When I was starting out I knew very little, and people gave me time they didn't really have to spare. This is how I pass that on. Twenty minutes a week for undergraduates and postgraduates, and none of it costs you anything.
Now accepting students.
These six overlap more often than not. Spine and musculoskeletal research is my own field and the one I work fastest in, but the methods carry over, and I am just as happy talking about sport science, allied health or clinical research generally. If a question needs expertise I don't have, I'll say so rather than guess.
Choosing and running the analysis your design supports, checking assumptions, and explaining the output in terms you can defend in a viva.
SPSS · R · PythonInterview and focus group design, coding frameworks, and integrating qualitative findings with quantitative ones rather than reporting them side by side.
Interview design · Thematic analysis · COREQ reportingScoping and systematic reviews from protocol to write-up, built so an auditor can follow them. I have published both.
Search strategy · PRISMA · Screening and extractionTurning findings into a results section, with statistical and clinical significance reported as separate claims, because reviewers read them that way.
Journal formatting · Tables · Figures · Reviewer responsesThe measures that are awkward to handle: imaging-derived variables, motion capture, wearable activity data and patient-reported outcome instruments.
DICOM · Ultrasound and shear wave elastography · Motion capture · EQ-5D-5L, ODI, NRSDatabase build, data dictionaries and outcome measures before recruitment starts, plus the paperwork that decides how long a study takes to begin.
REDCap · Data dictionaries · Ethics and governanceMost sessions come down to one thing you are stuck on and what to do about it, so there is nothing to prepare beforehand. If your data will not support the claim you want to make, you will hear it from me in the first twenty minutes rather than from an examiner a year later.
Attach a photo of your student ID and tell me roughly where you are stuck. A couple of sentences is plenty, and please leave participant data out of it.
With a time for your first session. If the ten places are ever full, I'll tell you where you are in the queue and roughly how long the wait is.
Online, at a time that works around your classes. Bring whatever you have, even if that is not much. Five sessions in a block.
Email questions are free and do not use up a session. Come back later in your degree if something new breaks.
I can usually answer a question without going anywhere near your data, and I would rather keep it that way.
These are the commitments that decide what I take on, and they apply just as strictly when the help is free.
A thesis is examined. A journal article is not. That difference decides what I will do.
| Thesis or assessment | Journal manuscript | |
|---|---|---|
| Run the analysis and supply the code | Yes | Yes |
| Explain the output so you can write it up | Yes | Yes |
| Advise on method and design | Yes | Yes |
| Write the results text | No | Yes |
| Edit text you have written | Feedback only | Yes |
| Write the discussion or interpretation | No | No |
If your institution's rules are stricter than this, theirs apply. Tell me what they say before we start, and declare the assistance you have received.
Tell me what you are working on and where it has gone wrong. I reply within one to two business days, and there is no wrong way to write the first email.
If you have them to hand, your research question, your design and sample size, the software you use and your deadline all help. If you do not, write anyway. No participant data, please.
Sore Spine Research
Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
ABN 38 289 504 661
Students and researchers across Australia and internationally. Sessions are held online.