The cardinal rule in the writing of your data and methods sections is that your research should be replicable (Nosek et al., 2015). Be open and transparent in the description of your research. Assume that a climatologist who knows nothing about the methods and data that you have used would try to replicate your research. What pieces of information would she need?
Right. All of them. Remember Einstein (Figure 17).
So:
In writing your thesis, you do not have to select which details to describe and which to omit – simply describe them all. Make all the materials you used (interview guides, topic lists, questionnaires, instructions for participants, stimulus materials) available in appendices and put them online, for instance in a project on the Open Science Framework. See the next section for a step-by-step guide.
When you are reworking your thesis into an empirical journal article, make sure you follow the guidelines and common practice in the journal to which you are submitting your article. Not all of these details are typically included in empirical journal articles; sometimes they are described in online supplementary materials, or they not disclosed at all. You will have to make selections. The journal may force you to keep only one or a few tables, and only one or a few figures. This is a bad practice that hinders progress and replicability in science. Whatever you present in the main text, make sure you do include all materials in the manuscript you submit to the journal, and include a DOI link to the preprint version. Create an ‘online supplementary materials’ appendix if possible. Certainly present all materials through a link to your project page.