As someone who was encouraged to do something similar, it was akin to creating a template manuscript for the project at hand: sketch out the experiments you plan to do, the likely results, and illustrative figures. This is meant as an exercise very early on in the project discussion phase, before any experiments have been performed, and while you're still figuring out the papers to read.

No. Obviously you rewrite the whole paper. Academics rewrite their papers multiple times before submitting them. The whole thing is a draft of a draft. The idea is to make your ideas very very concrete by writing them down as a paper.

Really annoys me when the word fraud is thrown around so freely, so I'd appreciate it if you don't.

Thanks for the explanation.

> Obviously you rewrite the whole paper

It is not mentioned and was not obvious to me. Still, I'd postpone writing the conclusion to after you actually have the data. To do otherwise would be steering the experiments to get the expected results. I also reckon this depends on your field, how long the experiments take and your confidence in the results.

> Really annoys me when the word fraud is thrown around so freely, so I'd appreciate it if you don't.

I agree, 'academic dishonesty' is a more appropriate term here.

You typically have a finite set of overall results you expect to get, usually something like positive or negative. It helps to write out what you would conclude when you get either results. Think of this like a process that helps make your ideas clearer. And makes writing your final paper a lot easier.