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All right it's time to write the limitations section, which is usually not the most fun because we need

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to talk about the things that were bad in our research. But actually, even the limitations section can

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be a section in which you can truly impress your readers by showing the reader that you understand the

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limitations of your study very well and that you're very honest about that.

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And if the reader is already impressed by the value that you're providing with your research then that

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will be the cherry on the cake. And as I already said before very often the limitations are a separate

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section with separate heading.

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Just as for the implications.

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But again that is up to you.

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You can structure your discussion section in whatever way you think makes sense.

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Okay.

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So the first goal in the limitation section is quite obviously to state the limitations of your study

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or at least the most important ones.

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So common expressions you find here are: "Our study has two main limitations. First,...

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Second,..." and so on. "The most important limitation is that...". "Another limitation is that...". So it's quite straightforward.

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And limitations you can think of are all kinds of things. You can think of confounds, unreliable measurements,

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unrepresentative samples, correlational designs that do not allow you to draw conclusions about causality,

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or just in general conclusions that you canNOT draw from your findings. Conclusions that a researcher

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may WANT to draw from your findings but that you actually CANNOT draw. Or you can think of biases that

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arise from participants dropping out.

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It depends very much on your study.

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But most of the time finding at least one limitation isn't that difficult.

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Now, the second goal is - if possible - to also qualify your limitations.

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But it is important to only qualify them after you first admitted them.

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This is very important because you do not want to give the impression that you're just trying to argue

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your limitations away.

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So here are some examples.

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"Although these alternative explanations of our results cannot be ruled out entirely,

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there are two patterns in the results that point towards our primary explanation." See what happens here?

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I admit explicitly that there is a valid limitation but then I explain why it may not matter so much.

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Or "Although our findings allow for the alternative explanation that X, the results by Devin at all are

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in conflict with his explanation.

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Taking this into account the more plausible explanation for our finding is..." and so on.

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Or "Although the drop out rate was considerable,

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we observed no difference between participants who completed our study and participants who dropped

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out."

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So what I want you to notice here is that each of these sentences starts by admitting the limitation.

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So be sure that even if you have good arguments against your limitation that you don't just argue it

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away right away.

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First make very very clear to your reader that you admit your limitation. Okay so that's how you write about

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limitations.

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Again you can find more expressions in the "discussion outline and writing template" and in the next lecture

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we're gonna talk about writing the summary and conclusions section at the very end of your discussion

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section.