thesis what is the difference in the structure? thank you very much

Thanks so much this helped me a lot!

Very helpful and accessible. What I like most is how practical the advice is along with helpful tools/ links.

Thanks Ade!

Thank you so much sir.. It was really helpful..

You’re welcome!

Hi! How many words maximum should contain the abstract?

Thank you so much 😊 Find this at the right moment

You’re most welcome. Good luck with your dissertation.

best ever benefit i got on right time thank you

Many times Clarity and vision of destination of dissertation is what makes the difference between good ,average and great researchers the same way a great automobile driver is fast with clarity of address and Clear weather conditions .

I guess Great researcher = great ideas + knowledge + great and fast data collection and modeling + great writing + high clarity on all these

You have given immense clarity from start to end.

Morning. Where will I write the definitions of what I’m referring to in my report?

Thank you so much Derek, I was almost lost! Thanks a tonnnn! Have a great day!

Thanks ! so concise and valuable

This was very helpful. Clear and concise. I know exactly what to do now.

Thank you for allowing me to go through briefly. I hope to find time to continue.

Really useful to me. Thanks a thousand times

Very interesting! It will definitely set me and many more for success. highly recommended.

Thank you soo much sir, for the opportunity to express my skills

Usefull, thanks a lot. Really clear

Very nice and easy to understand. Thank you .

That was incredibly useful. Thanks Grad Coach Crew!

My stress level just dropped at least 15 points after watching this. Just starting my thesis for my grad program and I feel a lot more capable now! Thanks for such a clear and helpful video, Emma and the GradCoach team!

Do we need to mention the number of words the dissertation contains in the main document?

It depends on your university’s requirements, so it would be best to check with them 🙂

Such a helpful post to help me get started with structuring my masters dissertation, thank you!

Great video; I appreciate that helpful information

It is so necessary or avital course

This blog is very informative for my research. Thank you

Doctoral students are required to fill out the National Research Council’s Survey of Earned Doctorates

wow this is an amazing gain in my life

This is so good

How can i arrange my specific objectives in my dissertation?

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Why does a masters thesis need to be 50+ pages? Especially if the same work is published in a <20 page article?

I stumbled across this post:

Is it ethical/legal to publish Master thesis manuscript as a journal paper?

Let me quote the top poster.

However, an MSc thesis is typically 50-100 pages long. A paper is (in a dense journal format) typically 8-12 pages long. Let's make a generous estimate for 20 pages in the thesis layout. So either your thesis is very thin, or the journal is very generous, both of which seems unlikely.

I'm currently finishing my master thesis. My professor likes the empirical results and told me I should orient myself to some journal articles in the respective journal he wants me to publish.

Why does a master thesis have to be 50-100 pages long?

I have written some parts of the thesis before and now that I am writing with the publication in mind I cut out >50%. I've realized that almost all of it was unecessary, boring "fluff" about definitions that every informed reader already knows or if not could find out much more easily online than reading my thesis.

Henceforth, the quote above concerned me.

I thought there is no problem in writing for a journal at the same time while writing the thesis. I plan to hand in my master thesis with approx. 30 pages. Everything is concisely explained. All other supplementary stuff will be pushed to the appendix.

I always found it particularly upsetting to have a minimum page number requirement. If its good, its good, or am I wrong?

• 4 Does your institution have a 50 page minimum, or are you just taking that from this SE post mentioning what is "typical"? –  Bryan Krause ♦ Commented Mar 29, 2023 at 14:13
• 1 My university also has guidelines that master-thesis "should" be around 60 p. (+/- 10%). Of course I need to reconcile that with my own University. Yet still, this seems to be a wider trend in academia? I've seen thesis in our library database that write up to 80-100 p. even though the essential point could be made in under 40. –  rememberthename_ Commented Mar 29, 2023 at 14:22
• Many schools still apply formatting such as double spacing, 12 point font, large margins, etc. to theses as a carryover from the days where they were microfilmed. This can easily double to quadruple the page count from a dense journal format. Page count is thus impossible to compare. Word count would be a more accurate comparison. –  user71659 Commented Mar 29, 2023 at 23:30

Actually, a masters thesis only needs to be as long as it needs to be. There may be some expectations by individual university departments or advisors on some minimum length, but not universally true.

In some fields theses might naturally be longer. My daughter's philosophy doctoral thesis was longer than my (quite long) math doctoral thesis as she needed a lot of supporting material and I only needed proofs.

If 30 pages is fine with your institution, then it is fine for all.

But note that a thesis of any kind normally needs more background material since, among other things, you are trying to convince professionals that you know what you are talking about. A paper, on the other hand, can dispense with saying a lot of what professionals can already be expected to know. So, a paper derived from a thesis is likely to be shorter; naturally so. Not universally so, of course.

• That is interesting. I am writing in economics. Ultimately I would say the empirical results speak for themselve. If I would stretch the thesis this would mean explaining the methodology with 6-7 pages more instead of referencing to a book where it is explained ... writing 3-4 pages on a definition of a phenomena that has already been defined numerous times. I need to check back with my professor what he prefers. –  rememberthename_ Commented Mar 29, 2023 at 14:24
• 3 Make your prof happy for the thesis. Make your editor happy for a paper. Copacetic. –  Buffy Commented Mar 29, 2023 at 14:27
• 1 @HansD. I'd think of a thesis more like a merger between a publishable paper and a term paper you would write for a course. You're applying guidelines that you should apply to a paper to a thing that isn't that. –  Bryan Krause ♦ Commented Mar 29, 2023 at 14:28
• 5 @HansD. the most important point (in my opinion at least) in Buffy's answer is that a master thesis and an article have different goals. For a master thesis you try to convince your instructor that you are good enough. In an article whether you are good or bad is irrelevant. It is all about the content: you have a possible answer to a question and you present your arguments. Different goals lead to different texts and text lengths. –  Maarten Buis Commented Mar 29, 2023 at 14:58

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• Thesis Length
• Writing guide

How Long Should a Thesis Be? Tips for Creating a Perfect Paper

Table of contents

Let professional writers deal with your paper, quickly and efficiently.

In academic writing, a thesis is related to complex papers. Usually, it is called a Master’s or a Doctoral thesis and can be compared to a dissertation. The main differences between them are size and width of uncovered topic. How long should a thesis be? 

Undeniably, it takes months to complete a well-researched work and it's easier to delegate this difficult task to professionals who will help write a thesis quickly and with quality in mind.

Let's look how long is a thesis paperand identify the length of each section:

• Students place abstract on 2 pages
• An introduction should be placed on 3-5 pages
• The Methods section can be up to 10 pages long
• Results take 10 pages
• Discussion can be placed on 15 pages
• The conclusion takes 2-3 pages
• Appendix and other auxiliary parts of work can take up to 30 pages
• Complete paper contains 60-70 pages

If we take the article length, a dissertation should be at least three articles long. Read our guide to identify how long is a dissertation. Thesis takes space of one article. When university students choose a thesis to work on instead of a bibliographic essay, they do it for leaving a possibility to evaluate a research in the future.

There are more questions related to thesis writing appearing. What to include into a good text? If people make theses longer, will they become better? This article is a universal answer to all specific questions concerning proper writing.

Thesis Outline Part 1 – Abstract, Contents, and Introduction

Every academic paper begins with title page. Its structure depends on the chosen formatting style. An abstract follows it. This is an important part that describes thesis utility. It must be short and take 1-2 paragraphs, about 400 words and contain short summary of results, methods, etc. Here are questions to answer in this part:

• What was the reason to write this paper?
• What thesis statement to prove or disprove?
• What were your instruments? (describe main methods of research)
• What did you find out?
• Why are the results important?

Avoid citations, try to use more numbers. An abstract for dissertation or thesis should be qualitative. After it, the table of contents follows. Group all headings and subheadings into one complex list. If figures and tables are used, enlist their names, point page number of each one.

The first big part is the introduction for a thesis . It may seem similar to an abstract. It pursues different goals – reader hooking, providing background information and logical transition to your own research. Here is what you need to disclose in this chapter:

• Enough background information about previous researches should be presented to make readers understand place of text in science system.
• Give an explanation concerning contents – what will be included into thesis.
• Provide readers with verbal ‘road maps’.
• Cite previous works. The citations must be related to text’s goals. Do not list everything you have read about subject.

These sections must take three pages of paper, excluding contents and table lists.

Thesis Outline Part 2 – Methods, Results, Discussion

These are essential parts. They contain information concerning your own research. Answering main question of our post (how long should a thesis be?), these parts must take at least 30-40 pages. Let’s find out what Ph.D or Master’s thesis paper shoud present in these chapters.

The methods section is text’s explanatory part. There you have to provide readers with clear information and details that allow repeating the research and experiments. Traditionally, methods section is divided into three parts – materials, participants, ways of analysis. Materials imply full description of all instruments and quntitative and qualitative methods used for making research.

Participants part, just like a research paper discussion , describes people or subjects analyzed, including regulations of choice. Ways of analysis present all research approaches used to get results. This part describes area and circumstances of your experiments and helps to identify if they were legitimate and relevant.

Results part contains relevant statements of observations with statistical data, graphs, tables, etc. The section is divided into paragraphs, where key results are arranged into sentences at beginning. Do not forget about negative results, if possible. The main goal of section is data structuring to be helpful for readers to make own conclusions. Mention the nature of data found.

Discussion part is where you interpret results and adjust them to a thesis statement and goals. Disclose patterns and relationships between the observations found, find possible exceptions and discuss if the results correlate with previous researches. Each interpretation you make should be supplied with sufficient evidence. Define if materials are working for the future researches as well. This chapter is the richest in referencing to background material and other parts of your paper.

Thesis Outline Part 3 – Conclusions, Recommendations, and References

Here you make the strongest statement concerning observations. Highlight the information you want readers to remember. Explain how the results correlate with the problems you have indicated in the introduction. Describe all new things that are significant in finding a solution and provide limitations examples .

The recommendations part is for giving advice and indicating other actions that will help to solve particular problems. Sound your own opinion about the direction of future research. Most of the time you have to write it. 

Acknowledgment for thesis  is a paragraph where you mention everyone who helped you with composition. Place all cited and used information resources into one list or form an annotated bibliography if needed.

All kinds of data used in writing, not cited and used resources directly go to the appendices part. This section is last. Along with conclusions they may take up to 10 pages.

What is the direct answer to our question? How long should a thesis be? Experts from a writing site assume, it takes about 60-70 pages. It depends on your research and subject. The length does not matter, actually. The most important thing you need to do is make a complete and complex paper. Provide everything from A to Z - no one will recall the thesis length.

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Dissertation findings and discussion sections

(Last updated: 2 March 2020)

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We have helped 10,000s of undergraduate, Masters and PhD students to maximise their grades in essays, dissertations, model-exam answers, applications and other materials. If you would like a free chat about your project with one of our UK staff, then please just reach out on one of the methods below.

Granted that at some point in the discussion you are going to have to link back to this previous research. But you still have the opportunity to demonstrate how you have met that coveted gap in the research and generally made a useful contribution to knowledge.

There are many ways to write up both your findings and discussion. In shorter dissertations, it might make sense to have both of these comprise one section. In longer pieces of work, these chapters are usually separate.

Preparing to write

We also assume that you have used some sort of software program to help you with the organisation of your findings. If you have not completed this process, you must do so before beginning to write. If not, your findings chapter may end up a confusing and unorganised mess of random information. If you need help in this area, make sure to seek it out before beginning to put your findings down on paper.

One of the main issues that students tend to encounter when writing up their findings is the amount of data to include. By the end of the research process, you've probably collected very large amounts of data . Not all of this can possibly appear in your dissertation without completely overwhelming the reader. As a result, you need to be able to make smart decisions about what to include and what to leave out.

One of the easiest ways to approach this task is to create an outline. In approaching the outline, it is in your best interest to focus on two key points. Firstly, you need to focus on answering your research questions. Secondly, you must include any particularly interesting findings that have cropped up as you completed your research.

An outline will give you the structure you need, and should make the whole process of presenting your findings easier. We realise that it is going to be a difficult process to pick and choose pieces of data to include. But you must be diligent in the work that you cut out. A findings chapter that is long and confusing is going to put the reader off reading the rest of your work.

Introducing your findings

It can be up to 40% of the total word count within your dissertation writing . This is a huge chunk of information, so it's essential that it is clearly organised and that the reader knows what is supposed to be happening. One of the ways you can achieve this is through a logical and organised introduction.

There are four main components that your introduction should include:

Reminding the reader of what you set out to do

A brief description of how you intend approaching the write up of the results

Placing the research in context

Letting the reader know where they can find the research instruments (i.e. the Appendix)

With a findings chapter, there should be no suspense for the reader. You need to tell them what they need to know right from the beginning. This way, they'll have a clear idea about what is still to come. A good introduction will start by telling the reader where you have come from in the research process and what the outcome was (in a couple of paragraphs or less).

You need to highlight the structure of the chapter (as you generally will do with all chapters) and where the reader might find any further information (e.g. in the appendices).

Organisation of data

This is really going to depend on the type of project you have created .

For example, if you have completed a qualitative research project, you might have identified some key themes within the software program you used to organise your data. In this case, highlighting these themes in your findings chapter may be the most appropriate way to proceed. Not only are you using information that you have already documented, you are telling a story in each of your sections (which can be useful in qualitative research).

But what if you undertook a more quantitative type study? You might be better off structuring your findings chapter in relation to your research questions or your hypotheses. This assumes, of course, that you have more than one research question or hypothesis. Otherwise you would end up just having one really long section.

This brings us to our next student mistake – trying to do too much within one section.

Subheadings are ultimately going to be your friend throughout your dissertation writing . Not only do they organise your information into logical pieces, they give the reader guidelines for where your research might be going. This is also a break for the reader. Looking at pages and pages of text without any breaks can be daunting and overwhelming for a reader. You don't want to overwhelm someone who is going to mark your work and who is responsible for your success (or failure).

When writing your introduction, be clear, organised and methodical. Tell the reader what they need to know and try to organise the information in a way that makes the most sense to you and your project. If in doubt, discuss this with your supervisor before you start writing.

Presentation of qualitative data

If you have conducted things like interviews or observations, you are likely to have transcripts that encompass pages and pages of work.

Putting this all together cohesively within one chapter can be particularly challenging. This is true for two reasons. First, it is always difficult to determine what you are going to cut and/or include. Secondly, unlike quantitative data, it can often be difficult to represent qualitative data through figures and tables, so condensing the information into a visual representation is simply not possible. As a writer, it is important to address both these challenges.

When considering how to present your qualitative data, it may be helpful to begin with the initial outline you have created (and the one described above). Within each of your subsections, you are going to have themes or headings that represent impactful talking points that you want to focus on.

Once you have these headings, it might be helpful to go back to your data and highlight specific lines that can/might be used as examples in your writing. If you have used multiple different instruments to collect data (e.g. interviews and observations), you are going to want to ensure that you are using both examples within each section (if possible). This is so that you can demonstrate to more well-rounded perspective of the points you are trying to make. Once you have identified some key examples for each section, you might still have to do some further cutting/editing.

Once you have your examples firmly selected for each subsection, you want to ensure that you are including enough information. This way, the reader will understand the context and circumstances around what you are trying to ‘prove’. You must set up the examples you have chosen in a clear and coherent way.

Students often make the mistake of including quotations without any other information. It is important that you embed your quotes/examples within your own thoughts. Usually this means writing about the example both before and after. So you might say something like, “One of the main topics that my participants highlighted was the need for more teachers in elementary schools. This was a focal point for 7 of my 12 participants, and examples of their responses included: [insert example] by participant 3 and [insert example] by participant 9. The reoccurring focus by participants on the need for more teachers demonstrates [insert critical thought here]. By embedding your examples in the context, you are essentially highlighting to the reader what you want them to remember.

Aside from determining what to include, the presentation of such data is also essential. Participants, when speaking in an interview might not do so in a linear way. Instead they might jump from one thought to another and might go off topic here and there.

It is your job to present the reader with information on your theme/heading without including all the extra information. So the quotes need to be paired down to incorporate enough information for the reader to be able to understand, while removing the excess.

Finding this balance can be challenging. You have likely worked with the data for a long time and so it might make sense to you. Try to see your writing through the eyes of someone else, which should help you write more clearly.

Presentation of quantitative data

Something to consider first with numeric data is that presentation style depends what department you are submitting to. In the hard sciences, there is likely an expectation of heavy numeric input and corresponding statistics to accompany the findings. In the arts and humanities, however, such a detailed analysis might not be as common. Therefore as you write out your quantitative findings, take your audience into consideration.

Just like with the qualitative data, you must ensure that your data is appropriately organised. Again, you've likely used a software program to run your statistical analysis, and you have an outline and subheadings where you can focus your findings. There are many software programs available and it is important that you have used one that is most relevant to your field of study.

For some, Microsoft Excel may be sufficient for basic analysis. Others may rely on SPSS, Stata, R, or any of the other programs available through your institution or online. Whatever program you have used, make sure that you document what you have done and the variables that have affected your analysis.

One common mistake found in student writing is the presentation of the statistical analysis. During your analysis of the data, you are likely to have run multiple different analyses from regressions to correlations. Often, we see students presenting multiple different statistical analyses without any real understanding of what the tests mean.

Presentation of quantitative data is more than just about numbers and tables. You must explain your findings and justify why you have run/presented the tests that you have. You could also explain how they relate to the research question. However, depending on how you have organised your work, this might end up in the discussion section.

Students who are not confident with statistical analysis often have a tendency to revert back to their secondary school mathematics skills. They commonly document the mean, median, and mode for all of their results. Now, these three outcomes can be important. But having a good understanding of why you are proceeding with this strategy of analysis is going to be essential in a primarily quantitative study.

That noted, there are different expectations for an undergraduate dissertation and a PhD thesis, so knowing what these expectations are can be really helpful before you begin.

Presentation of graphs, tables, and figures

The first is the use of colour and/or variables. Depending on the presentation of your dissertation, you may be required to print out a final copy for the marker(s). In many cases, this final copy must be printed in black and white. This means that any figures or graphs that you create must be readable in a black and white (or greyscale) format.

This can be challenging because there are only so many distinct shades of grey. In a pie chart, you might show one section as purple and the other as green. Yet when printed, both the purple and the green translate to approximately the same shade of grey, making your graph suddenly unreadable.

Another common error is overwhelming the reader with graphs and tables. Let's think about your outline and subheadings. If you're including a table under each subheadings, it needs to be relevant to the information that is being discussed in that chapter. There is no correct or incorrect number of graphs that should exist within the section, but you should use your judgement about what looks appropriate.

The final mistake we see is the duplication of writing (or absence of writing) when presenting a graph. Some students will present their findings in a graph or table and then write out this information again below the graph. This defeats the entire purpose of using the graph in the first place. So avoid this at all times.

Conversely, other students sometimes include a graph or figure but nothing else. Doing this denies the reader of context or purpose of said graph or figure. At some point, a balance needs to be struck where the reader has the information they require to really understand the point being made within the section.

Analysis and synthesis in a discussion

The purpose of a discussion chapter.

The structure of your discussion chapter is really going to depend on what you are trying to do and how you have structured your findings. If you chose to structure your findings by theme, it might make sense to continue this into the analysis chapter.

Other people might structure it according to the research questions. This clearly indicates to the reader how you have addressed your study. Marking a dissertation usually requires the marker to comment on the extent to which the research questions have been addressed. So by structuring a dissertation that lays out each research question for the marker, you are making their job easier. Needless to say, this a great thing.

Like any other chapter in your thesis, an introduction is an essential component of your discussion. By this point, the reader has gone through your findings and is now looking for your interpretation. Therefore, at the end of your discussion introduction you should highlight the content that each of the subsections will cover.

A conclusion to your discussion section (or a chapter summary) is also going to be beneficial. The length of the analysis chapter is usually quite long, so a wrap up of the key points at the end can help the reader digest your work. It can also help ensure that the reader actually understands the points you are trying to highlight within your project.

Critical thinking

Without any critical thinking, you are really doing yourself a disservice. It will affect the mark that you obtain on your overall dissertation. This is why the analysis chapter is usually weighted quite heavily on the marking rubric.

We tell students about critical thinking and the importance of it on a daily basis. And yet, there does seem to be a general confusion about what critical thinking entails, i.e. what constitutes critical thinking versus what is a simple description.

Critical thinking asks you to provide your own opinion on your topic, which can be daunting at first. For much of your academic career, you've likely been asked to use research to justify a position that has already been set. Unlike critical thinking, this requires you to use other people’s ideas. But even if you're new to it, try and get to grips with what critical thinking entails and use it in your work.

Creating sub-sections

Subheadings need to be informative but not too long. It is possible to layer your subheadings, so you might have a Chapter 2, a Section 2.1 and then a 2.1.1 and 2.2.2. Usually anything after 3 numerical points does not get a number and would not appear in your table of contents.

When creating titles for your subheadings, consider how they are going to look in the table of contents. They need to fit on one line, ideally, so putting your research question as the subheading might end up being too long. Conversely, one- or two-word subheadings usually doesn't give enough information about the purpose of the section.

Finding this balance is important. But remember you can always edit your subheadings retrospectively.

Linking to previous chapters

Ideally, you will be able to concisely and effectively link your research to what has been researched previously. But this can be a challenge. You don't want to repeat what has been said in your literature review or the findings . But you need to pull examples from both of these sections in order to make the points that you need to.

So, how do you tackle this?

One way is by referring the reader back to previous chapters, sections, or subsections. This process can generally be done at the end. You can put in a place holder until you know how your sections will be numbered. For example you might write: “In Section XYZ, the theme of … was discussed. Findings from this study indicate…. (see Section XYZ for details)”. While ‘XYZ’ is obviously not going to be the same section, by using the same abbreviation, you can then search ‘XYZ’ after you have completed writing and replace each term with the appropriate number. This also makes the proofreading process easier.

If you are submitting an electronic version of this document, you may also consider hyperlinks to take the reader to the different sections. But be aware that this can be considerably more work, so you should allow for this in your timescale if it's something you wish to implement.

Let's outline the main takeaway points:

It is essential that you keep in mind the ‘describe, analyse, synthesise’ model.

The findings chapter is essentially the describe part. You need to ensure that you have clearly identified data that relates to your research questions, hypotheses, or themes of your study.

For the ‘describe’ component, you are not looking to support your work with other research, but rather to present your contribution. It is also important to consider your data in the ‘describe’ section. If you have qualitative data, ensure that you have edited the quotes and examples to a reasonable length. Pick quotes that accurately represent your theme. Try not to focus solely on one or two participants (if possible). Ensure that you are demonstrating links between multiple instruments, if you used them.

If you are using quantitative data, be careful about how many statistical tests you run. Make sure you can justify why you chose one particular test over another. When presenting graphs, use a colour scheme that's appropriate for the reader when printing in black and white. Ensure that graphs and tables are appropriately explained, but that the information provided is not duplicated.

From the ‘describe’ element, you move into the 'analysis' and 'synthesis'. These parts usually appear in the discussion and ask you to employ your critical thinking skills to demonstrate how your research fits into the bigger picture. It is often the case that your analysis holds the most weight in the marking scheme. So you should spend considerable time ensuring this section is appropriate. It needs to demonstrate how you have attempted to answer your research questions.

Finally, create an outline before you begin. While this might seem tedious at first, filling in the sections with the appropriate information will mean that you are not writing things over and over again. It'll also make sure you do not go wildly off topic. It is always beneficial to have a second set of eyes assess your work for any errors or omissions. Many students choose to contact professional editors to help with this as they hold the relevant expertise to guide you on the correct path to creating a perfect discussion section that is ready for submission.

In terms of presentation, both the findings and discussion chapters will benefit from a clear and logical introduction and chapter summary. Remember that both of these chapters are meant to inform. You are leading the reader on a journey, so make sure they stay on the path and arrive at the final destination with you!

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How Long is a Thesis or Dissertation: College, Grad or PhD

How long is a thesis

As a graduate student, you may have heard that you must complete a certain comprehensive project, either a thesis or a dissertation. In this guide, we will explore how long a thesis should be, the best length for a dissertation, and the optimal length for each part of the two.

If you read on to the end, we will also explore their differences to understand how it informs each length.

Both terms have distinct meanings, although they are sometimes used interchangeably and frequently confused.

Structure-wise, both papers have an introduction, a literature review, a body, a conclusion, a bibliography, and an appendix. That aside, both papers have some differences, as we shall see later on in this article.

How Long Should a Thesis be

Before discussing how long a thesis is, it’s critical to understand what it is. A thesis is a paper that marks the end of a study program.

Mostly, there is the undergraduate thesis, a project that marks the end of a bachelor’s degree, and a master’s thesis that marks the end of a master’s program.

A thesis should be around 50 pages long for a bachelor’s degree and 60-100 pages for a Master’s degree. However, the optimal length of a thesis project depends on the faculty’s instructions and the supervising professor’s expectations . The length also depends on the topic’s technicalities and the extent of research done.

A master’s thesis project is longer because it is a compilation of all your knowledge obtained in your master’s degree.

It basically allows you to demonstrate your abilities in your chosen field.

Often, graduate schools require students pursuing research-oriented degrees to write a thesis.

This is to demonstrate their practical skills before completing their degrees.

In contrast to undergraduate thesis, which are shorter in length and coverage area, usually less than 60 pages. A master’s theses are lengthy scholarly work allowing you to research a topic deeply.

Then you are required to write, expand the topic, and demonstrate what you have learned throughout the program. This is part of why you must write a thesis for some undergrad in some of the courses.

A Master’s thesis necessitates a large amount of research, which may include conducting interviews, surveys, and gathering information ( both primary and secondary) depending on the subject and field of study.

For this reason, the master’s thesis has between 60 and 100 pages, without including the bibliography. Mostly, the topic and research approach determine the length of the paper.

This means that there is no definite number of pages required. However, your thesis should be long enough to clearly and concisely present all important information.

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How long should a dissertation be.

A dissertation is a complex, in-depth research paper usually written by Ph.D. students. When writing the dissertation, Ph.D. Students are required to create their research, formulate a hypothesis, and conduct the study.

On average, a dissertation should be at least 90 pages at the minimum and 200 pages at the maximum , depending on the guidelines of the faculty and the professor. The optimal length for a dissertation also depends on the depth of the research done, the components of the file, and the level of study.

Most Ph.D. dissertations papers are between 120 to 200 pages on average.

However, as we said earlier, it all depends on factors like the field of study, and methods of data collection, among others.

Unlike a master’s thesis, which is about 100 pages, a dissertation is at least twice this length.

This is because you must develop a completely new concept, study it, research it, and defend it.

In your Ph.D. program, a dissertation allows you the opportunity to bring new knowledge, theories, or practices to your field of study.

The Lengths of Each Part of a Thesis and Dissertation

Factors Determining the Length of Thesis or Dissertation

As we have seen, there is no definite length of a thesis and dissertation. Most of these two important academic documents average 100 to 400 pages. However, several factors determine their length.

Universities- we all know universities are independent bodies. Also, it’s important to know that each university is different from the other. As a result, the thesis and dissertation length varies depending on the set rules in a certain college or school.

Field of study- some fields of study have rich information, while others have limited information.

For example, you may have much to write about or discover when it comes to science compared to history.

As such, if you are to write a thesis or a dissertation in both fields, one will definitely be longer than the other. Check the time it takes to write a thesis or a dissertation to get more points.

Other factors that affect the length of a thesis or a dissertation include your writing style and the instructor’s specifications. These factors also come into play when it comes to the time taken to defend a thesis or your dissertation.

Tips for the Optimal Length for a Thesis or Dissertation

Instead of writing for length, write for brevity. The goal is to write the smallest feasible document with all of the material needed to describe the study and back up the interpretation. Ensure to avoid irrelevant tangents and excessive repetitions at all costs.

The only repetition required is the main theme. The working hypothesis seeks to be elaborated and proved in your paper.

The theme is developed in the introduction, expanded in the body, and mentioned in the abstract and conclusion.

Here are some tips for writing the right length of thesis and dissertation:

• Remove any interpretation portion which is only tangentially linked to your new findings. 
• Use tables to keep track of information that is repeated.
• Include enough background information for the reader to understand the point of view.
• Make good use of figure captions.
• Let the table stand on its own. I.e., do not describe the contents of the figures and/or tables one by one in the text. Instead, highlight the most important patterns, objects, or trends in the figures and tables in the text.
• Leave out any observations or results in the text that you haven’t provided data.
• Do not include conclusions that aren’t backed up by your findings.
• Remove all inconclusive interpretation and discussion portions. 
• Avoid unnecessary adjectives, prepositional phrases, and adverbs.
• Make your sentences shorter – avoid nesting clauses or phrases.
• Avoid idioms and instead use words whose meaning can be looked up in a dictionary.

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Difference between a Thesis and a Dissertation

The most basic distinction between a thesis and a dissertation is when they are written.

While a thesis is a project completed after a master’s program, a dissertation is completed at the end of doctorate studies.

In a thesis, you present the results of your research to demonstrate that you have a thorough understanding of what you have studied during your master’s program.

On the other hand,  a dissertation is your chance to add new knowledge, theories, or practices to your field while pursuing a doctorate. The goal here is to come up with a completely new concept, develop it, and defend it.

A master’s thesis is similar to the types of research papers you’re used to writing in your bachelor’s studies. It involves conducting research on a topic, analyzing it, and then commenting on your findings and how it applies to your research topic.

The thesis aims to demonstrate your capacity to think critically about and explain a topic in depth.

Furthermore, with a thesis, you typically use this time to elaborate on a topic that is most relevant to your professional area of specialization that you intend to pursue.

In a dissertation, on the other hand, you use other people’s research as an inspiration to help you come up with and prove your own hypothesis, idea, or concept. The majority of the data in a dissertation is credited to you.

Last but not least, these two major works differ greatly in length. The average length of a master’s thesis is at least 100 pages.

On the other hand, a doctoral dissertation should be substantially longer because it includes a lot of history and research information, as well as every element of your research, while explaining how you arrived at the information.

It is a complex piece of scholarly work, and it is likely to be twice or thrice the length of a thesis. To know the difference, check the best length for a thesis paper and see more about it.

Here is a Recap of the Differences

• While the thesis is completed at the end of your master’s degree program, a dissertation is written at the end of your doctoral degree program.
• Both documents also vary in length. A thesis should have at least 100 pages, while a doctoral dissertation is longer (over 200 pages)
• In the thesis, you conduct original research; in the dissertation, you use existing research to help you develop your discovery.
• For a thesis, you have to add analysis to the existing work, while a dissertation is part of the analysis of the existing work.
• In comparison to a thesis, a dissertation requires a more thorough study to expand your research in a certain topic.
• The statements in a thesis and a dissertation are distinct. While a thesis statement explains to readers how you will prove an argument in your research, a dissertation hypothesis defines and clarifies the outcomes you expect from your study. Here, you apply a theory to explore a certain topic.
• A dissertation allows you to contribute new knowledge to your field of study, while a thesis makes sure you understand what you have studied in your program and how it applies.

A thesis or a dissertation is a difficult document to compile. However, you should not be worried since your school assigns you a dissertation advisor who is a faculty member.

These advisors or supervisors help you find resources and ensure that your proposal is on the right track when you get stuck.

Check out my guide on the differences between a research paper, proposal, and thesis to understand more about these issues.

Josh Jasen or JJ as we fondly call him, is a senior academic editor at Grade Bees in charge of the writing department. When not managing complex essays and academic writing tasks, Josh is busy advising students on how to pass assignments. In his spare time, he loves playing football or walking with his dog around the park.

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An Investor's Look at Toast and Shopify

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We also talk about how to write an investment thesis and how a journal can help when markets get choppy.

In this podcast, Motley Fool host Ricky Mulvey and analyst Tim Beyers discuss:

• Toast 's quarter and its move into convenience stores.
• Shopify 's impressive profitability and what could put a damper on the e-commerce platform's growth story.

Then, Motley Fool host Mary Long and analyst Asit Sharma discuss how to write an investment thesis.

To catch full episodes of all The Motley Fool's free podcasts, check out our podcast center . To get started investing, check out our quick-start guide to investing in stocks . A full transcript follows the video.

This video was recorded on August 08, 2024.

Ricky Mulvey: Toast isn't playing ball, but you're listening to Motley Fool Money. I'm Ricky Mulvey, joined today by Tim Beyers. Tim. How you doing?

Tim Beyers: Doing well, fully caffeinated, ready to go.

Ricky Mulvey: I'm going to ask you that question a second time because, the market's been a little nuts this week, and Mary and Asit are going to talk about mindset later in the show. How are you right now as an investor? How's this past week been for you?

Tim Beyers: This is the market that is great for me. I know it's not good for a lot of people, and I will not dismiss that, Ricky. But for me, this is when I am at my absolute best as an investor. I get nervous and anxious when the market is going up into the right for reasons that I cannot explain. When we have irrational sell offs, I'm great, man. I've bought two stocks, new positions this week, which I can't talk about because of our disclosure rules. You can ask me about that another time, maybe next week. This is when I am at my absolute best. I love it when the market decides to do full Kermit and run around with its hands in the air and just cannot figure out which way is up.

Ricky Mulvey: Have also been buying. I talked about it with Gillies a couple of days ago. Let's dive into some individual companies you can talk about. One of them your favorites, I should say. I don't know if it's your favorite.

Tim Beyers: That's still my favorite.

Ricky Mulvey: That is the payment software that asks you a question after you check out and get your cup of coffee. Tim, before I get into the numbers, there was a moment in the Q&A, where an analyst asked the CEO, basically, about the international and retail expansion. I was hoping you could touch on that and maybe use a baseball analogy. What inning are we in in terms of building out the platform for these new verticals? I think that's a fair question. I'm not going to use a baseball analogy. Yep. Then described what was happening. Let me throw that at you, Tim. When you look at Toasts quarter, how would you describe it using a baseball analogy?

Tim Beyers: I would say it's very early innings. I'd say, you know, first or second inning. I think to Aman Narang's credit, he's one of the co founders, said, I'm not going to use a baseball analogy, but I will say that, our core business is 11-12 years old, we're one, not even really two years in, so you could draw a similar conclusion here. We've barely talked about the first 10% of the opportunity here, and we may be even earlier than that. I think in terms of their expansion opportunity outside their core business, we've barely scratched the surface. Overall, remember, this is a company that originally targeted 800,000 US restaurant locations as its core market. That's an immediately serviceable market. Now they have said, and I know we're going to get to this a little bit later. There are some other areas they can expand into that open up another 220,000 locations to them. Now we're talking over one million. Right now they're at 120,000 locations. Are we in the earliest of early innings? Yes, we are. Absolutely.

Ricky Mulvey: Let's look at some of the highlights from the quarter, adding 8,000 new locations, so the total now stands at $120,000 positive gap operating income by a SMIG, $5 million, but that's enough to make it positive Tim, and annualized recurring revenue at $1.5 billion. That is a 30% increase from last year. Sounds like good numbers to me, but what from the quarter really stands out to you?

Tim Beyers: Toast has said that one of the ways you want to measure them is on their core profitability metric. Their core profitability metric. I'm going to say this twice so you can do this math for yourself because they report all of these numbers. They take adjusted EBITDA. That is the numerator. Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, they report that on every press release. This quarter, it was $92 million. You take that and divide it by the sum of their subscription gross profit. That's a core piece of their business. They sell subscriptions to the core Toast software, the platform that restaurants subscribe to, and then the FinTech gross profit, which is their share of the business that they help process at all of their restaurant customers. They believe they can get that margin, Ricky up to somewhere between 30 and 35%. They said they can get that stable at that level over the long term. In the latest quarter that is now up to 27.88%. That was a year ago at 5.79%. This is one of those businesses where Toast is saying, here's our target, here's where we think we can get to, and they have unrelentingly marched toward that goal. They haven't slowed down. It's interesting to me that the market says, we don't care about that.

Ricky Mulvey: What is that I heard the formula for it? What is that profitability metric? What's the story behind it?

Tim Beyers: The story behind that profitability metric is, let me put it this way. When Toast goes into a new restaurant group, They will essentially add a loss. They'll do this as a loss leader. They will deploy a bunch of people to help you install their software, and they'll put hardware in your hands, those little tablets that you have seen, if you've gone to a restaurant and you've checked out with Toast, and a server has come up and had a little tablet in their hand, and it says Toast on it. That's all stuff they sell at a loss. Then on the back end, they believe that they will make a significant long term profit, by doing right by you and getting their software and hardware into your hands and helping you do more business at your restaurant group over time. The subscription gross profit and the FinTech gross profit reflect that belief. That the more that you use our products, the more subscription gross profit, the more you will make inside your restaurant group, FinTech gross profit, and for us, once you strip out all of the things that we spend in order to put all this stuff in your hands, the core profits, the adjusted EBITDA, we're going to make a lot of money and so are you. Everybody's going to win here. It's a metric that's designed to reflect what that win, win, win dynamic of the Toast business actually looks like financially.

Ricky Mulvey: One of the stories we got in the earnings call was Taziki's, and they explained how they're able to help them, essentially with the Toast Point of Sale system. They upsell different food items that go well with different drinks. Tim sounds like you're pretty happy with Toast right now, but it doesn't seem like the market is happy with Toast after this earnings release. You said they were unrelentingly going toward this profitability goal. That's usually a good sign for a company. What's the market so unhappy with?

Tim Beyers: I have no idea. The market seems like a teenager that you cannot say anything right like, we're going to get pizza tonight. I'm a vegetarian, and all you ever do is order pepperoni pizza. It's that sort of thing. It feels ridiculous. I do not understand it. I think the guidance was reasonable. It was in line. They didn't beat guidance by any means, Ricky. But the last two quarters, when they have issued guidance on adjusted EBITDA, they've smashed it. They have absolutely smashed their guidance numbers. I don't get it. I don't know why there's so much angst here, but I will say this. I do think this is a good sign for anybody who has not yet opened a Toast position because the market has not yet chosen to believe that what Toast says defines value inside the business. The market is not valuing the company according to those metrics. They're just ignoring it. What I told you about, that core profitability metric, the market doesn't care. They're not paying attention to it. That is not how the market is valuing this business. They're using something else. I don't know exactly what else they're using, Ricky, but they are using that core profitability metric. The institutional investors, do not believe that Toast can scale up its free cash flow margins to much higher than they are today. They just don't believe it. If it does happen, which I believe it will, then I'm going to get paid, and other Toast investors are going to get paid quite well.

Ricky Mulvey: I hope so as a Toast investor. Let's talk about the new verticals. Toast is trying to move into grocery convenience stores, bottle shops. So far, they've got 1,000 new customers in this space. I think of Toast as a restaurant company, but what do you think about this move, and does it affect your thesis for the company?

Tim Beyers: It doesn't affect my thesis yet. It's way too early. I like the idea, especially the idea of putting Toast into liquor stores, because liquor stores have something in common with small restaurant groups that have dedicated owners, because that's really where Toast sweet spot is. It's not in the one, like, somebody who has a bakery shop in one location. That's not Toast score market, nor is it like RBs? It's not that, either. It's in the middle, sit down restaurant, Bistro restaurant group of, 5-20 locations. Liquor stores are like this. Liquor stores, like in a regional area, you might have a group that owns, 5-8 liquor stores. That's actually a great market for Toast, and they tend to use really old Point of Sale technology, and they could benefit. They have to manage a lot of logistics inside those liquor stores because that's a high turnover business. People come in, and they're buying wine, beer, hard liquor, they're buying it all the time. You have lots of supply chain logistics. You have payroll and inventory, just like anything else. You have the other common things that are, areas of interest and or pain for a retail business. I think it's a very smart idea. Regional grocery stores, small markets, local liquor store groups, I think that's an excellent place for Toast to strategically expand.

Ricky Mulvey: Let's move on to Shopify where we are getting a free cash flow story. Yesterday was some welcome relief for Shopify Investors. Last quarter, shop told investors to expect some margin pressure, and this quarter it beat expectations handedly. Free cash flow is up about 250% from the prior year. Tim, I know you like talking about unit economics. That's a unit economic story. What's going on at Shopify?

Tim Beyers: We hope so. It does seem like it. I think it's more a cost management story. I think they've done a really good job of getting on the other side of selling the logistics business and getting back to core principles, so in that sense, sure, it absolutely is a unit economic story here. But what we're seeing is that Shopify is expanding its influence and it's doing good things to capture a larger market. There's just more business being done on Shopify. As they scale up, they do get the benefit of it. As long as they keep their unit economics relatively steady, they are going to get that benefit of rising cash flows, rising margins, as their customers take them up on, just give more responsibility to Shopify overall. You could certainly see that. The gross merchandise volume was up substantially to $67.2 billion, I believe. Now you are at, what is that? $252 billion in annualized gross merchandise volume. That is that's serious business, Ricky.

Ricky Mulvey: Shopify crossed 1 trillion total in gross merchandise volume. President Harley Finkelstein would like us to reflect on that. I think there's another number you want to reflect on. You're giving me a shrug of emoji right now, Tim.

Tim Beyers: Harley Finkelstein is a terrific salesperson, and he he is a brilliant hype man for Shopify. I think you need to know that that he's a brilliant hype man and not take him exactly at his word. He's very good, though. He's a really good servant for Shopify. I don't think that one trillion metric matters all that much. What I will say is that the value that, Shopify can compound value for investors is when that gross merchandise volume number grows, and with it, the attach rate. As really the way that Shopify goes up into the right and gets real hockey stick growth for investors is if there's more business being done on the platform, more sales, more payments processed. Then more of that activity accrues to Shopify. It's roughly stayed stable, though, Ricky. The attach rate isn't going up. It's going down, but I would say it's largely flat. In the latest quarter, that attach rate was 2.98%. The way you get that is two billion in revenue. Divided by 67.2 billion in gross merchandise volume. It's about 2.98%. A year ago, it was at 3.09%. Down a little bit. I would call that roughly flat. The way that Shopify from here at its valuation. If you want today's valuation to look cheap, get that attached rate up to 3.5%, get it up to 4%. If you have vendors, shoppers, the entire ecosystem of people that are participating in the Shopify experience. If they are giving more dollars to Shopify, look out. Today's valuation will look very cheap. If the attached rate doesn't move that much, Ricky, then I think you could make an argument that Shopify is maybe not outrageously priced, but probably at least fairly priced. You need that attached rate to go up.

Ricky Mulvey: You're saying you need them to flex their pricing power a little bit for some hockey stick growth?

Tim Beyers: Yes, I need them to be involved in more parts of the transaction. Yes.

Ricky Mulvey: Any yellow or warning flags in Shopify's quarter. You said Harley Finkelstein is a great salesperson, but, this is also a company where less so to do with the company, more to do with the valuation. It's gotten ahead of its snowboard before. Any signs of caution stand out to you.

Tim Beyers: I don't know that this is a cautionary note, but it is something to be aware of. Payments are now 61% of gross merchandise volume. The business that's being done on the Shopify platform, all of those dollars, a lot of it that, Shopify gets credit for is there, not because there's a lot more commerce being done on the platform. Although there is, there is more commerce being done on the platform. The growth is coming from Shopify being involved in more of the payments, more of the transactions. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it is at least a risk because it puts Shopify at conflict with payments processors. They do need to not forget their roots. Shopify needs more commerce to happen on its platform, not just more involvement in payments on its platform. I think that'll happen. They are talking about, greasing the skids for things like international sales. That would be good. You need that. You need more commerce on the Shopify platform, and you need Shopify getting involved in more of those payments transactions. If those things happen, and they don't need to happen overnight, Ricky. This can be slow and steady wins the race here. A little bit at a time. We're expanding the reach of the commerce platform. We're seeing more commerce from more regions on the Shopify. That's a good thing. Then if there's more payments, and there's more Shopify involvement in those payments, that is also a good thing. You don't need much. Like, little incremental improvements will generate big leaps in cash flows. I am cautiously optimistic about the way that Shopify is going about its business. Let's not pretend that this is, smooth sailing from here. There's work still to do.

Ricky Mulvey: Good place to end it. Tim Beyers. Appreciate coming on, and thank you for your time and your insight.

Tim Beyers: Thanks for Ricky.

Ricky Mulvey: As we wrap up, just wanted to note our latest premium podcast launched this week. It's called Epic Opportunities. This is available to members of Epic and the Motley Fools advanced investing services. You can catch the show on Spotify by linking your Motley Fool account or through the Motley Fool App. We'll put links to all of those in the show notes for today's episode.

Ricky Mulvey: All right, up next. We've got a volatile market, and Motley Fool Senior Analyst Asit Sharma joined my colleague, Mary Long to discuss how to write an investment thesis and how a journal can help when markets get choppy.

Mary Long: Asit, it won't come as any surprise to you when I say that this week opened with a whole lot of market turbulence. For today, we're going to focus less on what happened, why that happened, and more talk about what do you do when this stuff happens? Because whether the market stays in correction territory, reverts, re corrects, goes up, goes down, what have you. The fact of the matter is that when you're investing, there will be times when the stock market gets spooked. There will also be times when it gets unspooked, and then spooked again. With all that in mind, what do you do when volatility and uncertainty seem to be everywhere you turn.

Asit Sharma: Mary, there are a few things that I do. One is just totally related to the investing side of it. I try to double down on businesses that I like. Few reasons for this. One is the obvious. If volatility is in full swing, prices are all over the map, then maybe you get some buying opportunities for companies that you already have conviction in. It pays to go back to your watch lists or businesses that you've studied. The second is more of a mindset thing. The market's going crazy. Where do you want to focus your attention on like the flashy news sites that are trying to draw you into more angst? Or do you want to go to a safe place, which is like let me go back to that transcript where Satya Nadella talked about how Microsoft was going to destroy its competition. He didn't use those exact words, but he talked about all that great CapEx investment. That's a place where my mind should be, I think, in times of volatility, focusing on what's going to make money. It's the business results, not the share price.

Mary Long: Fair point, but I have to hone in on something. Is Satya Nadella really your happy place? The Microsoft Earnings call transcript is your happy place?

Asit Sharma: Not really, but this is an investment focus podcast. People don't want to hear about the mundane ways that I get to my happy place. Which is this zig zagy route. Sometimes it starts with just cleaning the inside of my grill. I think I'm starting to resonate here with some people. It may end in a paperback novel, I don't know. This is off topic for us. This is not what folks want to talk about. The market is so volatile You want to hear about that investing happy place. [laughs] That's why I went first.

Mary Long: The investing happy place. We can bring it back to the investing happy place. Here, I'll make a smooth segue. You mentioned Paperback Novels. The other day, on our Members only Live Stream, right in the midst of this Monday, market, mania, whatever we want to call it. You talked a bit about keeping an investment journal and the importance of that and how the idea was that, when times are tough, you've got this written record of why you believe in a company that you can return to. Talk to us a little bit about your investment journal and what goes into it. How do you write an investment thesis right off the bat?

Asit Sharma: So many great questions. First of all, an investing journal it means different things to different people. For some of us, it's a place to deal with our emotions when the markets are really coasting and we see our wealth expanding. It could be a way to just keep ourselves grounded. Just jot down those emotions. I feel really great, but I'm scared at how well this is going, or it could be the opposite. It could be a time like this where you see so much volatility in the markets, and you just want to document that it's unsettling. Maybe just write down what those long term goals are, the ones that got you into your whole investing journey, that's always helpful. For other people, these aren't exclusive sets. It could be more about trying to document why you like a company, what you think its characteristics are that are going to advance it past other competitors in the business world and that's the share price should follow why the share price will rise versus other companies or the market in general. That's always fun to return to, which gets us to your third question here, which is, how do you write a business thesis? What is it? I will tell you when I started in this game, I thought it was about a lot of facts and figures. In fact, if you'd asked me to write a business thesis or an investment thesis about a company, I don't know 10, 15 years ago, I probably would have returned you three pages to prove a point. What's that point? I'm Smart.

Mary Long: I'm smart. Look at your numbers.

Asit Sharma: Exactly. You should listen to me. Look at all this stuff. Look at these reams of data. I'm supporting my points. Sharma, what are your points? I don't know. [laughs] Stocks are going to go up. I learned over time that an investment thesis is really simple. There was a great investor who used to work at the Motley Fool. Some of you may know him if you are in the gaming world. His name is Aaron Bush. At one time he posted on Twitter now X, really succinct bullet pointed list of things you should do as investor. One of the main tenets of that list is like, just narrow it down, dial it down, make it more succinct. Don't overthink this. That is very true as I've come across other investors and learned from so many great investors here at the Motley Fool. An investment thesis should be simple, easy to grasp. You and I should be able to explain in this conversation, Mary, before people stop listening, two or three investment theses to each other, because what you're trying to identify is the crux of why a company should succeed, and that usually is pointing to two or three advantages in the marketplace, how that company is going to capitalize on them. If there are a gazillion advantages that a company has, I will tell you that's too good to be true. There's something on the other side of that coin you may not have looked at. In my mind, it is something very simple.

Mary Long: In preparation for this conversation, I had asked you if there was a company or a stock that maybe you were revisiting in light of all the ups and downs over the past few days. If you wouldn't mind sharing the thesis of that company with us, you took what should have been maybe a simple request, and you challenge yourself because you picked a company that's hard to explain. Let's see if you can do it. Could you share that thesis with us that you drafted up before this?

Asit Sharma: Sure. I want to talk about Lam Research . This company is a leader in the semiconductor industry. It makes machines that make silicon. You need complex machines to build integrated circuits. Lam sells these machines to companies that manufacture integrated circuits. I like this company because it's yes, somewhat cyclical. Mary most of its equipment is used to make electronics. Computers, memory, etc. It's cyclical, but it has a tailwind and an advantage in this economy, which is shifting toward Gen AI products. There are really a few things behind that. One is that Generative AI is increasing demand for a type of storage called N-A-N-D flash storage. That's a type of memory that Lam's tools specialize in. Also, Generative AI is pushing up demand for something called high bandwidth memory. This is really stacking memory on a chip that often surrounds the compute functions of the chip. It's something that NVIDIA is requesting more of and AMD is requesting more of. Companies that make this type of memory or the tools to make this type of memory are going to benefit. Lam is going to benefit from that. It's trading at really attractive forward multiples. The stock is down due to this volatility and a few other factors. I don't know, Macro economic acceleration, more angst in the market, and some slacking off of Generative AI demand, which is going to happen at some point could push shares down further. Maybe they're not such a bargain here. Also, I should note this geopolitical picture we have with China and the semiconductor back and forth between our two countries is going to catch some companies, perhaps like Lam in the middle, Lam has about 39% of its latest revenue [laughs] out of the greater China region. With that, I think my initial thought right now for Lam Research is actually to buy a few shares to dollar-cost average in. I don't own any shares right now.

Mary Long: My next question was going to be, has your mind changed on this, but it sounds like maybe it's a newer idea that's been on your watch list for a minute that now makes sense to jump into.

Asit Sharma: Yeah I think my mind is changing because I've had it on a watch list for a long time. I've studied this company. It is a recommendation in Stock Advisor. There's some free IP for those of you who aren't members of Stock Advisor. We like this company very much. I've looked at it for other services. For me personally, I'm warming to it. The thesis is changing somewhat. Probably the price falling a bit is pushing that. Also, the more I learn about the trends within the Gen AI industry, the more I see that Lam is an essential player. It's not that it doesn't have competition, it does. I wouldn't put it quite on the level of companies like ASML . Another specialized company which has literally no competition right now, but not a bad one to look at.

Ricky Mulvey: As always, people on the program may have interests in the stocks they talk about. The Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against buyer sell anything based solely on what you hear. I'm Ricky Mulvey. Thanks for listening. We'll be back tomorrow.

Asit Sharma has positions in Advanced Micro Devices and Microsoft. Mary Long has positions in Shopify. Ricky Mulvey has positions in ASML, Shopify, and Toast. Tim Beyers has positions in Shopify and Toast. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends ASML, Advanced Micro Devices, Lam Research, Microsoft, Shopify, and Toast. The Motley Fool recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy .

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