How do you thematically include accidental findings ("serendipity") in a dissertation or paper?

Question

I'm asking for approaches to include interesting, but not perfectly fitting results in a dissertation or a paper.

During my PhD project I have made an accidental discovery, which is what I believe you call serendipity. The finding is related to the overall topic of my dissertation and certainly interesting, but it interrupts the "leitmotif" of my argumentation, as this discovery is really just the result of a stupid mistake. So my question here is: How do you eloquently include stupid mistakes (aka accidental findings) in a dissertation or a paper without sounding stupid or breaking the flow of arguments apart? Is there even a generalizing answer to this question?

Answer 1

“The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but rather, 'hmm... that's funny...” (Isaac Asimov, thanks to EnergyNumbers for reminding me of it)

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If you're worried that it will distract the flow of your thesis, why not put it in a “special” part of your thesis (e.g., an appendix) and refer to that from the main text, at the point that would be most logical.

[Following the description of your experiment.] In the next few sections, I describe the results obtained from operating the Pocket Helium Flux Positron Annihilator on a variety of samples: metals (section II.B), graphene (section II.C) and heavy water (section II.D). You will also find in Appendix A a description of the observations made following an accidental operation of PHFPA without a helium flux [you may not want to be specific and say: some moron forgot to replace the bottle] which allowed to check what happens when electroneutrality is violated on the µm scale.

An appendix is a good place, or maybe a small section as the end of the relevant chapter.

Answer 2

Thesis is a good place to place things not yet developed enough to make a full paper.

If it is at least tangentially related to you thesis topic, just add a relevant (sub)section (e.g. in further discussion, or near to the place where it is the most related).

BTW: Many groundbreaking discoveries were accidental. So I don't see a reason to value them less than ones planned in advance.

Again, if "accidental" means than some values were set such as a mistake - again, mentioning such is related to motivation/story, not the value of results.

Answer 3

The traditional ways people introducing important or interesting peripheral information without breaking the flow or core thrust of a manuscript is with footnotes/endnotes or with an appendix as F'X has suggested.

If it's a short aside, consider making it a long footnote. If it's longer, put in in an appendix and reference it either in the footnote or in the text. Long — even paper-length — appendixes are not abnormal in dissertations.

Answer 4

In the social sciences, there is traditionally a section in the concluding chapter that discusses limitations of the present study and scope for future research.

You can include your 'discovery' in this section. In this way, you are presenting your 'discovery' and suggesting some ways in which it can be researched - two-in-one, I suppose!

The other section in which you can include your 'discovery' is where you highlight what contribution your research is making to the body of knowledge in your field. This is traditionally another section in the concluding chapter of a social science dissertation. You can 'wrap' your 'discovery' as an accidental but important contribution to knowledge.

In my case, I talked to a number of people in my field as part of my stakeholder consultation. I soon discovered that they were telling me far more than what was needed for my topic. I summarised this information in my concluding chapter and said that it represented an important contribution to knowledge because it would lost if not captured in writing (the stakeholders were mostly from the older generation).

So, there are many ways to include it in your dissertation.