Methods Project - introduction

Experimentation is a fundamental pillar of the scientific process that is built upon a systematic approach and organized collection and presentation of data. No matter how conclusive or groundbreaking an experiment may be, the results should be viewed with skepticism until the results can be accurately and consistently replicated. While perfect replication of any experiment or action is an unfair expectation, these indescrepencies can be mitigated by a detailed and well written methods section.  The goal of this project was to highlight the importance of a detailed methods section as well as the wide array of variables that need to be addressed, such as time of day, distance, angle and orientation by photographing a flowering  plant from two different perspectives and creating a figure showing the regions that the subject inhabits. No matter how detailed, there will likely be minor inconsistencies between independent processes as not all variables, such as the weather or physiologic changes naturally occurring within the subject, can be controlled and instead must be accounted for when comparative analysis is being performed.