- Organize it around a question
- develop a strong hypothesis with good intellectual content potential
- Look up background information in your book about the physiological mechanisms you are interested in and what is already known about them
- Design the experiment thinking about the best treatments and controls to isolate your factors of interest
- Think about potential outcomes and their implications – if you get pattern A it will mean X, if you get pattern B, it will mean Y, etc.
- Can you foresee any issues in coming to clear conclusions?
- You might want to strengthen your hypothesis or adjust your experimental design
- Think about potential to develop your intellectual content by highlighting your hypothesis through the introduction, methods, results, and discussion — given your hypothesis, what are important points to hit?
- Maximize your intellectual merit by writing to convince the reader that your study is important, useful and compelling.
Investigating life at UH Manoa