pages.stolaf.edu · web viewa good rule of thumb for the abstract is to have one sentence per...

Running head: SHORTENED VERSION OF TITLE 1

↑ ↑ ↑ Remember this. Look, the running head is in all caps! Page numbers are required

A 12 Point, Times New Roman Font Title With Capitalized Letters Detailing the Lab Name

My Name

My College Where I Wrote the Paper

Author Note:

I start tabbed over here and include details about when the lab was conducted (i.e. the date and

class the study was a part of), who helped out, how someone can contact me, and any special thanks

necessary. I am also double-spaced.

After the author note, I will include a page break before the abstract.

SHORTENED VERSION OF TITLE 2

↑ AbstractLook, the words “Running head” are gone! ↑

I am centered, but not bolded

A good rule of thumb for the abstract is to have one sentence per section. First, write one introductory

sentence. Second, write one methods sentence. Third, write one results sentence. Fourth, write one

concluding sentence summing up the important findings of the study. It is often helpful to write the

abstract last, after finishing all other parts of the paper.

I will insert a page break after the abstract because the introduction to my report should be at

the beginning of a new page.


The title on this page is the same as the cover page. ↓

A 12 Point, Times New Roman Font Title With Capitalized Letters Detailing the Lab Name

↑This title is not in bold and is not labeled “introduction” even though it starts the introduction.

An introduction should include a brief description of the topic area and the lab. For example,

what is social psychology and how does it relate to social influence? The format of your introduction

should resemble an inverted triangle with the most broad subject at the beginning of the intro and a

more specific look at the paper towards the end. The introduction is a mini-paper about the current

subject/study and should read as if you are re-writing your notes from lab, articles that were read for

the course, or other studies that you find on your own and relate to the current subject. Using notes

from the articles will be necessary for a good introduction, but a great introduction will mention articles

that you found on your own.

The last paragraph of the introduction will describe various aspects of the study such as the

independent variable (or variables), the dependent variable, the method that will be used to collect data

(i.e. coding sheets, direct observation, etc.), and the hypothesis. You will also want to include relevant

aspects of the experimental design that have been chosen for this particular study. For example, why

would we code videos to learn about families? By the end of the introduction, the reader should have a

general understanding about what the current study is examining and how it will be accomplished.

See last page of paper for instructions regarding in-text citations.

Method↑

I am centered and bolded.

Participants→ I am aligned on the left and in bold

Under this subheading of the methods section is where you describe the people who served as

subjects in your study. Participants does not refer to researchers and those involved in conducting the


study, only the people you collected data from. Describe the number of participants, how many males

and how many females, their age range (i.e. ranged in age from 18-22), and any other demographic

information relevant to your study. Generally, the more detail, the better. Describe the selection criteria

for participants. Describe any incentives offered to participants for involvement (i.e. course credit,

etc.). If no incentives were offered, state that instead.

If your lab report is on a study that used animals instead of people, use the term “subjects”

instead of “participants.”

Materials→ I am aligned on the left and in bold

In the materials section, you will describe (in paragraph form) any relevant materials that were

used in order to conduct the experiment. For example, you will want to describe objects such as

stopwatches, chemicals, pipettes, coding sheets, and special equipment like scales or BIOPAC.

Professional papers will not only mention what type of equipment is used, but will go as far as to

record the brand of equipment and serial numbers if available. However, there are some materials used

in experiments that are not necessary to include in the materials section. If researchers recorded data

with a black pen, it is not necessary to list their pen in a materials section unless someone could claim

that using another color would affect the results. Sometimes pen color can be very important, but if pen

color (or other materials) are not necessary for replication purposes, you do not need to include them in

this section. After reading the materials section, someone should be able to use the listed materials to

reconstruct the present study.

Procedure→ I am aligned on the left and in bold

This section accomplishes two things: the experimental design and the procedure followed. It is

helpful to keep in mind that there is a distinction between what went into designing the procedure and

the actual procedure itself.

For the experimental design component, note how groups were formed (by gender, age, etc.).


Make sure you explicitly specify the operational definitions of the INDEPENDENT VARIABLES and

how they were manipulated, and the operational definitions of the DEPENDENT VARIABLES and

how they were measured. Then, describe how random selection of participants (or subjects) was

established, and how participants were assigned to conditions. The last part of the experimental design

component is to describe any control features that were included to help eliminate confounding

variables.

In the procedure component of this section, describe how you actually carried out the

experiment. Include answers to the following questions: How and when were instructions given to

participants? In what manner? Include a summary of the instructions provided to participants. Also,

include a description of how data was collected, and the statistical analyses carried out. By the end of

the procedure section, your reader should be able to replicate your study in the exact same way you

conducted it.

Ethical Considerations→ I am aligned to the left and in bold

A section on ethics will not be crucial to some of the papers written for the class, but you should

be aware of ethics during every study. When writing about whether or not a study is ethical, be sure to

ground your claims in evidence. For example, if you claim that debriefing subjects may cause them to

be more suspicious in the future, cite a reputable study that actually supplies evidence for this claim.

Your ethics section should show your reader that the current study is ethical and provide outside

evidence that supports your claims. You can include a discussion about ethics as its own section (as

shown here) or as part of the procedure section above.

Results↑

I am centered and bolded

This section is an objective description of your findings, without any interpretation (save that


for the discussion section). The most important part of this section is to have strong, clear narrative

describing your data in plain English. This description should take prominence over the presentation of

numbers. You can choose to present descriptive numbers within the text, or separately in a table. Either

way, make sure they are supplemental to your description, rather than the main focus of the section. For

example, the description of the results of a t-test where the numbers are presented in text could be

similar to the following: The groups were found to differ significantly from each other (t(21) = 2.34, p

< .05), with the first group demonstrating a higher number (M = 26.00, SD = 2.00) than the second

group (M = 16.00, SD = 4.20). Then, go on to describe the pattern of the data in more detail (are there

outliers? trends?). It aids that description to include graphs and other figures, because that gives you

more to talk about in terms of patterns. A note about presenting statistics in APA style: As shown in the

above example, the letters representing different statistical things are all italicized (t, p, M, SD). When

presenting the results of the t-test, italicize the lower-case t, then put the non-italicized degrees of

freedom in a set of parentheses directly following the t. After the close-parentheses, there is a space, an

equal sign, another space, and then the t-value. After the t-value is a comma, a space, an italicized p, a

space and either a less-than or equal-to sign, another space, and then either the value that the p-value is

below (usually .05, .01, or .001, if the less-than sign is used) or the exact p-value (if the equal-to sign is

used). Similar guidelines go for reporting the descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation), with

the M and the SD italicized, followed by a space, an equal sign, another space, and then the relevant

value.

In order to present a correlation, there are different APA style guidelines to follow. A

correlation tells you whether two variables are related to each other or not, whether they vary in

relation to each other or not. Reporting the correlational statistics gives you the following information:

the correlation coefficient tells you whether the correlation is positive or negative and the strength of

the correlation; the p-value tells you the significance of the correlation. This is an example of reporting


a correlation: There is a strong, negative correlation between variable A and variable B (r = -.78, p

< .01). Then, go on to further describe the patterns seen in the data (scatter plots help a lot here). A note

about APA style: as shown above, the letters representing statistical items are italicized (r and p).

Within parentheses, put an italicized r, a space, an equal sign, a space, and the correlation coefficient, a

comma, a space, an italicized p, a space, an equal or less than sign, a space, the p-value. And

remember, a correlation does not imply causation.

All tables and figures should be numbered in order of presentation, and referred to by their

numbers in the text (Figure 1, Table 1, etc.). It is your choice whether you include them within the

results section, or as their own separate section at the end of the paper. Any table or figure you create

must be verbally described in the results section. For formatting of tables and figures, see the end of

this sample paper. Note that formatting for a table is different than formatting for a figure!

This section should also include any observations you made that may have influenced your

results (i.e. observations from field notes). Be especially careful about not interpreting these results.

Keeping the results section purely descriptive is a challenge, and remember that it’s okay if this section

seems dry without interpretation -- that’s how it’s supposed to be! This section should have enough

detail to support the conclusion you will be drawing in your discussion. Anything about your findings

that comes up in the discussion should be described objectively in the results section.

Discussion↑

I am centered and bolded

At the beginning of your discussion, be sure to briefly summarize the results of the study and

what conclusions can be drawn from the data. You must tell the reader whether or not the results

support the study’s hypothesis and, if not, why that may be. The discussion section is the place to

analyze any unusual data patterns that were revealed in the results section. Once you have summarized

the results of the study, you will want to link your conclusions back to material that you described in


the introduction. How might the current data add to the larger body of work that was introduced in the

beginning of your paper?

Remember, no study is perfect and every study will have several limitations. Your discussion

should illuminate a few limitations, describe why they might be limiting factors, and illustrate how they

could be controlled for in future research. You will want to focus on limitations that are relevant to the

current study rather than basic limitations of psychological research. Moreover, it will be more

beneficial to talk about one or two limitations in depth rather than simply listing a multitude of

limitations without any evaluation or analysis.

Finally, remember to answer the “so what?” question. Why is the study important, why might

the conclusions be worth future research, and how might the research be used to benefit the lives of

others? Your discussion is the venue that shows the reader why they should pay attention to your

research and how new scientific research can be used to augment past studies. Citing research articles

that you found on your own is a fantastic way to show that you are thinking about how your study can

be expanded and/or implemented and will supply evidence that your work is important.

Unlike the way in which your introduction was formatted, as if it were an inverted triangle, your

discussion will read as if it was a regular triangle. Your first sentence will be very specific because it

summarizes the details and conclusions that can be drawn from your data. On the other hand, your last

paragraphs will act as the base of the triangle because they will concern broad and far-reaching subject

matters, i.e. the importance of the study to the larger body of psychological research.

After the discussion, I will insert a page break before my reference section.


References↑

I am centered, but not bolded

Remember, references appear in alphabetical order and the first line of the citation is aligned to the

left. Use the hanging indent triangle in the ruler. Below, we will list some of the most common

references.

Last name, first. initials. (year of publication). Title of article that is not capitalized: Except for the first

word of the title, and the first word following a colon. Title of Journal Capitalized and in

Italics, volume number, first page # of article - last page # of article.

If there are two authors, put a comma after the initials of the first author, an ampersand (&) and the last

name and initials of the second author.

If there are three to seven authors, put a comma between each name, and an ampersand (&) before the

last one.

If there are eight or more authors, list the first six as described above, put an ellipsis following the

comma after the sixth author, then put the last author.

This example is for scholarly journal articles. Other types of sources have different citation styles.

Please check the APA style manual, the APA website, or the Purdue OWL: APA Formatting and Style

Guide for the appropriate citation type. Or just use ENDNOTE and it will format things correctly for

you.


Table 1→ Aligned to the left and at the top of the page

Italicized Tile, Such As: The Amount of Desire Rick Astley Exhibits Towards Various Actvities

ACTIVITY: DESIRE TO PARTAKE IN ACTIVITY:

GIVE YOU UP NONE

LET YOU DOWN NONE

RUN AROUND AND DESERT YOU NONE

MAKE YOU CRY NONE

SAY GOOD-BYE NONE

TELL A LIE AND HURT YOU NONE

I am aligned to the left and italicized.↓ Note. The note goes below your table and gives a detailed, double-spaced, description of what the data

reveal. For example: The tables shows that Rick Astley has no desire to give you up, let you down, run

around and desert you, make you cry, say good-bye, or tell a lie and hurt you.


Look, I am placed under the actual figure and am italicized.↓ Figure 1. Brief, double-spaced, description of the figure as well as the pattern of the data (if

applicable). For example: The pie chart details the likelihood that Rick Astley will engage in various

activities. Data reveal that he is most likely to a) give you up and b) run around and desert you.


Tips for writing in-text citations:

Each time an author is mentioned, include the date of the study. This may seem awkward and

cumbersome, however, if you were writing a paper that included lots of references by the same author,

it would be absolutely necessary to include the date each time. It is good practice to include the date

every time in these lab reports.

There are different ways to do an in text citation, all of which must include the last name of the

author(s) and the date.

Parenthetical (inserted at the end of a sentence of phrase): (Author, year).

-If there are two authors: (author & author, year).

-If there are three to five authors, list all authors first time you cite the source (author, author,

author, author, & author, year), and every following citation should be the (first author et

al., year).

-If there are more than five authors, list only the first author (first author et al., year).

You can also use signal phrases, such as, “The 1975 study published by White indicated that...” or

“White (1975) described a phenomenon...”, following similar author rules.

*Note that the phrase “et al.” does not follow a comma, and that there is no period after et,

only after al., and that al. is followed by a comma before the year).


Some helpful formatting notes:

In your personal word processing program, use the “Help” function to search the following key phrases:-Hanging indent (for reference section)-Insert graphics-Formatting a table-Adding page numbers-First page different (to make Running head different on first page)

If that does not get you the help you need, try to google “first page different” and your word processing program name and version.

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