Is It a Discussion or a Systematic Review?

Less experienced writers often fi nd that too much of their discussion seems to be duplicating what they have already written. It is, in fact, a real challenge to place our own results in context without simply recycling the introduction (and methods and results). There are, of course, important parallels between the introduction and discussion, but there are also clear differences in discourse and style.

The introduction describes our understanding of the fi eld when we commenced our research (21) and proceeds from this broad perspective to the small niche which we wish to claim. The discussion proceeds in theopposite direction from our relatively small contribution to broader implications (11). Not surprisingly, therefore, the discussion is the most heavily hedged section of our paper, making generous use of shields (especially modal verbs) and compound hedges, e.g. “These results seem to suggest that …” or “It appears reasonable to assume that …”