Many of my students struggle with understanding the difference between methods and methodology. It is actually quite simple if you consider the etymology. The “-logy” part suggests that “methodology” concerns the knowledge of methods. Here is my quick and dirty “solution”. A methods section in a paper In a conference paper or journal article, you typically want to describe the method you used. What data collection approach did you employ? What equipment did you use?

I am supervising several PhD fellows at the moment and have found that I repeat myself in the one-to-one meetings. So I will write blog posts summarizing general advice I give everyone. This post deals with what a PhD dissertation should look like. The classic Ph.D. dissertation Dear PhD fellow (in Norway, PhD fellows are employees, not students): All dissertations are different, yours included. You can write it however you want as long as it is good!