{"id":1929,"date":"2014-03-17T06:55:47","date_gmt":"2014-03-17T06:55:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/the-secret-to-writing-the-introduction-and-methods-section-of-a-manuscript\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T12:09:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T06:39:19","slug":"the-secret-to-writing-the-introduction-and-methods-section-of-a-manuscript","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/the-secret-to-writing-the-introduction-and-methods-section-of-a-manuscript","title":{"rendered":"The secret to writing the introduction and methods section of a manuscript"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many journals expect scientific research papers to be written in the traditional format, which is often known as the IMRaD format<\/a> (Introduction, Materials and methods, Results, and Discussion). Each of these sections serves a specific purpose, and I’ll briefly describe what to include under each of these headings.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

This post deals with writing the introduction and the materials and methods section. Authors should regard each of these sections as answers to specific questions, which will make it easy to use the sections effectively to communicate research.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Writing the introduction<\/strong>: The introduction answers the question W-H-Y<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Begin by describing the problem that you wanted to solve through the piece of research you are writing about. Explain why that problem is important. As Peter Medawar warns in his\u00a0<\/span>Advice to a Young Scientist<\/em><\/a>, \u201cthe problem must be such that it matters what the answer is \u2014 whether to science generally or to mankind.\u201d Next, briefly review what has been done so far to solve the problem. Finally, introduce the study by pointing out what is different about it\u00a0compared to past research.<\/span><\/p>\n

Writing the materials and methods section<\/strong>: The section on materials and methods answers the question H-O-W<\/strong>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Include enough detail so that others can repeat the experiment if they wish to do so. Give\u00a0sources of material, make and model of equipment, quantities, duration<\/a>, reason, etc. All research is expected to be reproducible, which is why this section is particularly important. Describe\u00a0what the \u201ctreatments\u201d were and how you arranged for appropriate \u201ccontrols\u201d<\/a>\u00a0so that valid comparisons can be made between these two sets. <\/span><\/span>Also, this is perhaps the easiest section to write, and it is a good idea to start your writing with this section. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Read the second part<\/a> of this series to know how to write the Results and Discussion sections.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Related reading – <\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
\nThe complete guide to writing a brilliant research paper<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many journals expect scientific research papers to be written in the traditional format, which is often known as the IMRaD format (Introduction, Materials and methods, Results, and Discussion). Each of these sections serves a specific purpose, and I’ll briefly describe what to include under each of these headings. This post deals with writing the introduction […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":45230,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2377,2426],"tags":[2529,2557,1803],"new_categories":[],"new_tags":[],"series":[],"class_list":["post-1929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-methods","category-study-background-introduction","tag-background-of-astudy","tag-introduction-section","tag-methods-section"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe secret to writing the introduction and methods section of a manuscript | Editage Insights<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Read this article to understand the secrets behind\u00a0writing an effective introduction and methods section of a research paper.\u00a0\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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