The document provides guidance on writing the Method section of a research paper. The Method section should describe the study in enough detail that other researchers could replicate it. It includes subsections for participants, design, materials, apparatus, procedure, and participant characteristics. The participants subsection describes the number, demographics, and source of participants. The design subsection describes the research design. The materials subsection lists what was used to collect data. The procedure subsection provides a step-by-step description of how the study was conducted. The goal is to give readers a clear understanding of how the research was performed.

1. What’s the Method Section for?
 The main goal of the method section is to
describe the study so that readers can
identify what exactly you did.

2. What’s the Method Section for?
 A good method section will:
 Help readers understand the “nuts and bolts” of
your study (including its reliability, validity,
population, sample, etc.)
 Help readers understand what procedures you
will follow and what materials you will use in your
study
 Help researchers replicate your study in the
future

3. What goes in the Method Section?
 Participants
 # of Participants, demographics, where they will
come from
 Design
 This is an optional section. If you have a complex
design it is sometimes helpful to tell the reader what
your design is so they can follow your procedures
more easily.
 Materials
 Description of what you will use in your study to
obtain the data from the participants

4. What goes in the Method Section?
 Apparatus
 This is an optional section for if you have
equipment in your study
 Procedure
 Describe in detail how the study will be carried
out

5. Participant Characteristics
 The goal is to describe the characteristics
of your participants fully
 Items to include:
 Demographics (age, sex, race, education, socio-
economic status, etc.)
Only if these demographics are important to your study. For
example, if you are not studying gender then you do not report
gender.

6. Participant Characteristics
 Numbers of participants in different groups in
your study (experimental vs control group)
 Helps support or explain the generalizability of
your results and also helps to compare samples
in subsequent replications of the study

7. Participant Continued…
 Sampling Method
 Inducements to participate

8. Example - Participants
Participants will include 900
undergraduates students from a large
southwestern university. Participation will
be a requirement for their research
methods laboratory.

9. Materials &/or Measures &/or
Apparatus
 Provide definitions of what you will measure
 Example: stress, class attendance, alcohol
consumption
 You may explain how you defined the variables
you chose to study.
 Methods used to collect data
 (Example: Questionnaire, online survey,
interviews, etc.)

10. Materials &/or Measures &/or
Apparatus
 Instruments and/or any other materials
used relevant to the study.
 This could include published scales used to
assess different variables, a published survey
that was used, computer programs, etc.
 Parts of scales/ measurement items or full
examples can be included in appendices and
referred to in the Methods Section.

11. Example - Materials
The program that will be used in this
experiment is a DOS-based program called
PsycLab. This program was written to
administer multiple trials of the lexical
decision task to the participant and record
the data.

12. Procedure/ Research Design
 What method will you use?
 Example: Naturalistic observation, experiment,
survey?
 Provide a detailed summary of the
procedures you will use and what the
participants will do in the study.

13. Procedure/ Research Design
 Procedure should include:
 Any instructions given to participants
 How different groups will be formed (if
applicable)
 Any manipulations performed on variables
 What participants actually will do

14. Example – Procedure (excerpt…)
The participants will be told to read the
instructions carefully prior to starting the study.
These instructions will tell the participants exactly
how the study is to be performed, what types of
prompts would appear on the screen, and which
computer keys to use. The participants will
randomly assigned to condition one or two, which
will be different only in the word lists they used.
The participants will be presented with a plus sign
to focus them in the right place for 1000 ms,
followed by a prime for 700ms, and finally a target
50 ms later…

15. Method: APA Format
 The first line of the Method Section starts
immediately after the last line of the
Introduction. Type and center the word
“Method,” (without the quotes) and begin
the Method section below.
 Each subdivision begins by typing the
name of the subdivision flush left, bold.
Start the text of each section on the line
below.

16. Sample Method Page
…this is the end of the Introduction.
Method
Participants
One hundred undergraduate students at…
Materials
Two passages with approximately the same…
Procedure
Participants will be asked to…