1. BIOL1114 Oklahoma State University
Intro to Discussions
BIOL1114
Oklahoma State University

2. What is the Purpose of the Discussion?
Interpret your results
Compare your results to other similar studies
Discuss potential problems with your experiment
Propose future experiments
Relate the significance of your results to a broader context

3. How your discussion relates to the others sections of your paper
It ties everything in your paper together and relates back to your objectives
It is organized the opposite of your introduction-you start narrow and then go broad
Your discussion highlights what was important about your findings and relates those findings to the relevant scientific field
Think of your discussion as the last “wow” section of your paper
You want to both convince and teach your audience

4. Interpreting Your Results:
Interpreting Your Results: [Why unexpected results may not be “failures”]
If your results did support your hypothesis:
Why is this important?
What does it tell you about the system you’re studying?
If they didn’t support your hypothesis:
Do you have thoughts about why your results did not match your hypothesis?
Is there an alternative hypothesis you can think of to explain your results?
Was there some error in your experimental design?
Were there other variables you did not consider?

5. Unexpected Results If your results didn’t support your hypothesis:
Discuss an alternative hypothesis that might explain your results
This is another scientific explanation for your results
Examine and discuss other overlooked variables and potential errors in experimental design
You might want to include info from another paper that had a different experimental setup

6. Discussing Results from Other Experiments
Find at least 2 other scientific articles that looked at the same question or a similar question as you did
What were their results?
Did their results agree with your results?
Was there something they tested in their experiment that you think would have been important to include in your own experiment?

7. Broader Context Why are your results important?
Are you furthering some larger research initiative?
e.g. investigating the effects of different types of light on algal growth to improve the biofuels industry’s knowledge of how to maximize algal growth
Relate everything back to the information you presented in your introduction

8. Narrow Topics  Broader Topics
Your experiment
My results
Results of other studies
Why does it matter?
Broader context