Protocol
Timestamp the analysis plan before seeing the answer
Memory is a generous editor of what you supposedly expected.
When it fits
- You are testing a hypothesis and want planned decisions to remain distinguishable from later discoveries.
When to avoid it
- Preregistration does not establish design quality, ethical approval or the truth of a conclusion.
Why it matters
Record the question, outcomes, exclusions, stopping rule and analysis before inspecting the relevant results. A preregistration makes the sequence visible. Changes can still be justified and reported; the point is not to trap the project in a bad plan but to prevent hindsight from rewriting the plan invisibly.
Steps
- Write a sufficiently specific plan and timestamp it in an appropriate registry or controlled record.
- Run the study while preserving deviations and their reasons.
- Report planned analyses and label later exploratory work separately.
An example
A subgroup noticed after plotting the data becomes an exploratory finding rather than an allegedly original primary hypothesis.
Check your result
A reader can reconstruct what was decided before and after results became available.
Keep this limit in mind
- Preregistration does not establish design quality, ethical approval or the truth of a conclusion.
Connected ideas
Use beforeKeep a fresh dataset for the discovery's next test
Evidence and sources
Supports
Preregistration records a research plan before outcomes are known and makes later departures distinguishable from planned analyses.
A timestamp cannot rescue a weak question, an unsuitable design or inaccurate reporting.
Preregistration · Planned and unplanned analyses; changing a plan