How to Write an APA-Style Research Paper

1. How to Write an APA-Style Research Paper Psych 350

2. Major sections of an APA style research paper Title page Abstract Introduction Method Results Discussion References

3. Introduction

4. Introduction • Things you must include: • State the research problem/question • “This is what I am interested in.” • Background information • “This is what other people have done in this area.” • What questions are left unanswered • “This is what other people still need to do in this area.” • Current study • “This is what I am going to do, and this is what I predict.”

5. How to write an effective introduction • First paragraph should be an overview. • Give a BRIEF description of the research problem • State your research questions. What do you want to know about this topic? e.g., “The accuracy of personality judgments is a long debated issue in personality psychology. This study examines whether observers’ judgments of individuals’ personalities based on their online social network profiles coincide with individuals’ self-rated personality.” Why is this question important?

6. How to write an effective introduction • The body of your introduction should discuss the research relevant to the topic and YOUR questions. • What have other people done? How will your study “fill in the gaps” for what has NOT been done? • You will use this information to formulate your hypotheses. • Your hypotheses have to be rooted in the existing literature!

7. How to write an effective introduction • The last paragraph should address YOUR study. • How are you going to address your questions? • Do NOT get deep into method here. Example: “The current study examined the relationship between personality and emotion.” • Name your variables (Big Five, intelligence, self-esteem, etc.) and define them as necessary.

8. How to write an effective introduction • Lastly, state your hypotheses. • Be as specific as possible! What variables are you referring to? What about strength and direction of findings? • It is OK to cite other sources here. • “Based on Zhong & Liljenquist (2006), we expect that guilt will decrease after participants wash their hands.”

9. How to write an effective introduction • Hypotheses (continued) • BE SPECIFIC!! • For example: • “We predict correlations between self- and observer-ratings.” vs. • “We predict strong negative correlations between conscientiousness and alcohol abuse.”

10. How to write an effective introduction • Tips: • Don’t talk about your study in the middle of the paper and then go back to discussing research. This will break up your introduction and leave your readers confused. • Don’t discuss details about your study in the first paragraph. Your first paragraph should be a short summary of what your entire introduction will say.

11. How to write an effective introduction • Tips: • Do tell WHY you predict what you predict. What are you basing your hypotheses on? • Talk about what other studies have found. • Do tell why your study is different from previous work. Sell me on why your study is so important, and why I should keep on reading!  • Talk about how your study replicates and/or extends previous studies.

12. Method

13. Method • Things you must include: • Participants • Measures • Procedure

14. 1. Participants • Describe your sample • Who are your participants? • How many? • What are they like (descriptives/frequencies for age, gender, race, students, etc.)? • How did you recruit them? • Did you toss any data out? If so, explain why. • Describe your raters (if applicable)

15. 2. Measures • What scales and demographic items did you use? • Did you make up the scale? (If so, include it in an appendix in your paper) • If you used a pre-existing scale, cite it: • E.g., “We used the ten-item anger subscale from the Discrete Emotions Inventory (Weiss, Suckow, & Cropanzano, 1999).”

16. 2. Measures (cont.) • What was the response format? (e.g., 7-point scale, open-ended) • E.g.: “Participants responded to the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree)? • Give an example of a scale item • What are the Cronbach’s αs for your sample? • If you measure 5 traits, list 5 alphas, etc.

17. 3. Procedure • What did participants/raters do? • Tell enough that someone else could replicate your study. • E.g.: “Filled out ___ scales via the internet.” • Format: computer vs. paper & pencil • How long did it take them? • Were participants supervised? • Etc.

18. Results

19. Results • Give your results in number form; don’t explain them yet • Use tables and/or figures to summarize your findings • Statistics to include: • Means and standard deviations (for every variable you studied) • Correlations

20. Results • What types of analyses did you use? • E.g., “We analyzed the correlations between self- and other-ratings on Openness.” • What were your results? Tell in words, then numbers. • E.g.: “Raters and participants showed strong agreement on Neuroticism (N = 50, r = .33, p = .05).” • Don’t explain your results yet! Just report them.

21. Results • How do your results correspond to your hypotheses? • Remind your lazy readers what you wanted to do in the first place! • Supported or not supported? • If you use tables or figures, talk about them in your text. • Don’t just stick them in your paper at random. The reader may not know what they are for. • E.g.: “Blah blah blah blah blah (see Table 2).”

22. Note which borders in the table are visible and which are not! Results • How to show data in a table: Table 1 Means and Standard Deviations for Conscientiousness and Extraversion for Real, Ideal, and Undesired Self

23. Results • Another good (informative) table example:

24. Results • Tables should be clearly labeled • E.g.: “Table 2: Means and Standard Deviations for Conscientiousness and Extraversion for Real, Ideal, and Undesired Self” • …and referred to in the text • “(See Table 2)”

25. Results • DO NOT do this:

26. Results • Tables should summarize a lot of information in a small space • Please put at least two columns in your table and combine results as much as possible! • Several 1-column tables are annoying and useless • Tables should allow you to compare data across groups. • You probably will not need to use figures in this paper.

27. Discussion

28. Discussion • Explain results in plain language. • Interpret your results using regular language. • What does it MEAN if people agree more on ratings of others’ conscientiousness than other traits? What are the implications in the real world? • How do your findings hold up to other studies? • Refer back to the articles cited in your introduction.

29. Discussion • What are the limitations of your study? • What would you do better if you had it to do over again? • Future Directions/Research/Studies: • How might other researchers or other fields use your results?

30. General Tips

31. General tips • Remember, you are telling a story. • Doesn’t have to be dry... Make your work sound COOL! Show why it is exciting. • If you can say it in one sentence or three sentences, say it in one. • Research papers should be very concise.

32. Wordiness/Conciseness • Eliminate fluff. • Using less words makes you sound smarter. • For example: • “... we tested this by finding the correlations between the composite scores for X and the composite scores for Y.” vs. • “...by correlating X and Y.”

33. Wordiness/Conciseness • Eliminate unnecessary “the”s to instantly sound more professional. • Tip: Any time you have “the participants,” just say “participants.”

34. Active vs. Passive Voice • In your method section particularly, your words need to be as active as possible. • Instead of, “the personality traits of the participants,” say, “participants’ personality traits.”

35. What NOT to do • DO NOT cite Wikipedia! • DO NOT use lots of direct quotes… paraphrase (but cite them)! • DO NOT talk about how you created your questionnaire in metaform! • Do NOT include the steps in SPSS you used to compute correlations, composite variables, etc. • Or that you even used SPSS

36. What NOT to do • Do NOT say that you created composite variables, reverse-scored items, etc. This is a given. • Do NOT copy and paste giant correlation matrices (or any other raw output!) directly from SPSS.

37. Bad...

38. Good!

39. Lastly... • Remember to label your sections! • Refer back to the sample paper posted on the class website if you need to.