Happy New Year and thank you all for your time.
I am an undergrad starting to work on my research thesis. A year ago I have already written and presented my research proposal and last fall I have also finished performing my research. Now I am in the stage of writing up my thesis and preparing for my final presentation. Today I have a question regarding my Methods section.
I ended up changing my methods entirely because my initial plan was not working. Since I have collected my data using an entirely new set of protocols, what do I do with the methods that I wrote on my proposal? Do I include this in my thesis even though I did not use it?
If yes, where do I report the "changes" that I made in the methods? Will I be presenting two different methods in a row in the Methods section, or do I keep just the original methods in the Methods section and introduce my new methods somewhere in the Discussion? Where do I explain how and why I had to change my methods? Shouldn't it come before the Results section?
I am sorry if this was confusing but thank you in advance for your help!