You open your general discussion in either of two manners: (a) by answering the questions or suggestions put forward in the aims, or (b) by discussing the methodology – the latter because one of the goals of a thesis is to learn how to use scientific methods and to get to know their limitations, not primarily to make discoveries.

Which of these you choose depends on the purpose, the direction, and the results of your research. We begin with the first alternative.

General discussion

Discussion of the results

Open this section by explaining how you achieved your aims. In one thesis (Anders Bergström, 1994), two of the aims were to determine:

• a technique for subretinal transplantation of retinal cells

• the survival … of donor cells

… and the discussion of the results began with subheadings for each aim:

1. Transplantation procedure

2. The subretinal transplantation technique that we have developed has turned out to be easy and [has given] good and consistent results.

1. Transplant cell survival

2. The survival rate was …

What makes the writing of these sentences especially good is that the author used almost exactly the same wording as in the sentences describing the aims. Here is no place for synonyms. The readers must know for certain what you mean. Remember that more than half the scientists worldwide have English as a second language, and such readers may become uncertain if you use synonyms.