The following publications/link should be helpful, particularly: how to write the results/discussions (Day, 1998, pp. 42-48); pitfalls to avoid for writing discussion (Bavdekar, 2015, pp. 41-42); things that should be included/avoided in discussion (Hess, 2004).

• Bavdekar, S. B. (2015) Writing the discussion section: Describing the significance of the study findings, Journal of the Association of Physicians of India, 63, 11, pp. 40-42.
• Day, R. A. (1998) How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper. 5th edn. Phoenix, Arizona: The Oryx Press.
• Hengl, T. and Gould, M. (2002) Rules of thumb for writing research articles, International Institute for Geo-information science and Earth Observation (ITC), Enschede, pp. 1-9.
• Hess, D. R. (2004) How to write an effective discussion, Respiratory care, 49, 10, pp. 1238-1241.
• Perneger, T. V. and Hudelson, P. M. (2004) Editorial - Writing a research article: advice to beginners, International Journal for Quality in Health Care, 16, 3, pp. 191-192.
• Perry, C. (1998) A structured approach to presenting phd theses: notes for candidates and their supervisors, Australasian Marketing Journal, 6, 1, pp. 1-57.
• Ryan, A. B. (2006) Analysing qualitative data and writing up your findings, in Antonesa, M. (ed.) Researching and Writing your thesis: a guide for postgraduate students. NUI Maynooth: Maynooth: NUI Maynooth, pp. 92-108.
• What is the main difference between findings and analysis?: https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_is_the_main_difference_between_findings_and_analysis

Dear Samah,

Are you writing up the research report or are you writing a paper for publication (having already completed your research report)?

In deciding what to include in the results section of your report, you should refer to the research objectives or research questions, and you could write the results for each objective or question in sequence. If your study was based on a theoretical framework, you could also present your results based on each aspect of the framework.

In the results for each objective, you could include some direct quotes taken from the semi-structured interviews.

Although it is qualitative research, you could start the results section by reporting on some quantitative statistics such as the number of respondents and the response rate. Similarly you can use tables and charts where appropriate to present data.

in writing the discussion section, you want to indicate the strengths and limitations of your study, as well as discuss what the results might imply. You can do this for the results of each objective/question or with reference to the theoretical framework. Follow the order you used in the results section. Relate your findings to published literature.

Kenneth Lui-ming Ngie has provided very useful links that are also relevant when you are writing a scientific paper for publication.

Do some research on studies that has your methodology and design if you are not following a university template. In my situation, I had to have a very detailed chapters 4 and 5.

I remember doing a workshop with John Van Maanen. His advice was "tell the story." Although his book is more oriented to ethnography, it can give valuable insights. Van Maanen, John. Tales of the field: On writing ethnography. University of Chicago Press, 2011. In the case of semi-structured interviews, if this were a long article or book, I would present it as a series of case studies of the individuals who were interviewed. If this were for a short article or conference presentation, I would go with one or two cases or a half dozen key themes that emerged in most interviews. You can download my ritualization and resilience presentation presentation from my website. https://works.bepress.com/tlbrink/

Your methodology should follow the discipline that you are using. For example, if your research includes your participation and the respondents as community members for change then you may look at Participatory Action Research methods and these can be use for many Humanities disciplines. Care needs to be taken not to confuse this with Ethnography where it would be expected that your methodology would follow the discipline in which you ground yourself such as Anthropology or Human geography, but which could also be useful for sociology or psychology. In the end, these methods should be discussed before you actually take up your research. This then puts to rest any criticism of an unscientific approach to your research methods. Well planned is key, but your supervisor should address this with you.

Semi-structure interviews and discussion are wonderful as they open up a host of issues. Software particularly NVivo should help. This is a late answer, (I have been otherwise busy) so I hope that this is not too late!

The comments are very helpful.

Semi-structured interviews are generally demand in-depth analysis. You need to collect open-ended data to explore participant thoughts, feelings and beliefs. when it comes to findings and analysis you need to integrate quotes and write in narrative mode.