Talk:Method

Analogy to Methodology article

The instructions for a methodology article in the journal Environmental Health tell the following:

Methodology articles

Methodology articles should present a new experimental or computational method, test or procedure. The method described may either be completely new, or may offer a better version of an existing method. The article must describe a demonstrable advance on what is currently available. The method needs to have been well tested and ideally, but not necessarily, used in a way that proves its value.

Manuscript sections for Methodology articles

Manuscripts for Methodology articles submitted to Environmental Health should be structured identically to Research articles.

We consider the main result of a Methodology article to be the method itself. The description of the method and all details of the development and testing should be presented in the Results section. The Methods section at the end of the manuscript should be reserved for the technical details necessary to allow others to replicate the method, and can be omitted if this information is provided elsewhere in the manuscript.

For Methodology articles presenting novel computational methods, we suggest that the Results section includes the subheadings, "Algorithm", "Testing" and "Implementation".

The implications of this are the following:

• A methodology is an object that resembles a research article closely enough to have the same structure.
• The Method section (or definition attribute [also called rationale]) is often not needed as the rationale is easier to describe under other sections.
• The subheadings suggested have similarities to the open assessment structure:
  • Algorithm = Procedure
  • Testing = Is this the testing of the methodology in general? Then it is very close to definition.
  • Implementation = Management