Template
Write a methods section someone else could follow exactly
You ran a study and now have to describe it so precisely that a reviewer can evaluate it and a stranger could repeat it.
- Typical length
- Roughly 15–25% of a journal article, and often a full chapter of 6,000–10,000 words in a thesis, where justification matters as much as description.
- Usual tense
- Past tense throughout — the study has already happened. Present tense appears only when describing what an instrument measures.
- Voice
- Traditionally passive (“participants were recruited”), though active first-person constructions are now common and usually clearer. Follow the journal.
- Citation style
- Same as the rest of the paper. Instruments, established protocols, and analytic software all take citations.
- Reporting guidelines
- Many fields have checklists — CONSORT for randomized trials, PRISMA for systematic reviews, COREQ for qualitative interviews. Journals increasingly require the completed checklist at submission.
- Check with your supervisor
- Whether the section must state an epistemological position, how much instrument detail belongs in an appendix, and which reporting checklist applies.
THE SKELETON
Section by section
Each block gives you the heading, what it has to accomplish, and the questions that fill it.
1 · about 10–15% of the section
Research Design
Name the design and justify it against the research question. A reader should be able to classify the study in the first two sentences.
- What is the design called in your field’s vocabulary?
- Why does this design answer your question better than the obvious alternative?
- Is the study exploratory or confirmatory, and does the write-up say so?
- Was any part of it preregistered?
2 · about 15–20% of the section
Participants, Sample, or Materials
Who or what was studied, how many, how they were chosen, and who was excluded. Report the characteristics that could plausibly affect the outcome.
- What was the sampling strategy, and what was the final number?
- Which inclusion and exclusion criteria applied?
- How many were approached, and how many declined or dropped out?
- Which demographic or corpus characteristics matter for interpreting the result?
3 · about 15% of the section
Materials and Instruments
Every questionnaire, apparatus, stimulus set, interview guide, or software package. Existing instruments get a citation; adapted ones get a description of the change.
- Which instruments are established, and what is the citation for each?
- If you adapted or translated anything, what exactly changed?
- What reliability evidence exists for each measure in your sample?
- Which software and version performed the analysis?
4 · about 20% of the section
Procedure
The chronological account of what happened, from first contact to last data point. This is the part that makes replication possible.
- What did a single participant experience, in order, from start to finish?
- Where and when did data collection happen, and over what period?
- Who collected the data, and what training did they have?
- Was anything randomized, counterbalanced, or blinded, and how?
5 · about 20% of the section
Data Analysis
Say how raw data became results. Each research question should map to a stated analysis, and any decision made after seeing the data should be labeled as such.
- Which analysis answers which research question?
- How were missing data, outliers, and failed cases handled?
- For qualitative work, who coded, how was the coding frame built, and how was agreement checked?
- Which choices were made after you saw the data?
6
Ethical Approval and Data Handling
The approving body, the reference number, and how consent, anonymity, storage, and sharing were managed.
- Which committee approved the study, and under what reference?
- How was informed consent obtained and recorded?
- Where are the data stored, for how long, and who can access them?
- Are the data or code available to other researchers, and under what conditions?
7
Methodological Rigor and Constraints
The steps taken to make the findings trustworthy, and the limits the design imposes. Constraints on the method belong here; consequences for the claims belong in the discussion.
- What did you do to guard against bias in collection or coding?
- Which validity threat is most serious for this design?
- Did anything go wrong during data collection that a reader should know about?
SENTENCE STARTERS
Phrasing you can adapt
Lift these and change the specifics. Academic phrasing is a shared convention, not something each writer has to reinvent.
A … design was chosen because it permits …
This approach is appropriate where …
An experimental design was not feasible given …, so …
Following Author (Year), we adopted …
Participants were recruited through … between … and …
Of the … individuals approached, … completed the study.
Eligibility was restricted to …
The final sample comprised …
Responses were analyzed using … in …
Transcripts were coded inductively, with the framework revised after …
Cases with more than … missing values were excluded.
Assumptions of … were checked prior to …
Questions about the methodology section template
How much detail is too much?
The test is replication: include what someone would need to run the study again, and move the rest — full instruments, coding frames, extended protocols — to an appendix or supplement.
Should I write methods in the passive voice?
Only if your target venue expects it. The passive was standard for decades and remains common, but most style manuals now allow the active first person, which removes the ambiguity about who did what.
Where do I mention limitations?
Constraints built into the design belong in the methods; what those constraints mean for your conclusions belongs in the discussion. Saying it in both places wastes words.
Do I need to report analyses I ran and abandoned?
If a discarded analysis would change how a reader interprets the reported one, yes. Silently keeping only the analysis that worked is the core of selective reporting.
Related templates
Research Paper Outline
You are writing an empirical paper for a journal or a graduate course and you want the structure settled before you draft a paragraph.
Thesis Outline
You have a supervisor, a topic, and a submission date, and you need to see the whole thesis as chapters before you start writing any of them.
Lab Report
You completed a practical and have to write it up in the standard scientific format, usually against a marking rubric.
Systematic Review Protocol
You are planning a systematic review and need the method fixed and registered before the results can influence your decisions.
An outline is a start
Plan mode is the rest
Copyeditor’s Plan mode turns a structure like this into sections you produce one at a time, with citations landing in the bibliography as you go.
