Developing a Publishable Research Manuscript

More on Method

1. Who are the participants?
   Provide a detailed account of participant characteristics, operational definitions (e.g., inexperienced), and criteria used to include or exclude participants from the study. (As applicable, be sure that you received IRB approval/informed consent for the study and state such in your manuscript).
   
   
2. What type of study design did you employ (e.g., experimental, correlational, qualitative) to answer your research questions or hypotheses, and What is the setting?
   Elaborate upon the nature of the study design, how the design specifically addresses research hypotheses, and relevant independent and/or dependent variables.
   
   
3. Why?—review of Measures and/or Instrumentation
   Identify the measures employed, discuss psychometric properties, and explain the derivation of scores as well as their interpretation.
   TIP: Use valid and reliable instrumentation—many studies are rejected because the instrumentation was "designed for this study" and the validity has not been established.
   
   
4. How?—Procedure Section
   Provide a step-by-step outline of how the study's purposes were completed. Systematically account for the procedures employed to conduct the study so that they can be replicated by other researchers.
   
   
5. Because—Data Analysis Section
   Provide a road map specifying which data analyses were conducted to answer key research questions. Explain the reasoning behind the choice of your statistical techniques. 
   TIP:Use the simplest statistical analysis that can answer the research question and/or test the hypothesis. In qualitative studies, also explain how you established the validity and trustworthiness of the data analysis

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