The examples below are from 72,017 full-text PubMed research papers that I analyzed in order to explore common ways to start writing the Discussion section.
Research papers included in this analysis were selected at random from those uploaded to PubMed Central between the years 2016 and 2021. Note that I used the BioC API to download the data (see the References section below).
Examples of how to start writing the Discussion section
In the Discussion section, you should explain the meaning of your results, their importance, and implications. [for more information, see: How to Write & Publish a Research Paper: Step-by-Step Guide]
The Discussion section can:
1. Start by restating the study objective
Example 1:
“The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between muscle synergies and motion primitives of the upper limb motions.”
Taken from the Discussion section of this article on PubMed
Example 2:
“The main objective of this study was to identify trajectories of autonomy.”
Taken from the Discussion section of this article on PubMed
Example 3:
“In the present study, we investigated the whole brain regional homogeneity in patients with melancholic MDD and non-melancholic MDD at rest.“
Taken from the Discussion section of this article on PubMed
2. Start by mentioning the main finding
Example 1:
“We found that autocracy and democracy have acted as peaks in an evolutionary landscape of possible modes of institutional arrangements.”
Taken from the Discussion section of this article on PubMed
Example 2:
“In this study, we demonstrated that the neural mechanisms of rhythmic movements and skilled movements are similar.”
Taken from the Discussion section of this article on PubMed
Example 3:
“The results of this study show that older adults are a diverse group concerning their activities on the Internet.”
Taken from the Discussion section of this article on PubMed
3. Start by pointing out the strength of the study
Example 1:
“To our knowledge, this investigation is by far the largest epidemiological study employing real-time PCR to study periodontal pathogens in subgingival plaque.”
Taken from the Discussion section of this article on PubMed
Example 2:
“This is the first human subject research using the endoscopic hemoglobin oxygen saturation imaging technology for patients with aero-digestive tract cancers or adenomas.”
Taken from the Discussion section of this article on PubMed
Example 3:
“In this work, we introduced a new real-time flow imaging method and systematically demonstrated its effectiveness with both flow phantom experiments and in vivo experiments.”
Taken from the Discussion section of this article on PubMed
Most used words at the start of the Discussion
Here are the top 10 phrases used to start a discussion section in our dataset:
| Rank | Phrase | Percent of occurrences |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | “In this study,…” | 4.48% |
| 2 | “In the present study,…” | 1.66% |
| 3 | “To our knowledge,…” | 0.73% |
| 4 | “To the best of our knowledge,…” | 0.51% |
| 5 | “In the current study,…” | 0.38% |
| 6 | “The aim of this study was…” | 0.38% |
| 7 | “This is the first study to…” | 0.28% |
| 8 | “The purpose of this study was to…” | 0.22% |
| 9 | “The results of the present study…” | 0.14% |
| 10 | “The aim of the present study was…” | 0.11% |
References
- Comeau DC, Wei CH, Islamaj Doğan R, and Lu Z. PMC text mining subset in BioC: about 3 million full text articles and growing, Bioinformatics, btz070, 2019.