Hard carbons are amongst the most promising anode materials for sodium-ion batteries, but their charge storage mechanisms are still poorly understood. Difficulties in characterizing their structures have led to a lack of detailed structure-property relationships. Their lack of long-range correlations, along with the formation of otherwise disordered, metastable, phases upon discharge hinders structural characterization. Here, we propose to study the formation of hard carbons resulting from different synthesis conditions using pair distribution function analysis to gain information about how the synthesis conditions affect the structure of the resultant carbon. This will be combined with electrochemical, Raman and solid-state NMR measurements in order to better understand the relationship between the carbon structure, its synthesis conditions and its behavior within a battery.