First, attempt to determine the theme of the puzzle. For this example puzzle, a first guess might be that it has to do with animals.
Next, attempt to identify all of the images in the Metapic puzzle.
In this case, they are:
WALRUS
IGUANA
LION
DOLPHIN
Once most (or all) of the list has been compiled, check the puzzle to see if there are any numbers or other indications of an ordering mechanism.
Here, there doesn't appear to be any, so it's best to leave them in the same order as the puzzle.
Then, check the puzzle for anything that might be used to indicate how to extract a single letter from each entry (these letters will often spell out the answer).
Since there aren't any numbers or other symbols, at this point it's best to observe the list.
Answers can often be found by reading all of the first letters, all of the last letters, or by reading the letters along a diagonal (1st letter of the first word, 2nd letter of the second word, etc.).
Therefore, the answer for this puzzle can be found by reading down the first letters of the list to spell: WILD
It is important to keep in mind that all Metapic answers will be a single word or a short phrase and will often tie into the theme of the puzzle.
In this puzzle, the fact that all of the animals are WILD animals provides the final confirmation.
Another common use for numbers is to represent letters (1=A, 2=B, etc.), so always consider this option.
