10-year longitudinal study, five-point Likert scale. The Golden Rule: To Hyphenate or Not?

In the world of Electronic Theses and Dissertations, clarity is king. Compound adjectives allow you to:

Use a hyphen if the adjective comes before the word it’s describing. Example: "We conducted a well-structured interview."

The most common "ETD" headache is the hyphen. The rule is simpler than it looks: