The document provides guidance on effectively discussing data in three main areas: 1. It outlines important verbs, adverbs, and prepositions to use when describing trends in data. 2. It presents a checklist for data description and phrases to use for data interpretation. 3. It demonstrates the steps to take in data discussion, including introducing the data, describing trends, comparing trends, and analyzing qualitative data.

1. Data discussion

2. Why learn about data discussion?
◦ When analysing data, it can be challenging to decide what needs to be presented and discussed. You
do not need to comment on all the raw data. Knowing how to identify important trends and focus on
points to support your hypotheses/research aims can make your data discussion more effective.
◦ Data discussion includes data description and data interpretation, which requires you to demonstrate
your critical analysis.
◦ You will learn how to carry out both of them accurately and effectively in this PPT.

3. Verbs to describe trends
Grow
Increase
Go up
Rise
Improve
Drop
Decrease
Go down
Fall
Get worse / Worsen /
Deteriorate
Verbs in yellow are for
describing quality trend,
e.g. air pollution
Verbs in white are for
describing quantity trend,
e.g. student number

4. Verb in base form
(infinitive)
Verb in the past tense Past participle of the verb
Grow
Drop
Grew
Dropped
Grown
Dropped
Increase
Decrease
Increased
Decreased
Increased
Decreased
Go up
Go down
Went up
Went down
Gone up
Gone down
Rise
Fall
Rose
Fell
Risen
Fallen
Improve
Get worse/Worsen
Deteriorate
Improved
Got worse/Worsened
Deteriorated
Improved
Got worse/Worsened
Deteriorated
Verbs to describe trends
Verbs highlighted in yellow are irregular verbs

5. Japan nanotechnology market size
($ million) by industry, 2000-2030
Use of in/ago/since/in the last
◦The size of the Japanese nanotechnology
market increased 2000.
◦The size of the Japanese nanotechnology
market increased 20 years ago.
◦The size of the Japanese nanotechnology
market has increased 2000.
◦The size of the Japanese nanotechnology
market has increased in the last 20 years.
in
since

6. Attention! ‘Ago’ is often wrongly used with ‘since’.
When using ‘ago’, use the past tense, but when using
‘since’, you should be using the present perfect.
◦The size of the Japanese nanotechnology market increased 20
years ago/in 2000.
◦The size of the Japanese nanotechnology market has increased
since 20 years ago.
◦The size of the Japanese nanotechnology market has increased
since 18 years ago 2000 / in the last 20 years.

7. Verb to noun
Verb Noun
To grow
To drop
A growth
A drop
To increase
To decrease
An increase
A decrease
To go up
To go down
An upward trend
A downward trend
To rise
To fall
A rise
A fall
To improve
To deteriorate
An improvement
A deterioration
The size of the Japanese nanotechnology
market increased in 2000 / 20 years ago.
There was an increase in the size of the
Japanese nanotechnology market in 2000/20
years ago.
There has been an increase in the size of the
Japanese nanotechnology market since 2000/in
the last 20.
When describing your data, it is better to vary
your sentence structure. All of the three
sentences on your left have the same meaning,
but are written in different ways.
Japan nanotechnology market size ($ million) by industry, 2000-2030

8. Adverb to describe trends
For large changes For small changes

9. Incline dramatically
Soar / rocket
Decline dramatically
Plummet
Peak
Reach a plateau
oror
Extra verbs for describing trends
Remain stableFluctuate

10. in
of
b
y
Prepositions for
data description

11. Data description checklist
Describe data using appropriate verbs (for quality & quantity) and verb tenses
Use ‘in/ago; since/in the last’ accurately
Vary sentence structures (verb to noun; noun to verb) to describe data
Describe data using appropriate adverbs
Use extra verbs / more advanced ways to describe data
Use appropriate prepositions for data description

12. Phrases for data interpretation

13. may be due to
can be attributed to
can probably be accounted for
is probably a consequence of
would seem to stem from
Advanced phrases for data interpretation

14. 1.Introduce the title of the graph/chart/table
2.Describe & discuss the general trend
3.Describe & discuss the specific trends
Data discussion steps

15. 1. Introduce the title of the graph/chart/table
The bar chart on the left represents
the Japanese nanotechnology
market size between 2000 and
present with the projection until
2030.
Japan nanotechnology market size ($ million) by industry, 2000-2030

16. 2. Describe & discuss the general trend
The overall trend is a dramatic
increase, with the size of the market
going up approximately twelvefold,
from its 2000 starting point of about
$25 billion. This might be due to the
rapidly expanding use of
nanotechnology in many different
areas.Japan nanotechnology market size ($ million) by industry, 2000-2030

17. 3. Describe & discuss the specific trends
Amongst the differently coloured sectors, the most noticeable
change is that more and more market sectors are projected to
be using nanotechnology, and the absolute value of the market
share of all of them will rise. This could be explained by the
fact that as the emerging technology becomes more mature,
confidence in its use will increase. However, it can also be
noted that the dominant sector within Japanese
nanotechnology will continue to be electronics. Probably, this
is because of the miniaturisation of technology concentrating
on reducing it to as small as possible.
Japan nanotechnology market size ($
million) by industry, 2000-2030

18. Make sure you compare trends
Amongst the differently coloured sectors, the most noticeable change is that more and
more market sectors are projected to be using nanotechnology, and the absolute value
of the market share of all of them will rise. This could be explained by the fact that as
the emerging technology becomes more mature, confidence in its use will increase.
However, it can also be noted that the dominant sector within Japanese
nanotechnology will continue to be electronics. Probably, this is because of the
miniaturisation of technology concentrating on reducing it to as small as possible.

19. Analyse
qualitative data
In analysing the interview data, two themes emerged which will be discussed in this section. These
themes were: the complexity and challenges of working with families and the professional satisfaction and
challenges of program planning for children in preschool or childcare.
For each of these graduates, their work with children was clearly the area of their professional lives that
was bringing the most satisfaction, although there were some challenges identified. In the interviews, the
data reveal that they were all seeking ways to improve their pedagogy and achieving success in different
ways…
Angela suggested that in her second year of teaching she had changed in that she was programming in a
"more child oriented" way. She discussed this change:
One of the things I've changed is this idea of herding children through the kinder day: they go from indoor play to
snack time to the mat and so on. How I do it now is that I have a lot of different things happening at once. I'll have
a small group on the mat and there might be some children sitting down and having a snack and there's still some
children in home corner playing.
These comments seem to provide evidence that Angela is growing professionally for two reasons. First,
the ability to identify changes in her program suggests to me that she has deeper pedagogical knowledge
gained through critical reflection on her practice, and second, there is congruence between her expressed
beliefs and the practice she describes.
Main idea
Refer to dataRefer to data
Analysis
1. Identify the main idea in the analysis
2. Identify the phrases to refer to the data
3. Identify the analysis of the data

20. Research question
◦ Do your research findings support your initial hypothesis? Why and how?
◦ Do your findings only support the hypothesis in part? Why and how?
◦ Do your findings disprove your hypothesis? Why and how?
◦ What else do your findings tell you, over and above what you initially set out to investigate?
Writing your discussion
◦ Which has been done by other people
◦ Which has been done by you
◦ And how they complement each other
◦ Point out the agreements and disagreements between your data and that of others.
Discussing your findings

21. Verb tenses for different elements included in data discussion
When to use Tense Example
Location element Present tense • The averaged results are presented in table 4.2
• Table 1 shows
Summary of
procedure
Past tense The influents to filter A and B were analysed fully
on…
Results of analysis
(analytical process)
Past tense The ranges of metal atom concentrations were found
to overlap.
Describe your finding Present tense • My data shows
• The findings indicates…
Your own analysis of
the data
Present tense This discrepancy can be attributed to the small
sample size.
Make reference to
similarities or
differences in
approach or findings.
Past tense • However, Smith (2018) found that...
• Similar research carried out
Compare your
research with earlier
research
Use the present perfect tense to highlight
the recent relevance of your research in
comparison with earlier research
referring to it in the simple past
This study has shown a prevalence rate of 6.5, which
is greater than that found by Smith (2018).
This is where you
can show your
critical analysis