4.3 Situating Your Findings

Back to the literature

Connect your findings back to the literature: do they confirm, extend, complicate, or challenge previous work? This shows your contribution to the conversation.

Significance

Explain the significance — why your findings matter, and to whom. Even a modest study can add a piece to a larger scholarly puzzle.

The bigger picture

Situate your work in the broader field and its implications, connecting your specific gap to the wider questions and stakeholders it touches.

Key terms

Situating findings

connect them back to the literature

Relationship to prior work

confirm, extend, complicate, or challenge

Significance

why the findings matter, and to whom

Modest contribution

still adds a piece to the larger puzzle

Bigger picture

broader field, implications, stakeholders

Try an AP-style question

Situating findings means…

1. ignoring other studies
2. relating results to prior research
3. repeating the method
4. listing raw data