Results or Methods - What comes first in discussion section? This question is about structure of scientific texts. This can be master thesis or published journal article.

The Disucssion section: Is there a reasonable rule why the discussion of results comes before the discussion of methods?

I often see this in published articles and I argue about that with my professor. But no one gave me a reason for this - not even a bad reason.

In my opinion the order should be different: Discussion of the methods first and then the discussion about results. The reason is that I need to see the results and their value/weight in the light of the methods they are obtained.

I am asking here because I am naive and optimistic and think there is a reason why all journals and professionals do it that way. I don't want to modify their opinion. I just want to know why they do.
In short: the assumption that the discussion of results always comes before the discussion of methods is wrong. There are no rules.

The purpose of a separate results and discussion section is to keep facts clearly separated from opinions/interpretation. What happens inside the discussion section depends on your writing style and the content/goal of the paper.

For example


if your paper presents new methods there is no difference between the discussion of results and the discussion of methods
if the uncertainty in the measurement methods may have affected the results, methods and results are discussed at the same time


A possible reason to discuss results first might be that readers are most interested in the results. Unless your paper is about the method itself an expert in the field probably knows the methods already. But as said, there are no rules.