How to Write the Methods Section of a Quantitative Research Paper: A Sentence-by-Sentence Breakdown

Even if your introduction section poses a research question that is worth investigating, if you fail to show how your study design effectively answers that question, readers will not see the value of your paper.

Therefore, writing a strong methodology section is crucial to getting your paper accepted for publication.

However, writing the methods section is a lot more difficult than it first appears.

As students, we were taught that the methodology section should describe what you did when conducting your study.

But it’s not always clear how much detail to include. Authors often wonder whether a sentence will actually help readers evaluate their study or whether they're just adding unnecessary length to the paper.

As a result, a methods section can easily become either overly detailed or insufficiently justified. Both types of mistakes make it hard for readers to evaluate the study’s design.

Authors usually fall into these traps because they think of the methodology section as merely a record of the steps they took. But there’s more to it than that.

A strong methodology section doesn’t just explain the steps the researchers took when carrying out their study. It also provides evidence that the research design was the best method for answering the research question.

You can provide this evidence through three types of sentences:

• Description: These sentences increase transparency by telling readers what you did when conducting your study.

  • Example: Participants completed a 20-minute questionnaire followed by a computerized decision-making task.

• Justification: These sentences reveal the rationale behind your choices, which boosts readers' confidence in your study design. You can justify your choices in two general ways:

  • By appealing to the authority of previous researchers (e.g., “We used Questionnaire X because it has been validated in several previous studies”).

  • By explaining what outcome you expected to achieve (e.g., “We used Questionnaire X to measure participants’ satisfaction with their working conditions”).

• Credibility: These sentences give specific details that allow readers to evaluate your methods more effectively.

  • Example: An example item from the questionnaire is, “I have difficulty falling asleep.”

To put the above more succinctly:

• “Description” sentences tell readers what you did.

• “Justification” sentences explain why you did it.

• "Credibility” sentences give readers specific details so they can judge whether your actions were appropriate.

One important thing I should note before moving on is that most sentences contain more than one type of information. As you will see in many of the example sentences that follow, most “description” sentences have “justification” or “credibility” information integrated into them.

To make it easier to see what type of information is presented in the example sentences throughout this article, I will use blue font to indicate description, green font to represent justification, and this lovely lavender font for information that enhances credibility.

Also, as you read, keep one important thing in mind:

Although every subsection of a methodology section has a different purpose, they all serve the same goal, namely, to give readers enough information to judge whether the study design is adequate for answering the research question.

The rest of this article provides examples from a published paper to show you when authors write each kind of sentence in the different subsections of their methods section.

Participants

Depending on the study, the participants subsection may focus primarily on providing details about the sample rather than explicitly stating how participants were recruited.

In other words, compared to other subsections, this one often contains more text of the justification and credibility variety and less of the description variety.

For example, the first sentence of the participants subsection of a study on gender differences in risk-taking behavior contains a lot of details about the sample:

A sample of 657 subjects (389 female and 268 male, average age = 18.5 years) from undergraduate psychology classes at the University of California, San Diego participated in the study.

Since this is a study on gender differences, the gender distribution is vital. Had the sample contained something like 95% females, readers would instantly call the whole study into question.

Meanwhile, the participants' average age and the institution from which they were recruited are included more for transparency than to prove that the sample was appropriate.

Even if a piece of information is not relevant to the research objective, it still allows readers to make some inferences about the study. This helps them evaluate the credibility of the results that are to come.

For example, given the young mean age of this sample, readers will understand that the results might not apply to older age groups.

Authors also often note any special steps taken when recruiting participants. In doing so, they will probably provide their justification for those steps.

To give another example from the same paper, the authors note:

Three additional subjects participated but were excluded because they did not indicate their gender.

Measures

The measures subsection tends to be primarily descriptive, with some justifications (e.g., reasons for using a specific tool) provided as needed. Here and there, the author might give examples or direct readers to another study or an appendix to help them assess the study’s credibility.

Let’s look at an excerpt from the measures subsection of the same paper on gender differences in risk-taking behavior, taking things sentence-by-sentence. First, we have:

Given the mixed results regarding gender differences in the social domain reported by Weber et al. (2002) and Johnson et al. (2004), two additional social domain scenarios were created for the current work to further examine potential gender differences in this domain.

This sentence provides a description of a step (creating two additional scenarios), which is sandwiched between two justifications:

• The first justification shows readers why the additional scenarios were created in the first place: because previous studies provided mixed results.

• The second justification explains why the additional scenarios were created in relation to what the authors intended to achieve. Namely, they wanted to examine gender differences in a specific domain.

The next sentence goes:

For each scenario (listed in Appendix A), subjects rated (1) their likelihood of engaging in the activity, (2) the probability of a risky behavior incurring negative consequences, (3) the severity of these potential consequences, should they occur, and (4) how positive or enjoyable the given activity would be, if there were no bad outcomes.

This kind of sentence is very common in methodology sections. It’s mostly descriptive, but it also refers readers to an appendix, allowing them to assess this step’s credibility.

The next sentence in this paper contains a little of everything:

Following Weber et al. (2002), subjects responded to the likelihood of engaging question with a 5-pt. scale (1 = very unlikely; 5 = very likely).

First, the authors justify their use of a specific question by stating that previous authors have used it. They then briefly describe the step. Finally, they give specific details about the question to enhance credibility.

Procedure

Sentences in the procedure subsection generally fall into two categories:

1. Descriptive sentences with justification elements.

2. Descriptive sentences with credibility elements.

Of course, there are exceptions, as will be illustrated in the last of the example sentences below.

Let's take a paragraph from the same paper we've been looking at so far and break it down. The first sentence reads:

The scenarios listed in Appendix A were presented in a random order and subjects assessed their likelihood of engaging in each described behavior.

This sentence is almost entirely description, with the exceptions of the reference to an appendix and the mention that the scenarios were presented in a random order. These details included to boost the credibility of the research design.

Note that the authors did not need to justify the randomization process because this is standard practice in experimental research.

Next, we have:

Two practice scenarios appeared before the actual stimuli to familiarize the subjects with the types of scenarios and the response scales.

This sentence combines a description (providing two practice scenarios) with the justification for providing the scenarios (to familiarize the subjects with the protocol).

This is followed by another standard sentence:

The positive domain scenarios were presented next and followed the same procedures as the negative domain (e.g., likelihood of engaging in the activity was first assessed and then the scenarios were presented a second time with the three additional questions about outcomes).

After describing the step, the authors provide examples so that readers can more clearly see what was done. This is another effective way to boost the credibility of a study.

The final sentence in this paper’s procedure subsection is pure description:

Lastly, subjects answered questions regarding past risky behavior.

Usually, you would expect the authors to provide some kind of justification for this step. However, the authors had already clarified in the paper’s introduction section that their study aimed to compare risk perception patterns with past experiences of engaging in risky behavior.

Therefore, readers will intuitively understand that the questions about past risky behavior were asked to fulfill this research purpose. As such, justifying this step would have been redundant.

Data Analysis

Whereas the procedure subsection primarily describes what the participants did during the data collection procedure, the data analysis subsection explains what the researchers did with the data once they had collected it.

Because the researchers are describing their own actions, you’re likely to see more justifications in this subsection compared to others.

Here's a sentence from the data analysis subsection of the example paper:

For each type of question, an individual’s responses to the scenarios composing each domain were averaged together to form a composite score for that domain.

The structure of this sentence is very common in a data analysis subsection. It starts with a description of what the researchers did (the averaged individuals’ responses). It then explains why the researchers did this (to form composite scores), thus justifying this step's role in the research process.

The next sentence from this paper’s data analysis is very similar:

For each negative risk domain, four separate t-tests were performed to determine the existence of gender differences in perceptions of (1) likelihood of engaging; (2) probability of negative consequences due to engaging; (3) severity of potential negative consequences; and (4) enjoyment.

The only difference between this sentence and the previous one is that a more detailed justification is given for the step being described (i.e., performing t-tests).

Although no such examples are included in the sample paper, this subsection can also contain credibility elements. An example could be the inclusion of a path model diagram showing the various relationships that the researchers tested.

Summary

A paper’s methodology section generally relays three types of information:

• Most sentences describe a step that was taken when conducting the study.

• Many sentences also explain the researchers’ rationale for taking an action. They might refer to previous studies that took similar steps, or they might explain the intended outcome of taking a specific step.

• When needed, authors can also provide specific details, such as example items from a questionnaire, to allow readers to evaluate how appropriate the study design was for answering the research question.

Keeping these three key elements in mind when writing your methodology will ensure that each sentence is doing its job. As a result, journal reviewers will be able to see that your method was the ideal way to achieve your research objectives.

This, in turn, will greatly increase the chances that your paper will be accepted for publication.

Still unsure if your methodology section is strong enough?

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