Structuring your Discussion Dr Cheryl Lange

Evans, D & Gruba, P 2002 (2 nd ed.) How to write a better thesis, Melbourne, Melbourne University Press, pp Common thesis structure

Stepping into the void Once you’ve gathered quite a lot of information and even though you have been writing about your research from the beginning, at some stage you will need to begin to write the discussion sections. Writing these chapters may, at first, feel like stepping into the void because you will be trying ot make sense of your results/research data. The following techniques might help get you started on how to structure your chapters.

Tension between the creative and rational brain Our rational brain might tell us we don’t know what our research is telling us i.e. what our conclusions are but our creative brain has been working on the project from the beginning –trying out ideas, accepting and rejecting them The key to starting to write about our research is to bring these unconscious conclusions to our conscious brain. Keep your eyes on the stars and your feet on the ground

Moving unconscious ideas to the conscious – creating a chapter framework 1.Write down things you now know which you didn’t at the beginning of your research (don’t worry if they don’t correspond to your aim). 2.Sort these ‘conclusions’ into groups of associated ideas (aim for 3-4 groups). 3.Ask yourself, ‘Does this conclusion correspond with the aim in my Introduction? 4.Give a heading to each group. 5.Determine their order. These can be section headings. 6.Organise the separate points in each section into sub-headings which follow a logical order. Ideas in following slides taken from Evans, D & Gruba, P 2002 (2nd ed.) How to write a better thesis, Melbourne, Melbourne University Press, pp

A tug of war When you begin to write you will experience tension between what your creative brain wants to write and what your rational brain thinks is best. You will have to make decisions so keep mindful of –your aim and the scope which you set out in your opening chapter

Checking the logic of your structure – two methods Paste the Introduction into a document. Follow by pasting the introductions and conclusions of every chapter into same document. Check if they follow each other logically –Are there repetitions, gaps, etc in the structural flow? Write a one page summary of every chapter. Check if they hang together logically –Are there repetitions, gaps, etc in the structural flow? Do you need to rewrite your introduction and aim? Do any chapters need adjusting?

Writing When writing your discussion chapters, discuss your research within: 1.Current theory (Discuss your work within the theoretical context of your discipline). What can you add to it? 2.Current practice (Discuss your work within the methodological context of your discipline). What methods or procedures worked, what didn’t? Can you suggest improvements? 3.Your own research (Discuss what you see as the limitations in your research) Explain any difficulties you had and what could have been done better in different circumstances. If you discuss the limitations, the examiners know you are aware of them.