Transcript CHAPTER5
DISCUSSION CONCLUSION RECOMMENDTIONS Discussion section is where you begin to add your interpretations to the work. you start the process of explaining any links and correlations apparent in your data. If you left few interesting leads and open questions in the results section, the discussion is simply a matter of building upon those and expanding them. The discussion section is not always about what you found, but what you did not find, and how you deal with that. Stating that the results are inconclusive is the easy way out, and you must always try to pick out something of value. The significance levels in the statistics is the main point of your discussion section, but the process is usually very complex . It is rarely clear-cut, and you will need to interpret your findings. For example, one of your graphs may show a distinct trend, but not enough to reach an acceptable significance level. Remember that no significance is not the same as no difference, and you can begin to explain this in your discussion section. your results may show a trend that later researchers may wish to explore, perhaps by refining the experiment. For this purpose, you should criticize the experiment, and be honest about whether your design was good enough. If not, suggest any modifications and improvements that could be made to the design. Maybe the reason that you did not find a significant correlation is because your sampling was not random, or you did not use sensitive enough equipment. You should always put your findings into the context of the previous research in your literature review. Do your results agree or disagree with previous research? Do the results of the previous research help you to interpret your own findings? If your results are very different, why? Either you have uncovered something new, or you may have made a major flaw with the design of the experiment. Finally, you can make a statement about whether the research has contributed to knowledge in the field, or not. Unless you made many errors that the results are completely unreliable, you will; certainly have learned something. Try not to be too broad in your generalizations to the wider world - it is a small resesrch and is unlikely to change the world. Once writing the discussion section is complete, you can move onto the next stage, wrapping up the paper with a focused conclusion. Writing a conclusion is the final part of the research paper, drawing everything together and tying it into your initial research. If you remember, a research paper starts with a broad look at the research and narrows down to the results , before the discussion opens it out again. At the beginning of the research paper, you looked at all of the previous research and boiled it down into a research question . In the discussion , you assess how the results answer to this question and discuss its relevance to the existing knowledge in the field. When writing a conclusion, you should try to answer a few questions, as succinctly as possible You answered some questions in your discussion, but the key is to leave some questions that another researcher can expand on for their research project. If you plan a career as a scientist, it is something that you can return to in the future. A good research project, whatever the results , will generate leads for others to follow. This is a very quick synopsis of the results and discussion. Writing a conclusion involves summing up the paper and giving a very brief description of the results, although you should not go into too much detail about this. Anybody reading the conclusion has read the entire paper, so the conclusion merely acts as an aid to memory. This is where you tie in what is known to the body of research highlighted in the introduction ; during the course of your literature review . point out the importance of the study and how it relates to the field. point out how your findings can be used by readers, and the benefits. There is always a reason that something has been learned. Whilst writing the conclusion, highlight any deficiencies in your methods , explaining how they may have affected your results. This will allow the next researcher to refine the methodology and learn from your mistakes, one of the foundations of the scientific process Do your findings open up any suggestions for future research? For a shorter paper, this is not always essential, but you can highlight any possible areas of interest and give some ideas for those following. This is not always applicable, but you can suggest any practical uses for your findings. For example, if you uncovered a link between diet and the speed at which children learn, you could suggest a short plan for ensuring that children receive good nutrition. With writing the conclusion finished, you are almost at the end of your research project Recommendations are based on the conclusion of study. Give a detailed description of the suggestion for future action based on the significance of the findings. Include implications for future use of findings and recommendation for future research. Recommendation should be: Logical – should flow logically from the conclusion. Relevant– must meet the purpose and scope as stated in the introduction section. Flexible – must be practical and workable Brief – write concisely, any reason for recommendation should only be given if necessary. Clear – do not be ambiguous as to how yhe suggestion should bf implemented. Preccise – vague recommmendations usuallyresult from insufficient research/ analysis.