{"id":35,"date":"2015-07-30T10:04:27","date_gmt":"2015-07-30T09:04:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/temp.smartfantasyandscifi.com\/blog\/?p=35"},"modified":"2016-03-11T14:34:30","modified_gmt":"2016-03-11T14:34:30","slug":"structure-your-project-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microsites.ncl.ac.uk\/fmspgrstudentguidelines\/2015\/07\/30\/structure-your-project-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Structure Your Project"},"content":{"rendered":"

Once you understand the goals of your project the next important thing is to understand how those goals fit together.<\/p>\n

If you are investigating several different topics that bear little relation to each other, then you will have a much harder time when it comes to writing up your project. You will have to obtain more data for your thesis, and writing the introductions, results, and discussions for each section will take more work.<\/p>\n

Before you start, you want to have some idea of a story that will join all the aspects of your project together.<\/p>\nGet Practical Tips<\/span>

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  1. If your current goals don’t fit together in a cohesive story, think about any alterations you could make to both the goals and the story.<\/li>\n
  2. A story can start by examining an effect. Then, if the effect is observed, it goes deeper into examining the underlying reasons.<\/li>\n
  3. Don’t worry if you do not have a story immediately. Sometimes the effect must be observed before the reasons can be explained. In such cases, a backup plan is extra advisable (see Always have a Backup Plan<\/em>).<\/li>\n
  4. A story does NOT mean plan out what results you are going to get. Your story should account for every possible outcome of the experiments you are doing, otherwise you run the risk of biasing your data.<\/li>\n
  5. DO NOT wait until the end to fit your disjointed project together into a single story. This will lead to panic and a series of rushed procedures\u00a0that will be very bad science and probably won\u2019t work.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n\u00a0<\/b>
    \nRead Personal Perspective<\/span>