Page 296 - English for Writing Research Papers

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16.5 My methods use a standard procedure. Do I need
to describe the methods in detail?
No. You can alert the reader that the method is ‘standard’ and is described in another
paper or in some manufacturer’s instructions to their product (make sure you give a
clear reference to the related paper or the instructions).

If you use a phrase such as based on methods previously described , then you need
to make it clear whose these methods are: yours or someone else’s. If they are yours,
then it would be less ambiguous to write:

S1. based on methods described in our previous paper [56].

Even though you might use a standard procedure, you will probably have adjusted
it in some way and you should mention these modifi cations:
S2. Our methods followed the procedures outlined in [Wallwork, 2017] with the two minor
modifi cations:
S3. Our procedure is as according to [Wallwork, 2017] with the following exceptions:

Finally, if your entire methodology is novel and this novelty is the basis of the whole
paper, then you might consider writing a separate paper dedicated exclusively to this new
methodology.

16.6 My methods in the paper I am writing now are (almost)

identical to the methods I published in a previous paper.
Can I repeat them word for word?

If you simply duplicate what you wrote in a previous paper, the editor may consider
this to be plagiarism ( 11.1 and 11.2 ).

Simply putting a reference to the original paper where your methods are described
is probably not enough as (i) it will make your Methods section look very short, (ii)
it is not very helpful for readers. A better solution is to write:

S1. Full details of the methods used can be found in our previous paper [45]. In brief, …

S1 highlights that you should:

• put a reference to where the reader can find the full version of your methods

• clearly state that the reference is to a paper written by your research group
( our previous paper )