The Principles of Biomedical Scientific Writing: Discussion

The discussion section of a scientific paper is supposed to interpret and elucidate the significance of the study findings, highlight current knowledge available on the research problem being investigated, and explain the novel aspects emerging from the findings of the study in moving the field forward. A well-written discussion should provide clear “statements of the main findings”, “possible explanations and implications”, “strengths and weaknesses of the study and other studies”, “unanswered questions”, and “suggestions for future research”. The authors also need to clarify the external validity of the findings and show how the findings can be generalized. In this review, we focus on the function, content, and organization of the “discussion section” of a hypothesis-testing paper. Beyond providing the most important principles and common strategies for organizing the discussion section, we also discuss metadiscourse, scientific explanation (reasoning and contextualization), and models of scientific explanation.