Key point
The sample is the claim
Your insight is only about the people, events, rows, or products your sample can fairly represent.
If you collected responses from 42 students in your own WhatsApp groups, do not write “Indian students prefer X”. Write “In our sample of 42 college students, mostly from our network, X was common”.
Population vs sample
The population is the full group you want to talk about. The sample is the part you actually observed.
For a hackathon project, your population might be “students using UPI for canteen payments”. Your sample might be “78 students from two colleges who answered our form”.