31 Write the Discussion
What the findings mean, in words, not code
A one-paragraph chapter: the Discussion is the part of the report with no code in it. It says what the Results mean for the research aims, how they fit the literature from the Introduction, what the study could not show, and what should come next.
discussion, report
The Discussion is the one section of your report with no code chunks, no plots, and no new numbers. Everything you need from R is already in Results; here you say what it means. Return to the research aims from your Introduction and answer each one in plain words: was the hypothesis supported, and what does the direction and size of the effect say about the question you asked? Then connect each answer to the literature you reviewed, saying where your findings agree with earlier studies, where they differ, and what might explain a difference (your sample, your measures, the setting). Name the limitations honestly, in the same order of importance you would want a reader to weigh them: a small or convenience sample, single-item measures, a cross-sectional design that cannot show cause, self-report. End with what should happen next, for research and for practice. Write in the past tense about what you found and the present tense about what it means, and do not use backticks here: in the Discussion you write about well-being and stigma as ideas, not WELLBEING and STIGMA as variables (Write an Introduction).
If you find yourself typing a statistic in the Discussion that is not already in Results, it belongs in Results. The Discussion refers to results (“the medium effect in Figure 2”); it does not report them.