  The robust detection of quasi-periodic pulsations (QPPs) in solar and stellar
flares has been the topic of recent debate. In light of this, we have adapted a
method described by Vaughan (2005) to aid with the search for QPPs in flare
time series data. The method identifies statistically significant periodic
signals in power spectra, and properly accounts for red noise as well as the
uncertainties associated with the data. We show how the method can be further
developed to be used with rebinned power spectra, allowing us to detect QPPs
whose signal is spread over more than one frequency bin. An advantage of these
methods is that there is no need to detrend the data prior to creating the
power spectrum. Examples are given where the methods have been applied to
synthetic data, as well as real flare time series data with candidate QPPs from
the Nobeyama Radioheliograph. These show that, despite the transient nature of
QPPs, peaks corresponding to the QPPs can be seen at a significant level in the
power spectrum without any form of detrending or other processing of the
original time series data, providing the background trends are not too steep.
