How to Write a Method Section
(adapted from About.com by Kendra Van Wagner)
The method section of research paper provides the methods and procedures used in a research study or experiment.
You should provide detailed information on the research design, participants, equipment, materials, variables, and
actions taken by the participants. The method section should provide enough information to allow other researchers to
replicate your experiment or study.
The method section should utilize subheading to divide up different subsections. These subsections typically include:
Participants, Materials, Design, and Procedure, but not every study will require each of these subsections.
Here's How:
Participants
Describe the participants in your experiment, including who they were, how many there were, and how they
were selected. For example:
We randomly selected 100 children from elementary schools near the University of Arizona.
Or
Six adult Sprague-Dawley rats (Harlan) weighing an average of 250 g were used in this study.
Subjects that give their consent are referred to as participants, everything else is referred to as a subject.
Materials
Describe the materials, measures, equipment, or stimuli used in the experiment. This may include testing
instruments, technical equipments, books, images, or other materials used in the course of research. You do not need to
include common materials such as pens, notebooks, cages, scalpels, common chemicals, etc. For example:
Two stories from Sullivan et al.’s (1994) second-order false belief attribution tasks were used to assess
children’s understanding of second-order beliefs.
Or
An apparatus for assessing conditioned place preference consisted of two, 2 ft by 2 ft enclosures joined by a 3
in long, 2 in diameter plastic tunnel. Both of the enclosures had open tops and one enclosure had white walls
whereas the other had black walls.
Design
Describe the type of design used in the experiment. Specify the variables as well as the levels of these
variables. Explain whether your experiment uses a within-groups or between-groups design. For example:
The experiment used a 3x2 between-subjects design. The independent variables were age and understanding
of second-order beliefs.
Procedure
The next part of your method section should detail what happened to the participants or subjects in your
experiment. Explain what the participants did or what happened to them, how you collected any data, and the order in
which steps occurred. For example:
An examiner interviewed children individually at their school in one session that lasted 20 minutes. The
examiner explained to each child that he or she would be told two short stories and that some questions
would be asked after each story. All sessions were videotaped and the data was coded from the videotape.
Tips:
1. Always write the method section in the past tense.
2. Use your normal vocabulary; don’t try to sound scientific or educated.
3. Provide enough detail that another researcher could replicate your experiment, but focus on brevity. Avoid
unnecessary detail that is not relevant to the outcome of the experiment.
4. Tell what you actually did, not what you were supposed to do or what one ought to do.
5. Tell what you did, not why you did it.
6. Remember to use proper APA format.
7. Proofread your paper for typos, grammar problems, and spelling errors. Don’t just rely on computer spell
checkers.
8. Check each section of your paper for agreement with other sections. If you mention steps and procedures in the
method section, these elements should also be present in the results and discussion sections.