Writing a Hypothesis

Writing a hypothesis
Step
1
Form a question based on observations. For instance, if you notice your pet mice have more babies when you feed them corn rather than pellets, this is an observation. Your question, therefore, may be: Do mice produce more babies when fed corn? You can test this, but first you must form a hypothesis.
Step
2
Write down what you predict will happen in your experiment. For instance, you can predict that if you feed some of your mice corn, they will produce more babies than mice to which you feed pellets.
Step
3
Determine your dependent and independent variables. Dependent variables are the factors that will be measured. They depend on the independent variable, which is the factor the experimenter controls. For example, if mice are fed a diet of corn, they will have more babies. The corn diet is the independent variable, and mice babies are the dependent variable. Both the dependent and independent variables must be measurable and testable.
Step
4
Write your hypothesis properly; otherwise, it may be mistaken for a prediction or conclusion. For instance, “children will get sick when exposed to the cold virus” is more of a prediction. “Children got sick because they were exposed to the cold visus,” on the other hand, is more of a conclusion. A proper hypothesis uses more cautious wording and should read: “children MAY get sick if exposed to the cold virus.” Inserting the word "may" signifies that this is a hypothesis.There are several ways to form a hypothesis. Most often, hypotheses are stated as ‘if-then’ statements. That is, you are stating that if X happens, then Y will happen. This is a prediction based on preliminary evidence and is a tentative relationship between X and Y. In our example using mice and corn feed, an appropriate hypothesis would be: "(IF) feeding mice a diet of corn (THEN) may increase offspring production.