6 Great Suggestions On Writing A Research Paper Methods Section

Writing a research paper at the collegiate level requires you to add more sections than you included in your high school projects. One of the most commonly added sections is the methods section. This is important in papers that must be written in the APA style. Here are six suggestions to help you complete the sections properly:

  1. Place the section in the proper location. It might seem like the methods you used to conduct research would fit nicely in an appendix, that is not where APA wants you to place it. This section follows the introduction so that the readers are able to see what you did before you analyze the results that you got.
  2. Include the appropriate sections: Even though the methods part of your paper is a separate section itself, it needs to be broken down into a few distinctive pieces, itself. They include a list of participants in your research, the procedures you used, the materials or measures you used, and the analysis of what happened.
  3. Watch a tutorial: If you have never written a methods section and you do not know how to write one properly, watching a tutorial or reading a lesson will help you. College instructors will not give writing lessons for papers; they expect you to know what you are doing so you can focus on learning the content. Most colleges have helpful websites or writing labs that have tutorials for projects like this.
  4. Be detailed: Someone who reads your paper will want to know exactly what you did to get the results you got. Provide all the of the little details that will help someone replicate your research. This is the only way that your research could be proven or conversely, found invalid.
  5. Describe the people who were involved: Your readers will also want to know the breakdown of the people who were involved in your research. They will want to know the gender, ages, occupations (if necessary), and any other characteristics that affects the outcome of the study. They will also want to know who you chose not to include and why.
  6. Share paperwork you used: The research methods section also needs to include the paperwork that you used to narrow down the subjects. You can put these in an appendix, but be sure to make a link to them.
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