The methods section is where most readers start skimming. It is also where a paper earns or loses your confidence because the methods lay the foundation for how the authors generated Evidence. Here are three key questions to answer about the methods,
1. What did the authors actually do?
Write one sentence, in your own words, that names who or what was studied, what was measured, and how. If you cannot write that sentence, read the first paragraph of the methods and the figure captions again before going further.
2. Could this design produce the evidence the claim needs?
Go back to the main claim in the abstract. Then ask what kind of evidence would support it: a comparison, a change over time, a measurement of a certain precision. Check that the design can deliver that kind of evidence. A survey cannot show cause. A sample of twelve cannot speak for a population.
3. What was left out or held constant?
Look for the choices that narrow the study: inclusion criteria, instruments, time windows, statistical cut-offs. These are not flaws. They are the conditions under which the result holds, so note them alongside your Reasoning: they set how far the evidence can carry the claim.
Put it into CERIC
In the CERIC Method, the methods section feeds two elements: Evidence (what was measured and how well) and Reasoning (why that evidence supports the claim). Reading methods with those two questions in hand keeps you from getting lost in detail.
To practice on a real paper, start with the free introductory course or download the one-page cheat sheet. The full approach is in How to Critically Read the Scientific Research Literature (Cambridge University Press, 2026).