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Discussion and Findings

H

A question for those who are or have written long (80,000) thesis in humanities or other qualitative research.

How did you structure this section? I've read advice on having them separate but following a detailed analysis section does the findings risk being a sliver between that and the discussion? Obviously every thesis is different which makes finding good advice a bit hit and miss sometimes.

A

Hi Hunt,

It depends really on your discipline.

As mine was a mixed sociology/cultural studies/anthropology using interviews and content analyses, my findings and discussions were interwoven throughout my four data chapters, structured thematically. The first chapter dealt with the content analysis, and the following three the interview data (but references back to the content analysis throughout).

The downside of this format is it can be more difficult to then re-purpose as journal articles as they need to be self-contained.

H

Thanks.
Mine is currently a big multi-stage analysis chapter to be followed by a big discussion one which is based on some of the outcomes of the analysis. Supervisor is keen on including a chapter on findings between the two as well.
I'm not sure how to avoid repeating things a lot.

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