18. Discussion

The discussion is your chance to shine, whether academically or professionally.

The literature review section introduced the latest developments in your field, you then presented your methodology to further the current knowledge, and latter revealed your results. You are now expected to make sense of your results and interpret them.

In a College or University context, the discussion section typically carries a large portion of the marks, as it demonstrates the student's understanding of the work they have undertaken. The same is true in a professional environment, where a careful analysis and discussion of the results will be expected.

The key to a successful discussion is to be critical. You need to show that you have understood your results through a careful analysis, but you also need to relate that to the wider context: how do your results compare to other published work? This is known as a benchmark, which you can use to validate the outcome of your experiment.  Furthermore, how accurate are your results? you may want to undertake an uncertainty and sensitivity analysis to quantify the accuracy of your results, and the impact of the potential inaccuracies.

The discussion is also an opportunity to formulate your own theory, underpinned by your results as well as other publication. You can then, and in fact should, offer counter arguments to any obvious critics that could be made of the hypothesis you have formulated.

The discussion should therefore be a critical analysis of your results, building on the literature review and benchmarks, but taking it further, with a critical analysis and relations to the wider context in your field.