1Sarah and Tom met with Professor Lane to review the first draft of their palaeoclimate research proposal.
2They had initially planned to analyse tree rings, but the professor steered them towards sediment cores instead.
3The professor pointed out that their hypothesis, while interesting, was too broad to test within one semester.
4Sarah suggested narrowing the focus to the medieval warm period, which the professor considered a sensible compromise.
5It was not the laboratory work but the statistical analysis that the students admitted they found most daunting.
6The data had originally been expected in March, though equipment failures pushed the delivery back to June.
7Tom wondered whether the warming signal might reflect local conditions rather than a genuinely global pattern.
8The professor agreed, reminding them that correlation between records does not by itself establish a causal link.
9They decided to compare their cores with published ice core data, rather than relying on a single proxy.
10Contrary to their expectations, the professor encouraged them to report any results that contradicted their original hypothesis.
11The meeting ended with a revised deadline: the methodology section was now due two weeks earlier than planned.