For the majority of students out there, crafting a compelling cohesive research paper is stressful and time-consuming. So if you feel the same way, it’s quite ok. This is not your fault at all. You may feel totally depressed, and we get it. You need to not only write in accordance with all your tutor’s requirements but also you should be able to do intensive research to find all the juicy quotes and arguments for your paper.
Obviously, writing a decent research paper is more complicated than creating a 5 pages essay. This is mainly due to the scope of work that you need to do. For every single research paper, you need to complete the following parts: Intro, Literature Review, Methodology, Discussion, Results.
No wonder so many students opt for buying a research paper online once they realize they lack time, inspiration, or skills to put together a winning paper.
In this article, we’re going to share with you some actionable tips on how to write up a brilliant Methodology for your research paper.
How to Come up with a Peerless Methodology for Qualitative Research
To complete your paper, you may do your research in lots of different ways. Methods you use for carrying out research depend on your field or discipline. In their turn, research methods indicate the way you write the methodology section.
There are qualitative and quantitative methods. If you use qualitative research methods, the methodology section will follow the structure of an inverted paradigm. You’ll need to go from general to a specific paradigm. Here are some key points that you need to keep in mind while creating a good Methodology.
- Methods refer to the process of collecting data while methodology implies the philosophy behind the data collection.
- You should identify your unit of analysis. Basically, this is the thing that you’ll be researching.
- Describe the methods you used for data collection. They can come in forms of documents, interviews, observations.
- To sound more credible, it’s always better to use at least three different sources of data.
- Explain why you decided to use these particular data sources and research methods. It’s always a good idea to have evidence from the literature to support your justification for these methods.
- Describe the place (aka the context of your research) where you conducted the research. Why did you choose it?
- Include sampling. Which participants did you choose? Why? How did you select and contact them? It’s very important to justify it as you don’t want any random things into your Methodology.
- Explain how you are going to contact participants in a step-by-step way. You’ll contact them first. And what will you do then?
- If there are different stakeholders in your research project, explain why it’s necessary to include each of them. What value will they bring to the project?
- Incorporate a step-by-step description of how the data will be collected. Be very specific and brief at the same time.
- Add the data analysis section. Use sources to help you convince your reader that your data analysis strategy is the most useful for research.
- Don’t forget to show some proof that your data is trustworthy. For example, you may use a member checking approach. In other words, if you interview participants, type up the transcripts. Then show them to your participants and get their accord that the info is valid. This is called member checking. It ensures that your data is valid.
What Else Do You Need to Include in Your Methodology?
There are many other optional sections that you could include in your Methodology. It depends on your field or discipline. If you are doing research on human subjects, you should also include a section about ethics. If you’re doing insider research, you should incorporate a section on the role of the researcher and how you might affect the research. Some projects require you to include the section on limitations significance.
How to Craft a Winning Methodology for Quantitative Research
Quantitative research often uses deductive reasoning. In this case, the researcher forms a hypothesis first. Then you collect data to investigate the problem. So the research process requires you to make observations to establish what is known and compare them with your hypothesis. In this way, you verify the findings and if necessary start the process again.
So these are the sections you should include in this type of Methodology
- Design section. Here you should explain why you selected that particular design. The key part of quantitative research is explaining how you intend to control the variables.
- Explain whether this is an observational study or an intervention study. So again, use sources from texts to provide evidence for your arguments.
- You should also write about the study sites. Explain why they provide all the relevant information for your project.
- Explain the sampling. Give clear reasons why you decided to choose these samples. If you used measurement instruments, you should describe them and explain how they were valid and reliable.
- Incorporate a step-by-step description of the data collection process.
- Sometimes you’ll need to write a section on data management and analysis as well. and then there
Hopefully, these tips will help you achieve meaningful results in writing a methodology research section for your academic paper.
