Good. At least you start the procrastination game early.

On the issue of statistical skills, or rather the lack of it, is it possible and ethical for a postgraduate student to 'outsource' data analysis to a statistician? Thanks.

It is rather the way I should approach it:
1) Should I tell the statistician my objectives and leave it to him to use the data for those objectives?
2) Should I keep the objectives and data headings confidential and just ask the statistician to run them?
3) Should I pay the statistician or would he be more interested in jointly publishing? What if it is solely for my thesis and not publishable? Whats in it for him?

Thanks.

Thanks. So the thesis and papers that we all see filled with tonnes of mathematical formulae and statistical analyses, can't possibly just come from one individual who just has the concept, research questions, objectives and hypotheses in hand. Hats off if that one person can do everything.