Materials and Methods

The purpose of the Materials and Methods or Experimental Procedures section of your paper is to provide information in sufficient detail that another scientist in your field should be able to repeat your experiments and reproduce your results. This section also allows the reader to judge whether you used the appropriate materials and instrumentation, as well as the best techniques, to obtain your results. Before you begin, check the format in the Instructions to Authors. Pay particular attention, when you consider the format, to the answers to the following questions. Should the title have one capital M or two (“Materials and Methods” or “Materials and methods”)? Is the title in the center of the page or on the left. Are the subtitles in plain text, boldface or italics? (If the subtitles are in italics, any words in the subtitles that would normally be in italics in plain text are written in plain text instead of italics, for example, “Determination of light sensitivity in vitro.”) Are the nouns in each subtitle capitalized or is only the first word capitalized? Is each subtitle followed by a period (or, as the British say, a full stop), a colon (:), a long dash (-- or —) or a short dash (- or – )? Is each subtitle on a line of its own or does the text follow immediately after and on the same line as the subtitle?