Oh No! Please Help Me!

[Guest TinklePrincess]

I thought I was just about finished with my dissertation, when I had a glance back over my lecture notes and realised that it says not to include new literature in the discussion section... which is just about all my discussion section is! It says in the handbook (written by the same person) that the purpose of the discussion section is to "critically discuss, compare and contrast your findings in relation to the literature." I thought that's what I was meant to do?! Can anyone help?? I think the two documents are conflicting but they've been written by the same person!

[AnonyMouse_1999]

I thought I was just about finished with my dissertation, when I had a glance back over my lecture notes and realised that it says not to include new literature in the discussion section... which is just about all my discussion section is! It says in the handbook (written by the same person) that the purpose of the discussion section is to "critically discuss, compare and contrast your findings in relation to the literature." I thought that's what I was meant to do?! Can anyone help?? I think the two documents are conflicting but they've been written by the same person!

 

When I did mine the first part was a literature review and second part was a critical discussion of my findings in relation to the literature I had used in the review. In my discussion I only referred to literature I had discussed in the review and therefore did not introduce any 'new literature'.

 

Does this help or have I misunderstood you??

[Guest]

I have only done a small scale research project for my foundation degree but my understanding was that no new literature could be introduced in the discussion section.

 

Sorry

[AnonyMouse_15046]

"critically discuss, compare and contrast your findings in relation to the literature"

 

You're not introducing new literature at this point. This is the literature you have already discussed in the literature review.

 

So the Lit review discusses and criticises the literature you have found and the discussion section is where you discuss your findings in the light of the literature review you have written.

 

HTH