Writing with Authority 117
criteria for examination: Are the conclusions and implications appropriately devel-
oped and clearly linked to the nature and content of the research framework and
findings?
Examiners criticized me (Gruba) on this very point. I had not made links from
throughout my discussion section to the overall conceptual framework that I had
introduced in my review of current theory. When I got their comments back, I had
to return to the world of abstract ideas after a long sojourn in the analysis of my
own data set. What I had to do was to pull back from the results in order to reflect
on their underlying concepts. I found that I had to re-read my background chapters,
refresh my understanding of the tone and style of the discourse and write in such a
way that I was responding to the major points I myself had identified. This is not an
easy task, but you must place your own study within the larger research framework.
Quite often students find that their work has gone much further than they origi-
nally dared to hope, and their original introduction, including their stated aim, has
not caught up with this.
Writing with Authority
By now you have earned the right to comment on the field, and you can (and must)
do so with authority. How can you demonstrate this authority? In this chapter you
need to address three areas with a critical eye: current theory, current practice and
the conduct of your own study.
First, you should make sure that you place your thesis within the context of the
field you are working in. In addition to making links from the research framework
to your own study, you now have to suggest ways to expand that theoretical point
of view. To start, I suggest that you question or illuminate the accepted definition of
potentially controversial key concepts and phrases.
The expansion, or possible contraction, of existing categorizations of key fac-
tors in your field is another area you should consider. For example, the results of a
project on the way refugees access welfare services in Australia might suggest that
we need to go beyond financial and medical problems to include family problems.
Or the results of a study aimed at developing plans for recycling might indicate that
city planners should consider personal and social identity, which would call for an
examination of how this might be incorporated. One of your major contributions to
the field will be the development and discussion of such factors.
Because you have earlier developed an awareness of the limitations of current
practices both through your review of earlier studies and your own application of
them, you are now in the position to suggest ways to improve them. What would
you have done differently, and why? Here you can act as a guide for further re-
searchers. Tell the readers what worked well, and what did not.
In many theses you will find a section entitled ‘Limitations of the Study’. Wheth-
er you put this in a separate section or discuss it where appropriate as you go along,
you must deal with it. This section need not be set in an apologetic tone; rather, it