How to write a quant thesis discussion without repeating lit review?

[u/Creepy_Equivalent877]

I’m writing the discussion for my thesis and I realised I just messed it all up since I'm basically repeating the entire literature review. Im struggling to interpret the findings, because Im the only person who has researched this quantitatively (all my lit review papers are qual) and I did regression, so I cant even imply causality. Just associations, so I can’t really compare effect sizes or say “this matches X’s results.” I end up either summarising what the qualitative studies found again (which basically repeats my lit review), or speculating so much it starts to read like a qualitative discussion.

For those who’ve written a quant discussion where your study was the first of its kind:

• ⁠How did you use the existing literature without just rehashing it?
• ⁠How much explanation/speculation is appropriate for associations from cross-sectional data?
• ⁠Any examples or structures that helped you?

[u/JHT231]

A literature review should talk about past studies and publications, not mentioning your own current work.

The discussion can include relating your research to past work, and it can also include qualitative aspects and writing in addition to quantitative results.

It's really hard to say what's best or to provide more detailed advice without knowing your individual topic and situation. Maybe your PI or others in your research group or department can provide better advice?

[u/Bernie0404]

It's not about repeating the literature review but to write about whether and how your results confirm or not confirm previous studies. This may also include methodological considerations and limitations. Examples are: "In line with XXX my results show..." "In contrast to yyy our data demonstrate.. "

[u/sinsonik]

Being the first quant study on this is your strongest angle, so build the discussion around your findings instead of around the papers.

A structure that tends to work: open with your 2 or 3 key associations in plain words. For each one, say which qualitative findings it is consistent with (one sentence, cite, move on) and what it adds that they couldn't show, like how common a pattern is or which variables go together. Then one short paragraph of possible mechanisms, phrased as "one explanation could be", pointing back to the qual work as the source of that idea.

Cross-sectional regression can't show direction, so say that once in limitations and name the longitudinal study that would test it. That turns the speculation into future work instead of padding.

[u/blackandwhite1987]

I think it helps to keep the goals of each section at the front of mind. The lit review is to get your readers up to speed, so they unserstand the state of the field that motivated your study. Discussion should be interpreting your results in the context of previous work. So, the key is that the focus of the lit review is on what has been done, the focus of the discussion is on your contribution. Based on what you've said, I wonder if you've done lots of intepreting in the results? In my field, anyway, that should be in the discussion. So in results you say "x was correlated with y (stat)" and in the discussion you will say "we/I found that y increased with x in <specific population>, we/I expect that this is driven by z, which <paper> investigated in the context of w."