I know this is going to sound whiny, and probably no one cares, but nothing annoys me more than when you order scrambled eggs with your breakfast at a restaurant or a cafeteria and they scramble your eggs by frying the eggs into one large omelette and then hack it to death on the grill with a spatula. I ordered "scrambled eggs" not "murdered eggs," ok? Then they add insult to injury by serving these flat chunks of fried egg next to over-buttered toast and two pieces of flabby, flaccid bacon. This has actually happened to me many times at many different places.
I am going to say a couple of things about how to scramble eggs well. Any kids doing science fairs, take note and further my science. I have no culinary training but I have been cooking since I was eight and I've been cooking eggs this way since I was 15, so this is just theory but it's effective. I'm going to list the main points and then explain the science.
a) Introduce air into the eggs and add volume
You can do two things. You can leave the eggs whole (ie: crack them into the pan so it looks like you're going to cook them sunny-side up) and skip to step c, but one of the best thing to do is to gently whip the eggs with a fork before cooking, Duh, how else will you scramble them. This is the most obvious step but seriously, it's important. Don't just stir the eggs, actually turn your wrist to incorporate air into the eggs. What you want to do here by whipping them is denature the protein in the eggs (which essentially is unraveling the protein strands). Once you incorporate air bubbles into the eggs, the proteins that have been unraveled due to force start forming new networks with the water already in the egg and the air bubbles, which then stabilizes the air bubbles into this new matrix. Not only does this add volume to your eggs, it makes them light and fluffy. Beat the eggs too long and you begin to destroy the protein networks through force. Don't do that. Just whip until the yolk and white are incorporated and until you can see air bubbles. If you want even more volume, add approx. 1 tbsp of fluid (milk or water) per egg used. Then incorporate air into the mix.
b) Don't salt them now
Salting your eggs now will draw out moisture, which is what you don't want to do. You want that moisture IN your eggs, which is why my eggs suck so much when I order them at restaurants.
c) add eggs to buttered pan on medium-low heat
for those who skipped step a and moved to step c, this is where you begin
d) fold eggs over each other with a spatula
the thing with eggs is you really risk over-cooking them, hence why my eggs suck when I order them at restaurants. And you don't want to mash them either because that destroys all your hard-work of introducing an air bubble matrix. So what you do is fold the eggs slowly and constantly over each other with a rubber spatula. No scraping once it's half-way fried, no stirring it in circles in the pan from the centre outwards, I mean constant folding from sides to centre from the start. If you left your eggs whole and started mixing them and folding them now, you're still introducing air bubbles, which is why it's ok to skip the other steps. The point is that you want even heat throughout without breaking too many of the air bubbles you are introducing.
e) take the pan OFF the heat
probably the most important step. Once your eggs start to solidify a bit (once you see curds) take the pan immediately off the heat and continue folding. The heat remains in the bottom of the pan and is distributed throughout the eggs, which will continue cooking them.
f) put the pan back ON the heat
what you are essentially doing is putting heat into the pan and then using that heat to steam the eggs when you take it back off the heat again. You want the air bubbles to expand due to gas and you want the eggs to coagulate (form new protein bonds, which is what scrambles them) together gently. Too much heat would force too many bonds, which would make the eggs tough.
g) don't put the pan back on the heat once the liquid is gone
once the water has evaporated out of the eggs (and cooked into them), and the eggs are semi-solid, NO MORE HEAT. They will overcook and be dried out. The heat that is left in the bottom of the pan is sufficient enough to finish them off nicely. Now you can salt them and add whatever you want to them because the moisture has been cooked into the egg. Salt inevitably draws out moisture but the damage isn't that bad now.
If I have missed anything let me know. Once you start cooking them this way you get hooked.
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