Design justified, not merely declared
Writing that a study was descriptive and correlational is a label. Writing why that design answers this particular question, and what it consequently cannot claim, is a method. The second is what a committee asks about and what the rubric above the middle band is describing.
It also protects you later. A design justified in writing is one you can still defend eighteen months afterwards, which is exactly when the reasoning has faded and a viva arrives. The commonest bad moment in a defense is a choice that was obvious at the time and was never written down anywhere.
Sample, instrument and procedure, in that much detail
How participants were identified and approached, not only how many there were. What the instrument measures, who validated it and what its reliability was in your own data. What actually happened in order, from first recruitment through to the final data point collected.
Where an instrument was adapted, say what was changed and why, because an adapted instrument is no longer the validated one. Reviewers notice that difference reliably, and a sentence acknowledging it costs nothing while its absence invites a question you would rather not be asked.
The analysis plan belongs here too
Which tests, chosen for what reason, with the assumptions you checked and what you did in the places where they were not met. Missing data handled explicitly rather than passed over, because a reader will assume the worst about a gap nobody explains.
Stating the plan before looking at results is what separates an analysis from a search, and where a protocol was registered this section should match it. None of this is padding: every element is something committees and reviewers routinely ask about, and writing it down converts a hard question into a page reference.
Three steps, then the record keeps itself.
Send the design and the question
What you are doing and why, plus your program's own template where it prescribes one.
Get it written to the reproducibility test
Each element detailed enough for somebody else to repeat, with the design justified against the question it answers.
Rehearse the challenges
Every choice comes back with reasoning attached, so why this sample, this instrument and this test all have answers ready.
Queries on record.
How much detail is too much?
The test is reproducibility rather than length, so anything another researcher would need in order to repeat the study stays, and anything only you would find interesting goes. Where a program supplies a template, follow it exactly, because committees read many of these and want them in a predictable order.
What if I changed the method partway through?
Report what actually happened rather than what was planned, and say when the change occurred and why. Deviations are entirely normal and they only become a problem when concealed. A methods section describing a study you did not run is a far more serious matter than a documented change of course ever is.
Do I have to justify my sample size?
For quantitative work generally yes, and a power calculation is the usual form. Where recruitment fell short of it, report the calculation anyway and treat the shortfall as a limitation. For qualitative work the equivalent is a justification of adequacy, and saturation should be described in terms of what happened rather than simply asserted.
Can I write this before collecting data?
You should, and in the future tense it becomes your proposal. Writing the analysis plan before seeing any results is what makes the eventual analysis a test rather than a search, and it is what a review board is assessing when it decides whether the design supports your claims. Converting the tenses afterwards is a small job.
What gets challenged most often?
The link between design and question, and any instrument that was adapted. Committees push hardest on why this approach rather than the obvious alternative, and on whether a modified tool still measures what its validation claims. Both are answerable in writing and both are usually left implicit in a first draft.
Elsewhere in the hall.
Send the assignment and the deadline.
A specialist credentialed in your own field reads what you actually have and replies within two hours with a plan and a price. The reading costs nothing, and if the honest answer is that we are not the right hall for it, you will get that instead.
