Planning a study requires attention to detail. I have broken these down into 10 steps which I call the 10 commandments. These are:

1. Introduce and Familiarize yourself with the steps in performing quality research


2. Review literature using PubMed, read Journals regularly and work on Hypothesis building.


3. Interact with a statistician before starting your study/thesis


4. Data collection and maintenance is Critical. Use tips for data entry in Excel sheets.


5. Give clear-cut guidelines to the statistician for data analysis and interpretation


6. Use a methodical approach with CHECKLISTS for Writing up the manuscript.


7. Choose a journal of choice carefully keeping in mind its indexing and your target audience


8. Use reference managers to efficiently maintain references.


9. Be aware of the Common causes of rejection of a manuscript and avoid these mistakes


10. Be positive even with rejection, be persistent and vow to come back stronger.

You can also read about this on the SRA blog.