MATERIALS AND METHODS

Your main purpose in the materials and methods section is to describe how you carried out the study.

How much should you include? This is the part that new researchers most often get wrong. They believe that everything that was done or used in the study should be described in detail. It shouldn't.

The clue to writing the materials and methods is to ask: how little information do I need to provide to allow another competent scientist, a specialist in my field, to repeat the study or experiment? Such a person will be familiar with most of the commonly used techniques. You may need to include references to literature that describes an unusual technique. But only provide a description if you have developed a new technique or extensively modified existing ones.