# 4. Designing your research

The contribution of a study hinges upon its research design. To improve your research design, I offer four rules. First, the design of the research should allow you to answer the research question. Second, the data should provide sufficient coverage of the population you seek to make statements about. Third, the measures should be valid and reliable. Fourth, the tests you conduct should be as stringent as possible. Before we go into these four rules, let us revisit the rule we’ve seen before: work in the right order.