Methods Section Sanity Ch

Catch missing CONSORT, STROBE, or PRISMA items in your methods section in 2 seconds — Google Docs + Paste tab. No AI.

Methods Section Sanity Checker scans the methods section of your manuscript draft against the CONSORT 2025, STROBE, or PRISMA 2020 reporting guideline in under two seconds — and flags missing, partially addressed, or fully addressed items with the official guideline language and a curated example sentence from a published paper.

Built for graduate students and early-career researchers writing first-author papers in medicine, public health, and biomedical sciences.

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WHAT IT DOES

• Scans your Google Docs draft directly with one click — or any methods section text from Overleaf, Word, Pages, Scrivener, or any other editor via the side panel's Paste tab.
• Picks the right guideline for your study type: CONSORT 2025 (RCTs), STROBE (cohort, case-control, cross-sectional), or PRISMA 2020 (systematic reviews and meta-analyses).
• Returns a three-color report — detected (green), partial (amber), not detected (red) — with every flagged item showing the official EQUATOR-network guideline language verbatim.
• For every missing or partial item, displays one curated example sentence from a published paper showing how to address it.
• "Mark as addressed" override persists per document so unusual phrasings the engine misses are dismissed permanently.
• "Copy summary" button puts a plain-text checklist on your clipboard, ready to email to your supervisor or paste into a TODO file.

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WHO IT'S FOR

• PhD students, early-career researchers, postdocs, and clinicians writing their first few first-author manuscripts.
• Supervisors doing pre-submission spot checks on student drafts.
• Anyone who has ever had a paper desk-rejected for missing reporting-guideline items.

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PRIVACY POSTURE

• Your draft never leaves your browser. Detection runs locally in pure JavaScript over curated keyword libraries.
• No AI, no LLM calls, no machine learning — period. The "AI" was used only at planning time, not at runtime.
• Scoped to docs.google.com/document/* only. The extension cannot run on any other website.
• The only thing transmitted to our servers is your license key, once every 7 days, for revalidation. Document content is never sent.
• No tracking, no analytics, no telemetry, no fingerprinting in the extension itself.

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PRICING

• 7-day free Pro trial — entirely in-extension, no card required.
• $5 / month or $29 / year (save $31).
• Refund within 7 days of purchase, no questions asked.
• Mastering Research book readers: use code MASTERINGRESEARCH for $14.50/year (first 100 customers).

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GUIDELINES IN v1

• CONSORT 2025 — randomised controlled trials (parallel, factorial, cluster, crossover).
• STROBE — observational studies (cohort, case-control, cross-sectional).
• PRISMA 2020 — systematic reviews and meta-analyses.

Roadmap: STARD (diagnostic accuracy) and SPIRIT (trial protocols) ship in v1.1, ~4–6 weeks post-launch. CARE, ARRIVE 2.0, CHEERS, SQUIRE, TRIPOD+AI, SRQR, COREQ, and TIDieR roll out monthly thereafter. Annual subscribers get every new guideline at no extra cost.

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LIMITATIONS — HONEST UP FRONT

• Direct in-place scanning supports Google Docs only in v1. For Overleaf, Word, Pages, Scrivener, and other editors, paste your methods section text into the side panel's Paste tab — same engine, same report. Overleaf as a one-click integration returns in v1.1.
• English-language drafts only in v1. Multilingual support (Spanish, French, German, Mandarin, Japanese) is on the long-term roadmap.
• The keyword libraries are conservative on purpose — high precision, accepting some false negatives. If the engine misses an obviously-correct phrasing, click "Mark as addressed" and email us the sentence so we can fold it into the next library update.

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COMPANION RESOURCES

Methods Section Sanity Checker is built alongside the Mastering Research book series — eight titles covering research design, execution, and publishing for graduate students and early-career researchers. Both share the same audience and the same philosophy: practical, clearly explained, and respectful of your time and budget.

Learn more, view help, or start your trial:
https://www.gradsummit.com/tools/methods-checker/

Help and troubleshooting:
https://www.gradsummit.com/tools/methods-checker/troubleshooting/

Support: support@gradsummit.com