Does a methodology in a research paper contain direct quotes or is it all your words?

Question

Can it consist of background information about the tools you use in the experiment?

Answer 1

you don't want to directly quote anywhere in any paper. just paraphrase and cite where that idea came from. at least that's how it is for science papers (the ones that get published). try writing what you know from memory (doesn't have to be perfect just yet) and then taking that info and putting it in your paper and cite it of course.

if you're going to put in any background information, put it in the intro. the methodolgy should be about how you did your experiment only. also, anyone else should be able to reproduce your experiment exactly if your methodology is well written.

hope that helps :)