From findings to argument - writing a qualitative PhD discussion chapter
Writing up a discussion chapter for your qualitative PhD is a bit like reaching the final, most challenging part of an obstacle course. I regularly see events on social media with names like “Tough Mudder” or “Mud Runner”, where lots of very dedicated people spend hours climbing over obstacles, wading through slippery mud, and dragging themselves through physically exhausting challenges - only to arrive at the end and find one last enormous wall they somehow still have to climb.
That, in a nutshell, is the qualitative discussion chapter.
You’re standing at the bottom of that metaphorical wall having recruited participants, collected and analysed the data, doubted your analysis, coded and recoded, thrown your themes in the bin a couple of times and started over. Yeah, it’s been a long old slog.
If you’re anything like the qualitative researchers I’ve supported over the last 20 years, you’ve worked really hard on the separate pieces of your study. Your literature review, your methodology, your analysis - I’m guessing you feel at least a little bit proud of at least one of those chapters, right? Good.
However, it can start to feel like those chapters, rather than being one complete whole, are a group of islands, kind of like the UK Channel Islands. They are Jersey, Guernsey, Sark, Herm, and Alderney, but you are not seeing them as “the Channel Islands”. It feels like there are vast swathes of water in between them. They can see each other out of the mist on a particularly clear day, but that’s about it. In your PhD right now, there’s no ferry service between the literature review and the discussion. No flights are departing from analysis island either.
Now’s the time to change that and get your thesis fully coherent. That can be challenging because everything else you’ve done up until this point in your PhD has felt separate and self-contained.
Structure isn’t the issue, interpretation is
How do you bring this all back together again? How do you get all of the sections of your thesis singing from the same hymn sheet?
You might be tempted to think at this point that the most helpful thing to do right now is focus on the structure. Get some headings in place, figure out what’s going to come first, second, third, etc.
Before you rush to do that, I’ve got to break it to you: Structure isn’t the issue.
The most valuable thing for you to focus your efforts on now is interpretation.
A lot of people come to me at this stage in their PhD journey and say, “I’m stuck”. What’s really going on is a lack of confidence in their findings. They’re not completely okay with what they’ve got yet.
They want to fast forward through that particular phase and get to the phase where they’re writing it up, just like, “Quickly, move along, nothing to see here!”. It’s very important to not do that.
This might not be the case for you, but just humour me for a moment and ask yourself if any of these things sound familiar:
I don’t know what my findings mean.
I don’t know what I’m allowed to claim.
I can’t identify the through line or the golden thread.
I don’t know which findings matter most.
I don’t know what kind of argument I’m allowed to make.
If you recognise any of this, keep reading.
From reporting patterns to making meaning
What might be going on is that you know what you’ve got, but you don’t quite know what it means or why it matters. Here’s what we need to get you clear on:
what you found
your understanding of what you found
how we then develop that into an argument
This can be quite anxiety-inducing because imposter syndrome often rears its ugly head at this stage and you think, “Well, who am I to do this? What if I overclaim?”.
Got a vision of your examiner saying, “Well, who do you think you are?” Everybody’s had that nightmare, right? That wasn’t just me?
Argument before structure
I am urging you at this point to stay focused on doing that whole process - the whole 1-2-3 - don’t miss out the argument part. It’s important because that’s what your examiner will be looking for.
There’s a good way to get to the argument and a not-so-good way to get to the argument.
The not-so-good way - try and get things straight “in your head” before you start writing anything.
The good way - and the quickest way - writing. It’s through writing about it, because your argument is only going to become clear when you do.
Once you start tapping away on that keyboard, you see what things look like on the page. There is no substitute for seeing what things look like on the page.
It’s like moving into a new home. You might have an image in your head of where the furniture is going to go. You might even have drawn some diagrams. But it’s only when you get things out of boxes and put them in that space that you really get to see how things work together and make sense in reality - or don’t.
A very similar thing is happening with your discussion chapter.
The structure of your discussion - or where the furniture, i.e. the headings and sections, are going to go - is going to become clear only once you start writing it.
This is going to allow you to see what matters most and where the “centres of gravity” in your argument are.
The discussion loop - getting into it
There’s something I call the “discussion loop” that you will probably find helpful once you get further into your writing:
Finding → interpretation → literature/theory → contribution
Finding. You start with what you found. Here, focus on one specific finding and describe it briefly in a sentence or two.
For example: “Newly qualified teachers reported feeling pressure to reply to parents’ emails immediately, even during evenings and weekends.”
Interpretation. Next, explain what this suggests.
Staying with our example: “This suggests that parent-teacher relationships are one of the first professional boundaries newly qualified teachers encounter.”
This is where you start moving beyond reporting and into meaning-making. You are beginning to say, “Here is my reading of what is happening here.”
Literature / Theory. Then bring in the most relevant literature or concepts to help interpret the finding.
For instance: “This reinforces Smith’s (1998) argument that teachers’ sense of professional responsibility often extends beyond the school gates and into relationships with pupils’ families, with the parent-teacher relationship becoming a key site for newly qualified teachers to ‘prove themselves’ professionally.”
Once we get into this stage, we’re really cooking on gas - the literature is no longer sitting separately in your literature review. You are actively using it to help explain and position your findings.
Contribution. Finally, show what your finding adds, changes, or complicates.
For example: “However, this study also suggests that digital communication may intensify this pressure in ways that earlier research had not fully explored, particularly through expectations of constant accessibility and rapid emotional responsiveness.”
See, it’s actually quite a simple process. Note - I said simple, not easy.
Take the next step
If you found this helpful, it’s likely that my way of explaining things has resonated with you.
I do things a little differently from most supervisors and institutions, and this is something I’ve developed through 20 years of working with qualitative researchers.
So if you need more structured support at this stage and want to dive deeper into my systems, my Discussion and Writing Up Guide will help you. Learn more about it below.
Move from “What I found” to “What this means” - clearly and confidently.
This guide is for qualitative PhD researchers who need to turn their findings into a clear, defensible argument.
If your discussion or conclusion feels uncertain, fragile, or harder than it should be, this guide shows you how to move from uncertainty to a clear, defensible discussion.
If you’ve ever thought:
“What if this isn’t enough for a PhD?”
“Should I go back and change my literature review?”
“I’ve done the work, but I can’t explain what it adds up to.”
This is the stage where qualitative research becomes interpretive - and many researchers struggle to explain what their findings mean.
This guide helps you:
Connect your analysis to literature, concepts, and theory
Turn your findings into a clear, defensible argument
Articulate your contribution without overclaiming or underselling
Write a discussion and conclusion chapter you feel confident to submit
This is a digital download. You’ll get immediate access to the full guide and worksheets as soon as you purchase, so you can get unstuck and start making progress straight away.
Swipe through the images to see exactly what’s inside.
For a more streamlined and coherent approach, you can access all four PhD Survival Guides in the full series here.
Got questions? Contact me using this form, I’ll be happy to help.
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