How To Write a Hypothesis

John Millar Published On Apr 07, 2021 | Updated on Oct 05, 2023 Writing Service

When Aaron Rodriguez decided to take up a major in physics, he didn't think it'd be much difficult for him since science was his forte in high school. But the college days came with a new set of challenges when the assignments kept getting harder and harder. He was finding it particularly difficult to find the hypothesis for his papers. His grades were affected in the process.

Pursuing science in higher education means you need to formulate a hypothesis on the college essay or research paper topics. But like Aaron, if you need some ideas on writing a hypothesis, then you need to watch this space. Mentioned below are some steps that will help you understand how to phrase a hypothesis correctly.

How to Write a Hypothesis With Proper Examples

Read the details about writing a hypothesis along with examples discussed in different steps.

Step 1: Explore your chosen topic

Read multiple articles in databases and books in the library. Also, make sure you prepare notes. Remember to write where each piece of information came from, including the author, date, title, publisher, city of publication, and the page number. You need these details so you can create the bibliography later.

It’s best to organize all of the bibliographical details together so you can easily access them again. Just be sure to jot down the name of the author when you start writing notes from a source, so you have an idea of what bibliographic entry it came from.

Step 2: Evaluate the existing literature

Invest adequate time reading the materials you've gathered. As you analyze the literature, keep an eye on and take note of unanswered questions in the literature. These will make way for excellent ideas for you to explore.

For example, you may want to explore the effects of caffeine on the human body. But then you notice that nobody seems to have focused on whether caffeine affects men differently than it does women; this detail could be used to develop a hypothesis.

Step 3: Find clues to determine the answers to your research questions

Once you have decided on your research question or questions, check the literature for the existing theories or findings of the topic. The topic may reveal clues that would let you develop different ideas about what the answers to your research questions can be. This way, the clues can be the basis for your hypothesis.

Following the examples above, if you find out from the literature that there’s a pattern that some other kinds of stimulants seem to affect women more than men, this could present a clue that the same pattern may be true for caffeine.

Step 4: Find the variables

A generalizing hypothesis focuses on a pattern you think may be present between two variables, i.e., the independent and dependent variable. If your research and experiment confirm the pattern, you may recommend a reason that the pattern exists or a system that generates the pattern. The reason or system you recommend is called the explanatory hypothesis.

You can consider the independent variable as the one that’s triggering some kind of difference. From the earlier examples, the independent variable can be the sex of the individuals involved (in this case, men and women).

On the other hand, the dependent variable depends on the independent variable. In case of the examples above, the dependent variable would be the measured impact of caffeine.

Step 5: Give your hypothesis some direction

Hypotheses can be non-directional or directional. A non-directional hypothesis simply conveys that one variable influences the other in a specific way but doesn't specify the way it impacts. A directional hypothesis presents more information about the nature (or "direction") of the relationship between two variables, emphasizing how one variable affects the other.

Based on the example, if you state the non-directional hypotheses, it’d be something like "there’s a connection between an individual’s sex and how much caffeine increases the individual physical wellbeing."

Using the same example, the directional hypotheses above would be: "Women will experience a higher increase in heart rate after caffeine consumption than men."

Step 6: See that the hypothesis can be tested

Your hypothesis must focus on a connection between two variables or a reason that two variables are linked that can feasibly be measured in the real world.

For example, you wouldn’t want to prepare a hypothesis that says: "Pink is a pretty color." This is an opinion, and it can't be tested with an experiment. However, proposing the generalizing hypothesis that pink is a popular color is testable with a random survey.

Step 7: Write a hypothesis clearly

Often, hypotheses have presented the form of if-then sentences. For example, "if the water consumption isn’t regulated, then the scarcity will prevail." This statement can’t be considered a hypothesis. Rather this is a concise description of an experimental method along with a prediction, and it's the most usual way that hypotheses are misrepresented in scientific research.

A simple way to put together the hypothesis and prediction is to ask yourself why you think the scarcity will prevail if the water consumption isn’t monitored.

In this case, some scientists prepare a research hypothesis, along with the experiment, and the prediction, everything in one statement.

Step 8: Place your hypothesis in the context

It'll probably sound weird, but researchers never really prove whether a hypothesis is right or wrong. Rather they look for evidence that the opposite of their hypotheses is false.

It’s crucial to remember if you’re concerned about how to write a null hypothesis, it’ll be more useful when researchers test the significance of their results with statistics.

Endnote,

Writing science assignments is incomplete without the mention of a credible hypothesis for the experiments you conduct. These steps presented here will guide you to present this pivotal element of a scientific paper.

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