The methodology section is the core of the research paper since it provides and proves the study’s validity. For this reason, students need to pay special attention to the description of their experiments and the rationale they will use to explain why they were conducted in the first place. Furthermore, the methods section must be aimed to the process of answering the research question and be able to justify the experimental design of the study.
Describing research protocols and materials used in a study is nothing simple since this process must contain chronologically organized protocol, starting from the most important to the least important information. In order to help you with this part of your research paper, we have decided to create a small guide on what a methodology section should look like.
The Two Main Questions of Every Methodology
Every methodology must contain questions. When writing this part of your research paper, you must make sure to answer the following two questions:
- How did you generate or collect the data?
- How did you analyze the collected data?
When writing the methodology section, it is important to be precise and direct. It is recommended that you use the past tense in the process of introducing and explaining the process of collecting and analyzing data. If your professor does not require other academic format, use the APA method for your research paper methods section.
Additionally, this section must contain sufficient information that will help others evaluate the reproducibility of the results, further research the topic or repeat the experiment. Your main goal here is to help the readers judge if the information you provided is valid. In this part of the methodology, it is highly important to provide the audience with accurate description of both the equipment and techniques you have used to collect and analyze the data.
Top Five Steps for Presenting and Discussing the Idea
We can point out to five key steps for presenting and discussing the idea of your paper:
- Provide your readers with information on the sample population and their basic demographic profile. This part includes speaking of age, racial composition and gender of the subject or the sample. If you used animals for your study and not people, you should list their strain, sex, age, weight and species.
- Speak of methods you have used to gather the subjects or samples for your study. Mention randomization techniques if you used some and explain how you prepared the samples for the research.
- Describe the calculations you have made in terms of the measurements.
- Describe the equipment and materials of any kind you are using in the study.
- Speak of the techniques and the statistical tests used to analyze the data you collected.
Research papers are among the most complex academic papers every student must deal with. Not only this study requires plenty of sources, research and amazing writing skills, but is also very time-consuming.
The methodology section of the research paper will take up plenty of time since you must clearly present everything you used to make the study work and prove its validity. You need to make sure that all your sources are properly used and reliable in the process, all with the goal of allowing others judge your study and perform further research or repeat your experiment.
Because of this, many students find it hard to find the time to finish a research paper and do it well. The number of students asking for professional help from a research paper writing service is growing daily and this is no strange at all. If you lack the writing skills, time or experience in crafting such papers, asking for help is never a bad idea.