This document provides guidance on writing the findings and discussion chapters of an undergraduate dissertation. It explains that the findings chapter presents the results of the research study, which can include data, tables, graphs and transcripts. The discussion chapter interprets the findings, compares them to previous literature, and explains their implications. The document advises planning these chapters to link each element back to the research aims and objectives. It also provides examples of hedging language to discuss findings cautiously and make academic arguments. Overall, the key points are that the findings and discussion chapters tell the "story" of the research and relate the results back to the original research questions.

1. UG Dissertations: writing up
your findings and discussion
You will be able to…
Explain the role of critical analysis in your discussion
Analyse how your discussion is linked to your research aims
and literature review
Plan a short discussion using research findings
Rhian Wyn-Williams
Skills@ljmu.ac.uk

2. What are your dissertation’s findings and
discussion and what do they do?
In pairs or small groups, discuss the
following:
• Make a list of the type of item or
comment you would expect to
find.
• How do they relate to each other,
and to other chapters of your
dissertation?
These could vary depending on
whether you are doing an empirical
or non-empirical dissertation.

3. What are they? Empirical (separate chapters for
literature, methods, findings and discussion)
Findings/Results Chapter
• What was found as a result of your study
• Use summary data
• Graphs and tables
• Extracts from transcripts
• Calculations
• Details of thematic analyses
• If there is an analysis of the errors or
uncertainties, include them here
• Identification of themes and trends
• Restatement of aims/objectives/hypothesis
Discussion Chapter
• A summary of the main results of the study
• How your results prove or disprove your
hypothesis
• Comparison of your results with other
investigations or literature
• Factors which may have influenced your results
• Implications of the results
• Interpretation of what you think the findings
mean/show
• Suggestions for why you got the results you did
• Restatement of aims/objectives/hypothesis

4. There is no single, correct way of writing them
but they all should:
• Explain what you think your evidence/findings
mean: analysis
• Compare your research and analysis of your
evidence with the research and analyses of
others: review of the literature throughout.
• Contribute clearly to your conclusion: it is a
step in building up your argument.
• Always show relevance to your research aims.
What are they? Non-empirical (themed chapters
discussing findings and literature)

5. Findings and Discussion: find your story
Regardless of which type of dissertation you are writing, your findings
and discussion ‘tell the story’ of your research: you will have a mass of
material and ideas in your head that you need to turn into a text that
makes sense.
Find your focus: what have you learnt?
- write a sentence for each
- organise them into groups
- check them against your aims and objectives (are they
relevant?)
- plan how to order them (following your objectives/develop
new themes)
But keep sight of the big picture: significance and patterns identified.
What will help you support your argument/points?

6. Results/Findings Chapter
Your results/findings chapter
will vary enormously depending
on your subject and the type of
research you are doing.
What could effect the way you
present your findings?

7. Quantitative results:
Table 5 shows the most common modes of computer
infection in Australian businesses. As can be seen in
the table, home disks are the most frequent source of
infection.
The influents to filter A and B were analysed fully on a
number of occasions, and the averaged results are
presented in Table 6.1. It can be seen from the table
that the wastewaters from plants A and B and of
similar composition.
Usually presented in figures and tables, not raw data.
Think about these key features:
• show calculations if relevant
• summarise information given in the figure or table
• highlighting statement to point out the significance, e.g.
trends, patterns, results
Look at these examples. Where are the key elements?

8. 6.4.3 Themes from the Interview 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 highlight that Angela is growing professionally for two reasons.
First, the ability to identify changes in her programme through critical reflection on her
practice, and second, the congruence between her expressed beliefs and the practice she
describes.
Qualitative
results:
Text-based, and rarely would
have tables or graphs.
Refer to specific words and
phrases, often quotes.
Think about how careful
introductions of sections and
subsections can help you ‘find
the story’

9. Discussion
• Whether you are writing your discussion as a
separate chapter (empirical), or writing themed
chapters (non-empirical) you need to think
about what it is and what it is for:
• It’s where you show what you think your
findings mean.
• It’s where you may want to explain why you
found what you did.
• You could think of it like an essay answering
your research question with your evidence.
• It’s like a conversation between your research
and the research of others: keep linking back to
the literature.

10. Discussion
83% of respondents said that
environmental issues did not
influence their travel choices as
tourists.
That contradicts Jones’
argument that ‘most
people’ do now consider
the environmental impact
of tourism (2017, p.82).
Maybe this project’s participants were
less concerned than the average because
they were all students on a budget who
said low cost was their priority.
In your groups, read through either the extracts from
some non-empirical discussion chapters or the one
from the empirical chapter.
What do these tell you about how you can develop
your argument in this chapter?

11. This means that you need to think about
where your findings link to the literature
Aim Objective Findings Link to reading Critical Analysis
Do your findings
challenge what
you have read, or
offer further
evidence for
established
arguments? How
do they compare?
What these
findings mean to
you in relation to
your research aim
and objectives?
Find reasons for
them and draw
conclusions.

12. Planning your chapter. Have a go…
You have:
• the aim
• a paragraph from the literature review
• some findings
• from one of last year’s dissertations.
• You also have a version of the planning grid
with one of this student’s objectives to focus
on already filled in.
• In your groups, use the grid to firstly discuss
and then plan and what could have been in
this dissertation’s discussion.

13. Useful language: hedging -
caution in academic writing
In the academic world nothing is a 100% certain. Use language to
show that you understand that.
Rather than rushing in with ‘the’ answer, stop and add some caution.
• use impersonal subjects (It is believed that ..., it can be argued that ...)
• use verbs such as would, could, may, might.
• use qualifying adverbs such as some, several, a minority of, a few,
many to avoid making overgeneralisations.
• Globalisation is a positive development for
nations. 
• Globalisation is perhaps beneficial for a
number of countries in several areas (Smith,
2006; Chen, 2008). 

14. • These findings support the assertions of Roberts (2018)
• More surprisingly are the differences between the
responses at interview to those expressed on the
questionnaires. This seems to support Davenport’s (2017)
statistical work outlined earlier.
• There are similarities between the attitudes expressed in
this study and those described in previous studies (Fox
2014; Beaumont,2017) in relation to students’ perception
of progress.
• Thus, it can be suggested on the basis of these findings,
that there is a difference in perception between staff and
students in relation to the effectiveness of Directed Study
Week (Doran, 2018).
• It may be argued that this study has presented some
unusual findings.
• It is apparent from this table that…….
• Overall it can be seen that there is no
difference in perception of effectiveness
between male and female participants.
• A significant number of the respondents
argued that LJMU should provide more
Directed Study Weeks.
• The interviews with academic staff suggest
that there is a link between their enthusiasm
for additional classes and students’
perceptions of effectiveness. This is clearly
demonstrated in Table 3, which shows the
frequency of positive language markers in the
interview tape scripts; within individual
faculties and between students and staff.
Further examples of language
Findings Discussion

15. Reflection…..
• Which aspects of planning and writing about
your findings and discussion would you now
make sure you remember?
• Why?
• How will you make those improvements?

16. Next steps
Next week:
Academic Writing: paragraphs
(make sure your ‘research story’ is well
structured and logical)
Academic Writing: developing your academic
language
(your research needs to be expressed clearly
and appropriately as a piece of academic work)
Academic writing: introductions and
conclusions
(to help structure and signpost your research)