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How To Write the

Methods Section  EXPLORE

of a Research
Paper

ACADEMIC AND SCIENTIFIC PROOFREADING AND EDITING S


ERVICES / ADVICE & DISCUSSIONS ON PREPARING & SUB‐
MITTING JOURNAL ARTICLES FOR PUBLICATION / HOW TO
WRITE THE METHODS SECTION OF A RESEARCH PAPER

How To Write the


Methods Section of a
Research Paper
June 12, 2018 Rene Tetzner
Advice & Discussions on Preparing & Submitting Jour
nal Articles for Publication

How To Write the Methods Section of a Re


search Paper
Whether you are writing a research article for
publication in a scholarly journal or a re-
search paper for credit in a university course,
you will need to describe and explain the met
hods you used in your research. For a short r
esearch paper of the kind submitted for an u
ndergraduate course, methods might be des
cribed very briefly, using no more than a par
agraph or two immediately after the introd-
uctory or background information. In a pub-
lishable journal article, on the other hand, or
a postgraduate research paper, an entire sec
tion is often dedicated to describing the met
hods the author used to conduct his or her r
esearch. In all cases, however, the basic prin-
ciples remain essentially the same, with the i
dea being to inform readers about the re-
search design and specifically about what wa
s done during the research, exactly how it wa
s done, the ways in which results were an-
alysed and why those procedures were chos
en as the most appropriate to achieve the ob
jectives of the research.

Precisely how the methods section of a re-


search paper should be written varies among
disciplines and instructors, fields of study an
d areas of specialisation, journals and pub-
lishers, and even individual authors and proj
ects. The guidelines or instructions relevant t
o the research paper you are writing should t
herefore always be consulted and any details
about the presentation of methods noted an
d followed with precision. The heading for th
e methods section, for instance, may need to
be simple, such as ‘Methods,’ ‘Materials and
Methods,’ ‘Subjects & Methods,’ ‘Methodolo-
gy’ or ‘Research Approach,’ but you may be a
ble to add some specific or individualising de
tails after the required terminology or choos
e your own heading altogether. The methods
of a relatively straightforward research proje
ct might be described without the use of sub-
headings, but if there are many procedures t
o describe, subheadings can clarify the mate-
rial for readers by dividing it into separate cat
egories such as ‘Participants,’ ‘Instruments,’ ‘P
rocedures, ‘Design’ and ‘Data-Analysis.’ A chr
onological presentation for the methods sec-
tion that reflects the order in which proce-
dures were performed during the research is
usually preferred, but within focussed sub-
sections information can be arranged on the
basis of importance, starting with the most i
mportant details and working down to the le
ast. Generally speaking, the methods section
of an academic or scientific research paper fo
llows the introduction and background sec-
tions and precedes the results and discus-
sion sections.

The writing style used in the methods section


of a research paper should be clear and di-
rect. Errors in grammar, spelling and punctu-
ation must be strictly avoided, as must am-
biguous, inaccurate and imprecise informa-
tion that might confuse readers. The past ten
se should be used to report what was done,
and the active voice can be particularly con-
cise when describing materials and methods,
but do check the instructions – some scientif-
ic disciplines, journals and instructors still pre
fer or require the passive voice. One of the m
ost challenging aspects of writing a success-
ful methods section for a research paper is a
chieving the perfect balance between the bre
vity that tends to be desirable and the thor-
ough descriptions of research subjects, equip
ment, procedures and analysis required for f
ellow researchers to evaluate, validate and re
plicate the work. Knowing your field and au-
dience will be immensely helpful for eliminat-
ing unnecessary details and information. Sta
ndard instruments and measures in the field,
for instance, may only need to be identified r
ather than described, but how you used the
m should be noted, and any modifications to
well-known equipment or innovations on es-
tablished procedures should be described in
detail. The right balance for a wide audience
can be elusive, which is why some scientific j
ournals now ask authors to include only ba-
sic information on methodology in the paper
itself and to present detailed methods for the
use of peer reviewers and researchers as sup
plementary materials.

Since the purpose of a methods section is to


describe what was done, the exact content wi
ll vary widely depending on the nature and c
omplexity of the research. If you are conduct-
ing quantitative or empirical-analytical re-
search, you will probably need to tell your re
aders about your subjects or participants (an
d any necessary ethical approval or consent),
the criteria you used to select them, sample a
nd group sizes, variables (independent as wel
l as dependent and confounding), proce-
dures for collecting and generating evidence,
means of measuring and analysing data, con-
trols and problems (as well as how you min-
imised or overcame them), and perhaps limi-
tations, though the last sometimes has its ow
n section. Providing explanations for why you
used the subjects, instruments and tech-
niques you did is also necessary, especially w
hen you move beyond conventional or estab-
lished practices in your field. The goal is to of
fer readers the information they require to d
ecide whether your methods are internally va
lid for generating reliable results and conclu-
sions suitable for your research objectives, a
nd externally valid for generalising those re-
sults and conclusions to larger populations o
r broader applications. Although you should
not write to tell others how to do what you di
d, experts in your area should nonetheless b
e able to use your methods section to repro-
duce your research or apply your techniques
effectively in their own research. If, on the ot
her hand, your research is quantitative or in-
terpretative in nature, describing your meth-
ods may not be so straightforward, but the p
urpose of your methods section will still be te
lling readers exactly what you did and why so
that they can make their own judgements ab
out your work. Published papers reporting re
search similar to your own are likely to pro-
vide the most useful models for writing a suc
cessful methods section.

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