Present your results clearly. Either summarize them or categorize the most important results logically. In empirical works, results are usually presented in a separate chapter. In qualitative research, however, results and your interpretation (discussion) are often closely linked, so it may be useful to present them together.

Discussion of results

Ensure that the reader can follow your argument by critically reflecting on your own results, considering possible objections, and discussing them.

In empirical works, you should show how the results relate to each other and which principles can be identified. Address exceptions and consider how they should be interpreted. In all instances, you should show how your results differ from or confirm the findings of others.

The readers are first to notice whether texts “work”. Go to a writing consultation, ask your fellow students, or join a writing group to get feedback on your text. Discussing your results with others will make it easier to discuss them in your paper.

The discussion of your results is a mandatory part of the structure of a scientific paper.

Frequently asked questions

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Your actual independent contribution

It is essential that an academic paper includes your well-founded, logically comprehensible conclusions based on what you have worked out, read, researched, investigated, thought about, and presented in the paper.

This creates something new even in a student paper – something that makes it worth reading. You ask questions, compare, evaluate, make critical remarks, discover contradictions, notice that something has not been addressed, that the entire literature supports one position or several different ones, that certain positions are mutually exclusive, that models, theories, and concepts seem applicable – or not, and so on.

Even processing a topic, creating a coherent structure, and answering a research question are independent achievements.

Taking a well-founded position

Expressing your own well-founded position does not belong only at the end of a paper, but wherever it fits. These can be small remarks, e.g. as a footnote, or more significant conclusions – for example, when you conclude that the method examined appears only partially applicable to the chosen field. Or when your survey has limited representativeness, but still provides impulses for further research.

Frequently asked questions

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The title of this section is “Summary and Outlook” or “Summary, Conclusion, and Outlook” – not “Ending”.

How it’s done

• In the final part of your paper, you answer the questions posed in the introduction.
• You do not address new content-related aspects in this closing chapter.
• You do not present your personal opinion (in the sense of a gut feeling) here, but rather your reasoned assessment based on the previous sections, as well as your conclusions and if applicable recommendations for action.

Summary

Objective: Readers get a brief overview of the completed paper.

The summary must not be confused with the abstract:

Conclusion

In the conclusion, you have the (one-time) opportunity to describe your own work and its conditions in an evaluative way. A good conclusion is short and, despite being evaluative, is neutrally worded.

The conclusion is optional and is also rejected by some instructors.

Outlook

Finally, you give a reasoned outlook on whether and in what form research in the addressed field should be continued.

The summary and the outlook are mandatory parts of The Structure of a Thesis in Engineering and Natural Sciences.

Frequently asked questions

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In most cases, this means you will need to prepare a large amount of data graphically and/or in tables, as well as statistically. In addition, you must also put the results into words.

It is not necessary to discuss every single value in detail. The text is intended rather to summarize what can be seen in the figures and tables. Extensive tables and figures should be placed in an appendix.

“Your results section should still be correct in fifty years. Your discussion, on the other hand, may be completely different in fifty years because you will have different, new information that casts your results in a new light.”

– Prof. Dr. Ronald Schmidt-Vollus

In development work, the focus is often on testing. Depending on the work, however, an (additional) results chapter can also be helpful.

The results section is a mandatory part of The Structure of a Thesis in Engineering and Natural Sciences.

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Present the state of the art in detail using the following sources: scholarly articles, patents, competitor analyses, standards, guidelines.

This is where your literature review comes in.

You can describe related work that answers the research question in a different way or examines similar questions in the same way. If, due to your topic, you work with specific devices or systems, you should explain how they function.

If predecessors of your research question or task have already been addressed in previous theses, and your work builds on that knowledge, it makes sense to describe the connection to these works. Such works do not necessarily have to be completed; they may also be ongoing in parallel.

The state of the art is a mandatory part of The Structure of a Thesis in Engineering and Natural Sciences.

Frequently asked questions

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