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Tips for Writing the Results Section 
•	Report key findings in logical sequence. 
o If you are reporting on a study whose steps/experiments were determined in advance, 	the logical sequence will likely be most important to least important. 
o If you are reporting on a study in which one experiment determined the next, the logical order is chronological with each subsection presenting an experiment’s question, overview, and result(s). 
•	Do not simply present data; data need to be accompanied by general statements that sum up 	the direction of an effect: e.g., X was higher/lower then, increased/decreased from … to … etc. 
o Think of yourself as continuing the story foreshadowed by the Methods section: When 	we did X, this happened. When we did Y, this happened. 
•	Prevent data (the “trees”) from overwhelming a reader’s understanding of the results and their 	pertinence to your question (the “forest”) by 
oonly including results (both those that did and did not match your hypothesis) relevant 	to the question. 
ostating a result and then presenting the data that support it. 
ominimizing data in the text, using tables and figures for most of the data presentation 	instead. 
•	When first introducing a key finding, place it in the sentence’s stress position (the sentence’s 	end). 
oNot: “Hydrogen bonds formed almost exclusively between the bases when the derivatized nucleosides were dissolved in non-acqueous solvents” (a sentence that puts what you found in the topic or starting position and how in the stress position). 
oInstead: “When the derivatized nucleosides were dissolved in non-acqueous solvents, hydrogen bonds formed almost exclusively between the bases” (a sentence that puts what you found in the stress position—saving the best and most important for last). 
 

Tips for Writing the Discussion Section 
•	Start with the big picture – WHY is your study important? 
oThink of yourself as telling the story of how your findings answer the question you posed 
and why your findings matter, how your field’s status quo or understanding is changed
by your results. 
oClearly signal that you are answering the question your paper introduced: “This study 
shows that …” or “Our results indicate that …” or “In this study, we have shown that …” 
oExplain and if necessary defend your answer in relation to previously published work on 
this topic or other possible answers that you want to convince readers are less 
satisfactory than the one you are presenting. 
•	Focus on what your findings mean: how the results presented in the previous section answer
your paper’s central question. 
oUse topic sentences (e.g., “That data obtained in this study show X in two ways”) 
followed by transition clauses (e.g., “First … Second …”) to show how the results support 
your claim(s).
•	Explain any conflicting results and discrepancies by assessing possible explanations and 
acknowledge the study’s limitations. 
•	Explain any unexpected findings. In the case of a potentially exciting unexpected finding, you 
might start a paragraph by naming the surprise (“A surprising finding was that …”) followed by 
summarizing the pertinent results (“As expected, X. However, contrary to our hypothesis, Y”) 
and then speculating about possible explanations and significance (“One possible explanation is 
…. If this explanation is correct, this would imply that …”).