Writing and Publishing Scientific Articles
5-12
Describing Your Study’s Limitations
It is also important in the Discussion to anticipate reviewers’ criti cisms and acknowledge possible limitations of your study. For example:
Our subjects were non-Hispanic whites, so it is not known whether our results are applicable to other groups. Further studies with additional populations are needed.
Because we examined only 50 patients, our results may have been due to chance. The results must be confirmed in a larger study.
These conclusions were based on the responses of 5 cell lines and so might not reflect processes in the intact body. We are now confirming our results in mice. In this study, gene expression was measured by Northern blotting, which may not have been sensitive enough to detect low-level expression.
If perceived limitations of your study might not be true limitations, give the reasons why. Please see the examples of well-written Discussions (pages 5-18 and 5-21) for examples of this.
Explaining the Implications of Your Findings
Explaining the implications of your findings is an essential part of your Discussion. A study’s findings are specific but may have far-reaching implications — identifying disease characteristics that predict response to therapy, for example, or providing a rationale for a change in clinical practice. To describe the implications, think of how your findings will affect scientific thought or medical practice or how your findings will be applied and what will happen when they are. To determine the implications of your study, try answering 1 or more of the following questions: ▪ How do these findings advance our understanding of disease prevention, treatment, or cure? ▪ On the basis of these findings, what should now be done differently in research or clinical practice?
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