Writing Textbooks Boundless Writing Writing Across Disciplines Writing in the Natural and Social Sciences: The Research Paper and the IMRAD Model
Writing Textbooks Boundless Writing Writing Across Disciplines
Writing Textbooks Boundless Writing
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Concept Version 14
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Methods

A methods section is a detailed description of how a study was researched and conducted.

Learning Objective

  • Identify the elements of a successful methods section

Key Points

    • Scientific objectivity requires that your paper have a testable hypothesis and reproducible results.
    • Your methods section should include all information necessary for your readers to exactly recreate your experiment; this gives others a chance to test your findings and demonstrates that your project meets the criteria of scientific objectivity.
    • To prove that your paper meets those criteria, you need to include a detailed description of how you conducted your experiment and reached your conclusions.
    • Specifically, your methods section should include details about your assumptions, your variables and participants, and what materials and metrics you used—essentially, any important information about when, where, and how the study was conducted.

Terms

  • IMRAD

    Currently the most prominent norm for the structure of a scientific paper; an acronym for "introduction, methods, results, and discussion."

  • testable

    Also known as falsifiable; able to be disproven.

  • reproducible

    Capable of being reproduced at a different time or place and by different people.

Full Text

IMRAD: The Methods Section

Your methods section should include a full, technical explanation of how you conducted your research and found your results. It should describe your assumptions, questions, simulations, materials, participants, and metrics.

Because the methods section is generally read by a specialized audience with an interest in the topic, it uses language that may not be easily understood by non-specialists. Technical jargon, extensive details, and a formal tone are expected.

The methods section should be as thorough as possible since the goal is to give readers all the information necessary for them to recreate your experiments. Scientific papers need a thorough description of methodology in order to prove that a project meets the criteria of scientific objectivity: a testable hypothesis and reproducible results.

Purpose of the Methods Section: Testability

Hypotheses become accepted theories only when their experimental results are reproducible. That means that if the experiment is conducted the same way every time, it should always generate the same, or similar, results. To ensure that later researchers can replicate your research, and thereby demonstrate that your results are reproducible, it is important that you explain your process very clearly and provide all of the details that would be necessary to repeat your experiment. This information must be accurate—even one mistaken measurement or typo could change the procedure and results drastically.

Example Methods Section

The following is an example of a methods section of a scientific paper:

"The study focused on a three-hundred-mile stretch of the Columbia River, which has been the stretch of the river most studied historically. Five locations were selected, each sixty miles apart. Each location had three different water samples selected for three levels of the water: surface water (3-inch depth), mid-level water (12-inch depth), and water from the bottom of the river (36-inch depth). Samples were taken three times a day, seven days a week, during a period stretching from the fourth month before until the fourth month after the year's salmon run."

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