Somewhere in most first-year theses there is a calibration curve presented as a finding: nine points, an R² of 0.998, and a caption reading “the method was validated”. It is a good curve. It is not a result.

What a calibration curve is a claim about

It is a claim about the instrument, on that day, over that range, with those standards. It says the response is linear where you checked it, and it tells you the smallest difference you can honestly resolve. Those are useful things. They belong in the methods, or the supplementary material, alongside the instrument settings.

What they are not is an answer to the question the paper asks.

The test

Ask what would have to be true for the figure to be wrong. If the answer is “the instrument was miscalibrated”, it is a methods figure. If the answer is “the effect I am claiming does not exist”, it is a result. That distinction survives almost every argument about what belongs where.

Why it matters beyond tidiness

A results section carrying two methods figures reads as thin, whatever else is in it — and a reader deciding in ninety seconds whether to keep going is counting findings, not panels. Moving the curve to the supplement does not remove work from the paper. It lets the work that answers the question stand on its own.

Keep the curve. Keep the R². Put them where a reader checking your method will look for them, which is not the place a reader looking for your finding will start.