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How to Write a Dissertation Literature Review?
August 15, 2022
What is a dissertation discussion?
It involves a collective discussion of any unresolved or controversial issue to establish the truth. A common opinion should result from the debate without disagreement. You must create the fact without accepting one view a priori as correct. It requires careful preparation and is always limited in time.
One of the benefits of discussion is that it reduces the moment of subjectivity, because the beliefs of individuals or groups are generally supported, making them absolute. Conversely, it necessarily promotes a better understanding of opponents if it does not result in universal agreement.
You may find it difficult to write the section that discusses your manuscript because it requires you to think about the meaning of your research. You should explain to the reader why your research is important and what it means.
In a nutshell, your discussion answers the question, “what do my results mean?” Following the methodology and results, the manuscript discussion should follow. Literature reviews should consider your results within the context of the questions raised in your introduction.
Why is a Dissertation Discussion Important?
Dissertation discussion sections serve two purposes: a) they express your viewpoint on the research topic, and b) they answer the research questions introduced in the introduction.
You will be adding value to the existing literature within your field of study with every piece of information you present here. Working out the best structure for your dissertation discussion section will depend on how you organized your findings in the preceding chapter.
Depending on what pattern you chose in your findings section, you might want to organize your analysis and discussion by theme. Generally, however, academia uses a discussion structure based on research questions as it provides a clear indication of how you have addressed the study's objective.
Each research question is required to be evaluated by the supervisor or committee members at most UK universities. It will be in their best interest if you separate your discussion into questions according to the research question.
Regardless of the type of writing you are doing, every piece of writing should begin with an introduction. In the introduction paragraph that follows the study results, you may want to summarize the contents of the discussions that follow (as explained above). The discussion chapter should also end with a concluding paragraph - allowing your interpretations to be summarized.
Pro Tip: Since dissertation analysis and discussion chapters are usually lengthy, it makes sense to emphasize the key points in a concluding paragraph. The reader will also be able to understand your analysis if you do this.
What are the ingredients of a dissertation discussion?
The dissertation discussion chapter demonstrates your abilities to describe and analyze the results of your research - allowing you to explore the relevance, significance, and meanings of your findings.
Using your research findings, demonstrate how you answered the research questions established or tested the hypothesis. The dissertation analysis and discussion chapter lay the foundation for your overall conclusion. The results must be discussed in a precise manner.
To ensure you stay on track when writing your dissertation discussion chapter, here are the main elements of this section:
- Interpretations: Why are your findings significant?
- Implications: In what way would your findings benefit academic and scientific communities?
- Limitations: Do your results have any implications in certain situations?
- Future Recommendations: Recommendations to other researchers and scientists who explore this topic further in the future.
In writing the dissertation discussion chapter, you need to make sure that the results you mention are aligned with the question, aim, and objectives of your research. There is often overlap between the discussion and conclusion chapters. The Discussion and Conclusion sections may be combined into one chapter, depending on your university.
Sometimes, the results and discussion are combined into a chapter called Results and Discussion. The next section will explain this in greater detail.
In what ways does the discussion overlap with other sections of the thesis?
Several of the points discussed in the thesis discussion section overlap with those in the results section - the results section presents the data, and the discussion section explains it. Research types (qualitative vs. quantitative) differ in how the discussion section is structured. It is common for discussion and results in sections to be merged in qualitative research, such as in Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS). The sciences domain typically separates these sections in thesis studies involving quantitative research.
Discussion sections in theses also overlap with conclusions; the discussion sections present detailed analyses and interpretations of the data; the conclusion sections summarize the main conclusions. Some fields of study may also combine the discussion and conclusion sections.
Pro Tip: Consult your supervisor and check your academic institution's requirements if you are unsure of which structure to use.
What are the steps of writing a dissertation discussion?
Below are the steps:
Note: Facts that are established must be mentioned in the present tense. Refer to previous studies in the past tense.
Step 1: Analyze Your Findings and Provide a Summary
Provide an overview of the key findings of your research questions at the beginning of your discussion. Repetition of previous chapters' information is not recommended.
You will be required to interpret the results in one or two paragraphs to address the original research questions. You can present your findings in a few different ways:
Examples:
- Result confirms that",
- Analyses indicate that",
- According to the data,
- As a result of the research, it was found that, etc.
Step 2: Analysis of Results and Interpretations
While the results might seem obvious to you, your audience will expect you to explain them. Readers should be able to understand the value of your research by clearly linking the results and interpretations to your research questions.
Depending on the type of research, you will choose a different method for interpreting the data. Among the most common strategies are;
- Explanation of how and why you arrived at unexpected conclusions and their significance
- Analyzing previous studies and relating your findings to them
- If any alternative explanations are suggested, explain your position with logical arguments
- A detailed discussion of whether the findings answered your research questions and/or supported your hypothesis
The Discussion chapter can begin with the following examples:
- According to this study, the findings contradict those of Sara et al., (1997).
- According to these findings, A is..... despite the findings of Sara et al., (1997) and Mike (1995)."
Step 3: The implications of your study
Does your study have any practical or theoretical implications for other researchers?
The reader must be able to discern how your research will contribute to existing knowledge by relating your results to the existing literature. In order to determine the potential consequences of your findings, you should ask yourself the following questions:
- How does your research contribute to previous studies? Is it in line with previous findings?
- Is there a reason why your results are so different from those of other studies on the same topic?
- Are your findings in agreement with or in conflict with existing knowledge?
- In what ways does your study have practical implications?
If you want to make a contribution to the existing literature, then you should briefly describe how your study will do this.
Examples:
- The results do not match the theoretical perspectives",
- This study's findings need to be taken into account in future studies, since"
Step 3: Acknowledge Your Research Limitations
Acknowledging limitations in your research will strengthen your credibility as a scientist.
Other factors, such as unexpected research obstacles, methodological decisions, and the overall research design, may have influenced your study's results, in addition to the possible human errors.
Be careful not to mention limitations that are irrelevant to your research purpose, but clearly state those that may have impacted your findings.
A tiny population sample size, for example, may not allow you to generalize your findings.
Research limitations can also affect your results. Explain to the reader why the findings of your study are still valid despite these obstacles.
Examples
- A small sample size limited the generalizability of the findings.
- Results may not be as authentic as they seem because of...
- Data collection obstacles led to...
- This research is beyond its scope...
Step 4: Future Research Recommendations
Research limitations directly affect recommendations for future research, however, other researchers can build on these recommendations by including the areas you could not report in your research work.
The recommendations are sometimes included in the conclusion chapter.
Get a Dissertation Proposal – Get Going!
Dissertation Proposal Lays Down the Outline of Your Final Dissertation
Get a Dissertation Proposal that matches your requirements, which includes the topic title, research aim and objective, research questions, research gap, literature review, methodology and list of reference papers.
The Dissertation Proposal will be foundation of your final dissertation. It is very important to get this done perfectly to avoid any problems!
Tips and Tricks for Writing Powerful Discussions
Students often struggle with this portion of their dissertation, where they need to demonstrate a high level of analytical and critical thinking skills as well as demonstrate that their research contributes to the current state of research in their field. The tips in this section will help you cope with this challenging task by helping you write a convincing discussion section.
- The findings should be analyzed from a general to a specific perspective. You should first relate them to existing literature, then to a specific theory, and then explain how they relate to practice, if applicable.
- Your introduction should use the same key terms, definitions, and narration style as your conclusion.
- Your research problem should be stated and your major findings should be discussed, including the key methods you employed during the investigation.
- Integrate your findings with theoretical background and explain their significance. An interpretation can be based on identifying patterns, correlations, principles, and relationships between major findings; discussing whether your findings support your hypothesis; or considering alternative explanations. Try to understand why you believe some unexpected findings appeared by analyzing them and attempting to interpret them.
- Describe your findings and how they relate to previous research and existing knowledge. Compare and contrast your findings with those found in other studies to demonstrate what new insights your study has produced.
- For your research to be credible, you must acknowledge its limitations. Discuss issues and questions not addressed in your study. Comment on whether these issues may affect its validity.
- Discuss the implications of your findings and why they support broader knowledge.
- Make recommendations based on your findings, including limitations, as well as concrete ideas on how future research can address issues your investigation could not address. You should be very specific and provide concrete examples of how future research could be conducted to address these issues.
Are there any problems to avoid?
- When writing this chapter of your dissertation, you should avoid some common mistakes.
- Whenever possible, only discuss previously reported results - never introduce new ones.
- Make sure your conclusions are supported by data and do not rely on speculation.
- Boost credibility by discussing limitations rather than highlighting the weaknesses of your study or failures.
FAQs About Dissertation Discussions
- An overview of your key findings
- Providing an answer to your thesis question
- Interpretation of your results
- Implications of the findings
- How the results are limited (i.e., what they cannot tell us)
- Application suggestions for your findings
- Recommendations for future research
- Results restated
- In the results section, all new results presented in the discussion section must be presented as well.
- Invalid speculations based on your data
- Thesis or hypothesis-related results that aren't directly related
- There is usually a section in the results section for tables and figures
