This document provides useful phrases for describing methods in the Methods section of a research paper. It lists three categories: [1] describing previously used methods, [2] giving reasons why a particular method was adopted or rejected, and [3] indicating a specific method. Examples are given for each category that researchers can use when writing about the methods they employed in their study. The document aims to help writers clearly and effectively communicate their methodology to allow other researchers to understand and potentially replicate the study.
This document provides useful phrases for describing methods in the Methods section of a research paper. It lists three categories: [1] describing previously used methods, [2] giving reasons why a particular method was adopted or rejected, and [3] indicating a specific method. Examples are given for each category that researchers can use when writing about the methods they employed in their study. The document aims to help writers clearly and effectively communicate their methodology to allow other researchers to understand and potentially replicate the study.
This document provides useful phrases for describing methods in the Methods section of a research paper. It lists three categories: [1] describing previously used methods, [2] giving reasons why a particular method was adopted or rejected, and [3] indicating a specific method. Examples are given for each category that researchers can use when writing about the methods they employed in their study. The document aims to help writers clearly and effectively communicate their methodology to allow other researchers to understand and potentially replicate the study.
JNTUH College of Engineering Hyderabad (Autonomous)
Hyderabad-500085
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Skills are needed when writing the methods
In the Methods section of a dissertation or research article,
writers give an account of how theycarried out their research. The Methods section should be clear and detailed enough for anotherexperienced person to repeat the research and reproduce the results. Where the methods chosenare new, unfamiliar or perhaps even controversial, or where the intended audience is from manydisciplines, the Methods section will tend to be much more extensive. Typical stretches of text foundin this section of a research article or dissertation along with examples of the kind of language usedfor these are listed below. Note that for most of the functional categories in this section, the verbsare written in the simple past tense.
Useful English Phrases of Research paper writing in
Methods Section 1. Describing previously used methods To date various methods have been developed and introduced to measure X: In most recent studies, X has been measured in four different ways. Traditionally, X has been assessed by measuring…. Different authors have measured X in a variety of ways. Previous studies have based their criteria for selection on …. The use of qualitative case studies is a well-established approach in …. This test is widely available, and has been used in many investigational studies. Case studies have been long established in X to present detailed analysis of …. Recently, simpler and more rapid tests of X have been developed. Radiographic techniques are the main non-invasive method used to determine …. A variety of methods are used to assess X. Each has its advantages and drawbacks. Data were gathered from multiple sources at various time points during ….
2. Giving reasons why a particular method was adopted or
rejected A case study approach was used to allow a …. Qualitative methods offer an effective way of …. A quantitative approach was employed since …. The design of the questionnaires was based on …. The X method is one of the more practical ways of …. The semi-structured approach was chosen because …. The X approach has a number of attractive features: …. The second advantage of using the multivariate method is …. For this study, the X was used to explore the subsurface …. Smith et al. (1994) identify several advantages of the case study, …. It was decided that the best method to adopt for this investigation was to …. The study uses qualitative analysis in order to gain insights into …. It was considered that quantitative measures would usefully supplement and extend the …. Many of the distributions were not normal so non-parametric signed rank tests were run. One advantage of the X analysis is that it avoids the problem of …. The sensitivity of the X technique has been demonstrated in a report by Smith et al (2011). However, there are certain drawbacks associated with the use of …. The main disadvantage of the experimental method is that …. A major problem with the experimental method is that …. There are certain problems with the use of focus groups. One of these is that there is less ….
3. Indicating a specific method
X was prepared according to the procedure used by Patel et al. (1957). The synthesis of X was done according to the procedure of Smith (1973). X was synthesised using the same method that was detailed for Y, using ….
This compound was prepared by adapting the procedure used by
Zhao et al. (1990). An alternative method for making scales homogenous is by using …. Samples were analysed for X as previously reported by Smith et al. (2012)