The discussion section brings together your initial research questions, the data you have generated and previous research done on the topic. It is at this point, after you have led your readers objectively and systematically through the research process and proved to them that you are a conscientious and rigorous researcher, that you interpret your findings, describe their significance and explain how they provide new insight into the problem or question you raised in the introduction. Also remember that this section should provide no new information but focus only on the findings reported in the results section.

Researchers often say that the discussion is the section of their research report that they find most difficult to write. This is largely because, unlike the introduction, there is no standard, widely accepted pattern to follow, which gives researchers a lot more freedom. Writing practice certainly varies from one discipline to another and even from one paper to another. Nevertheless, as with the introduction, the literature has identified a variety of moves that researchers often use when discussing and interpreting their findings (for details on these, see Hopkins & Dudley-Evans [1988] , Swales [1990] , Holmes [1997] and Yang & Allison [2003] ). The following subsections summarize the four most common moves and consider the question of their order.