Dissertation Findings and Discussion Section

Arrangements for Writing

Before proceeding to write findings, you need to have a prepared paper. Moreover, you need to provide a list of findings. It means you should use some advanced software to organize your findings. It will greatly ease your entire work. There is no way to provide good findings when you deal with your personal mess. Make sure to organize all the findings beforehand.

One of the important questions within the writing process is the amount of the words in this section. Mostly, it depends on the results of your research work. Surely, you will get a lot of data once conducting profound research on the topic. Still, there is no need to put all the collected data into findings. Make sure to select the most important issues. The ones that explain the problem you have been discovering in your paper.

If you put too much information, you can overwhelm your reader. Be smart and provide only vital data. The best way to provide only important results is to prepare an outline. Often, the outline works as a writing plan. In fact, it can work as a plan of your research as well, with all your main goals outlined. Thus, the data based on the main research questions are to become the main information put into findings.

Introduction of Your Findings

When you have conducted research, you get the results. These particular findings must be properly organized in your paper. In fact, you can be quite descriptive when writing findings. This section can cover up to 40% of your paper. This means you have enough space to provide your research results and explain them. This is a significant part of a dissertation paper. Therefore, it must be organized properly.

Firstly, you need to prepare a logical introduction. Further, you should deal with the other parts.

The good introduction always includes the following elements:

• Reminding the main goals of your research;
• A brief explanation of your research methods;
• Structure of your research;
• Research instruments’ description.

Your introduction must be attention-grabbing and motivating. Your findings need to be written in proper order. First, you explain to the reader your research’s goals/questions. Further, describe how you have reached your goals. You explain the research methods and tools. After, you use the biggest part of your chapter to describe and explain your findings.

Organization of Data

With a good outline, you can start organizing your data. You should always logically present findings. Sure, every finding must be written according to the type of the project. In the case of some IT projects, you are highly welcomed to name all the software used within a research process.

Once you have your research goals or questions, you can use them to organize the findings. Every research issue will get its findings subsection. Thus, you will keep the logical order of the section. At the same time, you need to have at least a few research questions to build a proper structure. As a result, do not try to deal only with one question. Sub questions can be very beneficial for your work. They allow organizing the information and make it understandable for a reader. They can be used as the ultimate reader’s guide. One single piece as a findings chapter cannot work. The information must be brought in small logical portions. It allows readers to easier understand and synthesize it.

Preparation of Qualitative Data

A good dissertation paper always contains qualitative and quantitative data. Moreover, all data is always organized properly. If you have certain interviews and observations, you need to include them in your results. In such a case, you need to arrange the data. Since qualitative data can take a lot of places, you need to come up with ways of cutting it. The information you include must be really important. It is difficult to present qualitative data in numbers and charts. Thus, you need to get back to an outline to get what to do with data. With numerous subsections, you need to get short pieces of information to explain every interview or observation.

You need to provide specific information on the topic. Show what exact instruments you have used to collect data. Finally, with information defined for every subsection, you can decrease it once more. You need to provide only vital data. There is no need for data that does not prove the main thesis. Avoid long quotations. Your thoughts also should be provided in short sentences. You need to find a balance between writing down a lot of data and selecting only the most important one.

Presentation of Quantitative Data

Quantitative data is important for every research. The findings are aimed at revealing the results of certain analyses and research works. It can be challenging to organize quantitative data as well. You also need to arrange data to reveal the topic and assure only the most important information to be included. Readers do not appreciate too many figures and numbers. The statistics can be too overwhelming for your audience. Therefore, numeric data must be provided with some explanations. The explanations always follow corresponding quantitative data.

Organize the data properly. This is the only way to prepare a good findings section. Moreover, you can use advanced software to organize the data automatically. The statistical analysis can be held with the help of software programs. Even such basic tools like Microsoft Excel allow organizing your data accurately. You cannot simply reveal the results of statistical analyses. You must make them clear for readers. The top-notch content always includes correctly organized data and its detailed explanation. You need to know what the analyzed data means and how it can be used further in discussions.

Presentation of Tables, Graphs, And Figures

You need to pay attention to how to present tables, graphs, and figures. It takes time to arrange the mentioned data. Still, modern software and programs allow us to deal with this task easily. You just need to know how to use the available software. Be aware, and there are numerous requirements for how the graphs and tables must be created. You should pay attention to forms and documents’ structure. Mostly, the mentioned data is provided in black and white colors. Sometimes, certain data needs to be outlined in another color.

Typically, you get information about how to presents tables, graphs, and figures in your dissertation’s requirements and writing guide. Make sure to add only important tables, graphs, and figures. There is no need to overwhelm your readers with numeric data and graphs. Use only vital information for your research project. Moreover, never duplicate the data. If you have the information explained in your text, there is no need to put it in graphs or tables.

Discussion Section: Analysis and Synthesis

The discussion section is aimed at providing the most important information. This section is very influential. It suits the following purposes:

• Answer the research questions;
• Reveal yourself within a research process.

This section allows us to contribute to the field of knowledge. You can position yourself as a great researcher and bring important findings. If you have built your paper based on the outlined research questions, you can keep revealing them in this section. It will allow organizing the discussion section properly.

You will address your study in this particular section. The usage of research questions simplifies the discussion section arrangement. You start with an introduction to the question. Further, you get to the analysis and synthesis parts. You need to come up with a good introduction. Moreover, you need to tell your readers what questions they will get answered in the section. The conclusions of the chapter must help readers to share your point of view. Besides, they must be beneficial for an entire field of study. You need to highlight the main point in the conclusions.

Critical Thinking

In the discussion section, you should reveal your ability to think critically. Moreover, the entire dissertation must be built on critical thinking. It is not enough to describe the main points of your dissertation. You need to reveal your personal point of view. That is why critical thinking is so important. Your research work must be conducted properly and revealed in detail in the end. Since you are the one to conduct research, you need to come up with final thoughts. You can refer to other researcher’s ideas as well. Still, this must be information you are about to analyze in your paper. You always need to come up with your personal findings.

Use and Creation of Subsections

The subsections are aimed at organizing your paper properly. The discussion chapter gets a bunch of benefits when you offer readers numerous subsections. It makes it easier for a reader to get the main point of every idea revealed. Besides, subheadings make the information more focused. The reader always knows the answer to what exact research question he will get. Do not deal with too long subheadings. You need to find a balance. Thus, be ready to relate every subheading to a research question but make the subheading really short at once.

Links to The Previous Chapters

The discussion section and findings are final chapters that are based on the results of conducted analyses, investigations, interviews, etc. When preparing the sections, you need to link them to the previous chapters. Thus, your findings and discussion sections must be long enough to reveal the mentioned linked to previous chapters. Besides, you need to provide links without duplicating information that was already included in a dissertation. It can become a challenge. Still, you can handle it. You can refer to the previous sections, subsections, and chapters. It means you can start your text with “In section IX, the issue …was analyzed.” It will let the reader get detailed information on the issue in the mentioned sections. And you will not repeat the information in findings or discussion sections. This will ease the writing process and make editing much easier.

Summary

Findings and discussion sections are the final parts of your dissertation paper. When you need to prepare these parts flawlessly, it is good to follow the next tips and guides:

• Remember the three-component model: description – analysis – synthesis;
• The findings require detailed descriptions and identified data use;
• You need to build your discussion section and findings on research questions;
• Always bring numerous research questions, subsections, and subheadings;
• Never duplicate the information in your dissertation paper;
• Create an outline before starting working on findings and discussions;
• Always organize qualitative and quantitative information properly.