Discussion/ Conclusion

Scientific Research Publications The shape of a research article or thesis.

Structure 1/2 The title of this subsection varies from journal to journal. Some journals end with a subsection titled Discussion, some end with a subsection titled Results and Discussion and others end with a subsection titled Conclusions. In the first two cases the elements which need to be included in the Discussion are similar. Where there is a Conclusions section, it is short, usually comprising one or two paragraphs focusing on specific aspects of the Discussion.

Structure 2/2 The graphic representation at the beginning is symmetrical because many of the elements of the Introduction occur again in the Discussion/Conclusion in (approximately) reverse order. The Introduction moves from a general, broad focus to the narrower ‘report’ section of the paper/report, and the Discussion/Conclusion moves away from that narrow section to a wider, more general focus. The Discussion looks back at the points made in the Introduction on the basis of the information in the central report section.

Writing the Discussion/Conclusion  How do I start the Discussion/Conclusion section?  What type of sentence should I begin with?  What type of information should be in this section, and in what order?  How do I end this section? although you may think that you have no idea of how to write the Discussion/Conclusion, you actually know a lot about what to include and in what order.

Writing the Discussion/Conclusion section Read the given Discussion/ Conclusion section. The title of the paper is: Cognitive-behavioural stress management (CBSM) skills and quality of life in stress- related disorders. Don’t worry if the subject matter is not familiar to you or if you have difficulty understanding some of the words, especially technical terms such as Cognitive-Behavioural. Just try to get a general understanding at this stage and familiarize yourself with the type of language used.

Grammar and Writing Skills In these sections you are writing about the reasons, interpretations and implications of your results and you often need to communicate that something is a possible reason, or an obvious interpretation or a probable implication. Here is a typical sentence from a (combined) Results and Discussion section: The kinetics can be described by these equations, suggesting that the electrons are transferred directly. This might involve a supercharge mechanism, but the data could also be described by electron transfer via a hopping mechanism.

Try this… AB 1.SHOULD 2.MUST 3.CAN 4.OUGHT TO 5.MAY 6.COULD 7.NEED TO 8.MIGHT 9.HAVE TO ABLE/CAPABLE  He … go home by himself. (He is able to go home by himself.) POSSIBLE/OPTIONAL  He … go home. (It is possible that he will go home.) PROBABLE/LIKELY  He … be home soon. (He will probably be home soon.) VIRTUALLY CERTAIN  He … be at home. (It is virtually certain that he is at home.) ADVISABLE  He… go home. (I advise him to go home.) NECESSARY  He … go home. (It is necessary for him to go home.) match the modal verbs in Column A to their meanings in Column B

Writing Task: Build a Model You should spend 60–90 minutes on this task. If you can’t think of a good description of the first sentence, choose an easier one, for example Sentence 3, and start with that. Your model is only useful if it can be transferred to other Discussions/Conclusions sections, so don’t include content words such as stress or you won’t be able to use your model to generate Discussions/Conclusions sections in your own field. Remember that one way to find out what the writer is doing in a sentence, rather than what s/he is saying, is to imagine that your computer has accidentally deleted it. What changes for you, as a reader, when it disappears? If you press another key on the computer and the sentence comes back, how does that affect the way you respond to the information? Another way to figure out what the writer is doing in a sentence — rather than what s/he is saying — is to look at the grammar and vocabulary clues. What is the tense of the main verb? What is that tense normally used for? Is it the same tense as in the previous sentence? If not, why has the writer changed the tense? What words has the writer chosen to use?