Controlling the temporal structure of the Methodology
The Methodology chapter of a thesis describes the research process in retrospect and thus in the past. Some elements of the Methodology however need to be temporally located in relation to others. For example a pilot study occurs before the main process of data collection and may or may not require modification of the research instruments. This can be done by using temporal adverbs such as 'then', 'subsequently', or 'after that', etc, e.g. The pilot study indicated ambiguity in some of the questions. These were subsequently rewritten for inclusion in the final questionnaire.