so one of the really important things that you've got to do in a thesis or in a research paper is to discuss the results but how do you actually do that is there like a universal formula that you could use you know regardless of the field that you're in that's going to work for you well the answer is yes and i want to present you with that formula in today's video so let's dive right into it if you're new here just before we start my name is marek kuchkovic and i run academic english now where i help university students especially phd students help them accelerate their phd journey write an excellent thesis and research papers for high impact journals if you enjoyed this video then definitely hit the subscribe and the like button so you don't miss future videos and in this one i want to focus on a very important section of a research paper or your thesis which is the discussion section so this happens you know you once you've presented your results then you need to discuss them but what does that actually mean and how can you structure the discussion section so that it flows really well is coherent and you know is there a structure a universal paradigm that you could follow regardless of what your field is regardless of whether you're doing you know second language acquisition or you're doing quantum physics or biology or something else right and the answer is that there is a universal paradigm and a universal structure that you can follow and implement in your thesis or in your research paper so what is that structure well um the first element is to restate the main result so what happens first is that you've got to state the result or restate that result that you're going to discuss right and you know if we look at it on the level of a paragraph that's going to be the first sentence of the paragraph we restate the main result that we're going to discuss and then the second thing that we do is we compare that result with the literature in other words we want to show the similarities and the differences between our results and the results that previous researchers have obtained right so you know you basically want to show us how your results fit into the larger field now after you've compared your results this you know if we look at the level of the paragraph this can be like two sentences or something like this in a paragraph typically what we're going to do next is explain our results so what you might do is let's say if there are differences between your results and the results of previous researchers then you want to explain those differences and tell us why they might have occurred maybe they occurred because you used a different method or maybe you had other participants or you studied other materials or something like that right you've got to give us an explanation for that difference if there is no difference then you could also focus on explaining why you obtained a particular finding so if you've got an interesting maybe an unexpected result then as a reader i want to know why you know why you obtain this interesting finding so that's the third aspect explanation now the fourth aspect is to interpret the findings in other words in here you want to you want to tell us basically what your findings mean right what is the main takeaway message and this is something that i find you know a lot of phd students forget to do you know they they write a paragraph and then they forget that they should they should tell us what these findings mean like you know sometimes i read a paragraph in the discussion or the results section and you know and i kind of think to myself and and so what you know what does all this mean right and that's the interpretation aspect you know think you know for example um how can these findings be applied in practice well what how should we see those practices how should we how should we see those results how should we read them what should the reader think right so organizing the discussion section you know regardless of what field you're in is very simple you know you start with restating your main results and then you compare your results to the literature and then number three you explain your results or the differences with literature and number four you interpret your results and you can do that in a single paragraph as well or that can be a framework for like organizing you know a larger chunk of your discussion section so if you've enjoyed this video if you found it valuable then definitely hit the subscribe button hit the like button but also i'd encourage you to schedule a free one-to-one strategy session with me and you might be wondering you know what is a strategy session why should i schedule it well it's going to be a one-to-one meeting between you and me and during that session we're going to first identify um what is holding you back and then we'll pinpoint exactly what you want to achieve and then we'll outline a plan a strategy that will help you achieve these goals faster and then if it sounds like it's a good fit for both of us then we can talk a little bit further as well you know how we could work together and how specifically i could help you to achieve your goals so if you want to do that then the link to book that free one to one strategy session is somewhere around this video in the description either below or above [Music]