ABSTRACT
Not too long ago I attended a conference in which a participant provided a set of guidelines for what one should say when serving as a discussant. To the best of my memory, his prescription included four major components. The first was praise, in which the discussant extols the many virtues of the work being presented, if for no other reason than to justify the time he or she spent reading the speaker’s text and deciding what he or she was going to say about it. The second component was qualification, in which the discussant brings the author of the target material back to reality by mentioning limitations of the work that could be overcome by extensions of the research, which may or may not be practical or even possible. The third suggested aspect of the discussant’s role was gentle criticism because the author failed to place greater emphasis on issue X, and X happens to be whatever topic the discussant is currently interested in. Finally, the prescription stated that the discussant’s comments should finish with an optimistic conclusion by stating that although the major issues in this area have not yet been resolved, the research under discussion represents a very promising direction toward the achievement of that goal.
