Back to: Report Your Findings

Not sure what to include in your methods section? You can organize your thoughts, and help your reader find the most important information, by using subheadings.

Your subheadings will vary depending on your research and the instructions for your particular journal, but here are some common examples to get you started:

Common Methods Subheadings

Study Objective

Data Sources

Search Criteria

Study Selection Criteria

Data Extraction (or Data Abstraction)

Data Synthesis

On the next page, we’ll talk about what each subheading means and look at some examples.