methodology

noun meth·od·ol·o·gy \ ˌme-thə-ˈdä-lə-jē \

|Updated on: 5 Aug 2018

Examples: methodology in a Sentence

Editor's Note: methodology and Science

Definition of methodology

plural methodologies

1 : a body of methods, rules, and postulates employed by a discipline : a particular procedure or set of procedures

demonstrating library research methodology

the issue is massive revision of teaching methodology
—Bob Samples

2 : the analysis of the principles or procedures of inquiry in a particular field

See methodology defined for English-language learners

Examples of methodology in a Sentence

He blamed the failure of their research on poor methodology.
for solving crossword puzzles my usual methodology is to begin by filling in all of the answers I'm reasonably sure of

Recent Examples of methodology from the Web

Critics are now taking aim at the methodology of Sperry’s study.

— laura mckenna, The Atlantic, "The Long, Contentious History of the ‘Word Gap’ Study," 15 June 2018
Related: His methodology: Ranking every team since minutes played were first tracked in 1951-52 based on their performance in both the regular season and playoffs, adjusting for champions vs. non-champions, opponents, and leaguewide quality of play.

— marlowe alter, Detroit Free Press, "Where do Detroit Pistons' Bad Boys teams rank among NBA's greatest?," 15 June 2018
Yet both Mr Georgiou’s numbers and his methodology were verified by Europe’s statistical agency.

— The Economist, "The hounding of Greece’s former statistics chief is disturbing," 14 June 2018
Though defense lawyers had poked holes in some of the other experts' methodology, the judge said those matters were for a jury to decide.

— maxine bernstein, OregonLive.com, "Finicum shooting: Judge throws out expert's 3D model pinpointing alleged position of indicted FBI agent," 11 June 2018
Tests of the methodology conducted in April 2016 failed to detect the flaw, according to people familiar with the work.

— jon brodkin, Ars Technica, "FBI exaggerated the number of phones it can’t unlock by up to 550 percent," 23 May 2018
However, to correctly pick the winner 100 percent of the time, even when the sample size is reduced to only 1 year of data for the training set, speaks to the effectiveness of this methodology to predict the winner.

— gentry estes, The Courier-Journal, "A formula predicted the past 4 Kentucky Derby winners. How about 2018?," 4 May 2018
The Board of Trustees has not changed its support of a structured POMV methodology in light of these takeaways.

— Anchorage Daily News, "It’s time to adopt POMV structure for Permanent Fund," 27 Jan. 2018
Perhaps even more important than that is his grasp of Saban's methodology and the Alabama head coach's belief that play-calling not only affects his side of the ball but also has a direct impact on Alabama's performance on the other.

— rainer sabin, AL.com, "Why Mike Locksley is ready to be Nick Saban's next OC at Alabama," 19 Jan. 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'methodology.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

methodology and Science

The methodology employed in an experiment is essential to its success, and bad methodology has spoiled thousands of research projects. So whenever a piece of research is published in a scientific or medical journal, the researchers always carefully describe their methodology; otherwise, other scientists couldn't possibly judge the quality of what they've done.