Writing and Study Skills Clinic

1. Writing and Study Skills Clinic Methods/Materials

2. Overview • Methods/Materials section functions in at least two ways: • proposal • reverse engineering • The information for this section often reaches backward & forward through the text. • Common knowledge, purpose, and criteria language strategies keep this section clear and direct.

3. Do you NEED a Methods/Materials section? • What is the purpose, in your field, for this section? • What can be included? What should be discussed elsewhere? • How detailed should this section be? • Subheadings or one complete section? • Agent focused or study focused? • Methods, materials, or both?

4. Order • The Methods section is usually the first to get written, and can actually begin life as a proposal. • When integrated in the research project, the tense should shift, but the purpose of all elements described should still be clear: • Data collection • How • What • Why • Participants/Population/Subjects • Criteria for measuring outcome/justification for this use • The question of outcome validity begins HERE.

5. Tradition and Justification • The length of a Methods section often pivots on how radical or unorthodox the elements involved are to either this field, this type of study, or this application. • Name types of assessment tools for each: • Qualitative • Quantitative • Mixed • What criteria for these types of research methodology are considered “valid”, or showing an empirical outcome? • If the method is paradigm shifting, you might consider covering it in the Lit Review, or focusing the paper on justifying its use for this case/this field.

6. How much detail? Common knowledge query • What you are trying to prove determines what reasoning is acceptable to PROVE that to your audience, but it’s also important to ask how much the audience should know about: • Time frame • Participants/objects/parts of the experiment • Control groups or techniques/trial groups or experimental techniques • HOW will the success/failure/outcome be measured • Theories by which the data will be interpreted/the instrument will be calibrated

7. Connecting the Method to the Lit: Purpose to Whole • Remind the reader how the methods/materials fit into the whole with “purpose-focused” elements. This can connect: • Sections and sub-sections • To test the hypothesis, • To measure the effectiveness of the new model as outlined above, • Ideas that serve to justify work undertaken • To gain further data about this population, • In order to collect the greatest variety of data available, • Clarifying limitations • To deal with this discrepancy, • To accommodate the trial-group size,

8. Criteria by which your work is measured by OTHERS • A Methods/Materials section serves to record what you did, and offers someone else a chance to try it also. Transparency is key: • Process language: Think in order, write in order • Chronological • Cause/effect • Active/passive voice • What was done • What WE did • Changes and/or influences • Address what might undermine the intent or purpose and/or outcome based on the assessment tools chosen