Planning a study requires attention to detail. I have broken these down into 10 steps which I call the 10 commandments. These are:
- Introduce and Familiarize yourself with the steps in performing quality research
- Review literature using PubMed, read Journals regularly and work on Hypothesis building.
- Interact with a statistician before starting your study/thesis
- Data collection and maintenance is Critical. Use tips for data entry in Excel sheets.
- Give clear-cut guidelines to the statistician for data analysis and interpretation
- Use a methodical approach with CHECKLISTS for Writing up the manuscript.
- Choose a journal of choice carefully keeping in mind its indexing and your target audience
- Use reference managers to efficiently maintain references.
- Be aware of the Common causes of rejection of a manuscript and avoid these mistakes
- Be positive even with rejection, be persistent and vow to come back stronger.
You can also read about this on the SRA blog.
