A guide map is created for use in placing a spectroscopic single voxel in a region of interest in single voxel magnetic resonance spectroscopy. An anatomical planning image of the region of interest is obtained through MRI. As a spectroscopy voxel is stepped across the region of interest, characteristics of the magnetic field used in the MRI are measured at each location of the imaging voxel, and a guide-FWHM map indicative of the homogeneity/inhomogeneity of the magnetic field over the region of interest is derived using the measurements. The guide map is created by overlaying the guide-FWHM map on the anatomical planning image. A spectroscopic single voxel of a size corresponding to that of the spectroscopy voxel is placed within the region of interest as per the guide map. Then spectral data is acquired from the region of interest confined to the single voxel.