Writing an APAStyle Research Report

1
Writing an APA-Style Research Report

• Title, Abstract, Introduction, Method

2
The Title Page

• Running Head
• ? 50 characters, flush left, all upper case
• Title
• centered, upper and lower case
• Authors and Institutional Affiliations
• centered, upper and lower case
• ordered by relative contribution

3
The Abstract

• Ctrl, Enter to create hard page break.
• This will be page 2 of the manuscript.
• Abstract centered on first line.
• Do not indent next line.
• One paragraph, 120 words.
• Highlight text, Tools, Word Count.

4
Writing Style

• Follow Trochims advice, except
• When describing your actions, use the first
  person and avoid the passive voice.
• Never underline, do use italic font where
  appropriate.
• Select text to be set in italic font
• Ctrl I

5
Introduction Section

• Start on a new page, after the abstract
• On the first line, type the title
• upper and lower case
• centered
• On next line, start the text
• Indented
• left-aligned.

6
Introduce Your Research

• Why did you conduct this research?
• How is your research different from previous
  research?
• Start out broad and then narrow the focus.
• Review the most relevant literature.
• Finish with a statement of purpose.
• What results were expected?
• Why were these results expected?

7
Expected Results

• Research hypotheses may be formally stated in the
  Introduction.
• but dont present null hypotheses.
• I prefer a less formal presentation.
• Pre-diction versus post-diction
• Predicting course performance in freshman and
  sophomore physics courses Women are more
  predictable than men.

8
Citations

• Acknowledge the work of others, do not
  plagiarize.
• Consult the Writers Handbook.
• Look in APA style journals for examples.
• See the examples in the WOT manuscript.
• One-to-one correspondence between citations in
  text and those in reference list.

9
Example Citations in Text

• .. female jurors are more likely than male
  jurors to find a male defendant guilty of sexual
  harassment of a female plaintiff (Egbert, Moore,
  Wuensch, Castellow, 1992 Moore et al., 1994
  Wuensch, Campbell, Kesler, Moore, 2002).
• Calhoun and Townsley (1991, p. 66) noted that .

10
Example Reference List

• References
• Calhoun, K. S., Townsley, R. M. (1991).
  Attributions of responsibility for acquaintance
  rape. In A. Parrot, L. Bechhofer (Eds.),
  Acquaintance rape The hidden crime (pp. 57 -
  69). New York Wiley.
• Castellow, W. A., Wuensch, K. L., Moore, C. H.
  (1990). Effects of physical attractiveness of
  plaintiff and defendant in sexual harassment
  judgments. Journal of Social Behavior and
  Personality, 16, 39 - 50.

11
Headings

• Can have 1-5 levels of headings.
• Two should be enough for your paper.
• See the Writers Handbook.
• Also see my Thesis Tips page.

12
Method Section

• Start on the first line following the last line
  of the introductory section no hard page break.
• Type Method on the first line.
• Describe in detail how you gathered the data.
• Usually will be subheadings.

13
Start of Method Section

• Method
• Participants
• Participants were 324 college students (160
  female, 164 male) who were enrolled in
  undergraduate psychology classes at a southern,
  public university whose student body consists
  mostly of white students. The mean age of
  participants was 19.5 (SD 2.88).

14
Participants or Subjects or Research Units

• Identify the units you studied and how you
  sampled them.
• Report demographic characteristics of your
  participants, such as sex, age, and ethnic
  identity.
• Describe the a priori power analysis that you
  employed to decide how many subjects to include
  in your study.

15
Design

• Identify the variables which you manipulated or
  measured.
• Experimental research Which were manipulated?
  Between- or Within-Subjects?
• Nonexperimental research Criterion and
  predictor variables.
• Any covariates or matching variables?
• Criterion of statistical significance.

16
Research Materials or Apparatus

• Describe instruments and other materials used to
  manipulate treatments and measure variables.
• Psychometric characteristics of standardized
  tests employed in the research (from the
  literature).

17
Procedure

• Provide enough detail for somebody else to be
  able to replicate your research.
• How were the groups formed?
• What instructions were given participants?
• How did you manipulate independent variables?
• How did you measure nonmanipulated variables?