Imagine that you are an examiner. You are reading a doctoral thesis. And you’ve nearly got to the end.

You’ve read a lot of carefully crafted words which have explained what the research is and why it is as it is. You’ve read the results and what these mean and how they fit with the current understandings in the field. Along the way the doctoral researcher has explained their choices and decisions to you and provided enough detail for you to follow what they did, when and why.

But nor you’re at the conclusion and you can see that they have not only shown how they have answered their initial question, but also clearly spelled out how their research results add up to several explicit contributions to knowledge. You are very pleased to see that the claims for contribution are well grounded in the actual results, and neither under-sell nor over-stretch what the research results can support.

You are looking forward to reading the final section of the conclusion which, you assume, will go on to discuss the implications of the research. Alas, this is not the case.

Instead you arrive at a section called “limitations” which reframes all of the choices and decisions that the researcher made as deficits and short-comings. And the limitations section in front of you doesn’t include anything that explains the doctoral researcher’s learning. You don’t know what they now know that they will carry forward into their future research agenda. Noooooooooooo!

By the time you arrive at the actual research implications, some of which are of course related directly to the inevitable blank spots in the research, you are struggling to retain the sense you had of a strong and successful piece of research. The discussion of the limitations has undercut the writer’s movement towards a final and authoritative conclusion. Was the research really as good as you’d initially thought, you wonder? Perhaps you’d better reconsider in the light of this rather daunting list of deficiencies….

OK. So this is not a popular opinion. I had you with me until I made it clear that I reckon that concluding with a specific section called limitations is both limiting and limited. I know it’s a textual convention which some people hold as a rule. But I really don’t agree. I always find a lengthy reiteration of what is beyond the scope of the research, or omitted for pragmatic or practical reasons, to be an undermining move. Not an own goal, but certainly the start of something unnecessarily negative.

So what do I suggest? Is there an alternative? Well yes, and it’s not to dodge the reality that any research can do only so much. It’s a matter of how you discuss the scope, scale and procedural choices and decisions and their consequences, not whether you do.

My preference is for the thesis writer to

1. Spell out the various choices and decisions they make throughout the thesis, when and where they occur – see the previous post –  making clear that they understand the consequences for what can be seen, said and concluded. If the choices and decisions are made explicit in the thesis, the reader doesn’t need them laboriously summed up at the end in a cumulative list of what I didn’t do.
2. In the conclusion, reframe the limitations as opportunities. Discuss the most pertinent alternative choices in terms of the spaces created for further research. You basically say … Because this research did not do x , there is a clear opportunity for this to be done next, making sure that…. You see, acknowledging that the research has blank spots doesn’t have to be completely negative, nor presented as a deficit. All research can do some things and not others. Showing you know this is helpful. Say you know that what isn’t done in this research can still be done next/later.
3. Use the conclusion to show you now think like a researcher. Some choices seem right at the time but look different in retrospective. So the doctoral researcher can use the conclusion to reflect on what they learnt from acting on their choices and carrying out their decisions. The PhD is about both being and becoming a researcher. So you basically say… I began this research thinking that…. however as it progressed I came so understand that …. this is in itself a contribution, not only to my own learning but something that other researchers might also find of benefit etc… Signalling what has been learnt is an important indication to the reader that the researcher  has been thinking about their own research education as well as their topic. It demonstrates reflexivity, an important aspect of research practice.

OK. So not writing a limitations sections is probably not a popular opinion. It’s not the orthodoxy of concluding a thesis (or a paper). But it is a possibility. And because it’s an option you get to choose whether do it or not.

As you are deciding how to construct your concluding chapter and you think about writing a separate section called limitations, then do know that there is an alternative – a final choice and decision to make. Do you want a limitations section or to reframe your choices and decisions in discussions of implications and learnings? It’s up to you.