Writing Research Reports

1
Writing Research Reports

• Appendix A

2
Writing Style

• Clarity
• Short precise sentences
• Avoid jargon
• Assume familiarity with statistical concepts
  (e.g. mean, standard deviation, significance)
• Proof read carefully AND ask someone to proof
  read your work
• Acknowledging the work of others
• Avoid quoting extensively
• Paraphrase, but STILL credit the ideas the
  original author
• Active versus Passive Voice
• It has been found that reading to young children
  increase vocabulary size (Scarborough Dobrich,
  1994).
• Scarborough and Dobrich (1994) report that
  reading to young children increases vocabulary
  size.

3
Writing Style (2)

• Avoid Biased Language
• Use terms to designate groups which are preferred
  by those groups
• Do not hyphenate group names (e.g. European
  Americans not European-Americans)
• Make terms parallel (15 Black and 75 White or
  15 African American and 75 European American)
• Alternate he and she or use gender neutral term.
• Word Processing
• All written assignments must be prepared using
  Microsoft Word
• Double spaced throughout
• Only one space after a period.
• APA Style and student papers
• Tables and figures should be in the body of the
  paper, not at the end

4
Organization of An Empirical Report

• Title Page
• Abstract
• Introduction (see chp. 2)
• Methods (see chp. 2)
• Results (see chp. 2)
• Discussion (see chp. 2)
• References
• Appendix (possibly)
• Author Note
• Tables and/or Figures

5
Title PageWhat should be included?

• The title the title page must quickly convey the
  focus of the study.
• Author(s) name(s) and affiliation(s)
• APA has specific guide lines on how this
  information should be presented
• Running head
• This should be a condensed version of your title
• Page header
• This is typically the first couple of words of
  your title and will appear on every page of the
  manuscript
• Page number
• In top right corner, this also will appear on
  every page of the manuscript
• Author note
• If the submission is to be anonymously reviewed

6
Abstract

• Next to your title this is the portion of your
  paper most likely to be read by others (very
  important)
• Your abstract must succinctly convey
• The problem under investigation
• The participants
• The method
• The results
• Conclusions and implications based on the results
• Your abstract should NOT be more than 120 words

7
References

• Here you provide the complete article and author
  information for any work cited in the study

8
Appendix

• An appendix is called for if the detailed
  description of certain material would be
  distracting if included in the body of the paper.
• You would include an appendix if your were
• using unpublished testing procedures
• using specifically designed computer programs
• unusual and/or complex equipment

9
Author Note (if not on Title Page)

• Here you provide
• Departmental affiliation of author(s)
• Funding sources for research
• Acknowledgment of others contributions
• Contact information for interested readers

10
Tables and Figures

• In APA format tables and figures discussed in the
  results sections (or elsewhere) are not included
  in the text they are provided at the very end of
  the document.
• Tables and figures are used to quickly convey
  complex information about the data you collected.
• There are very specific guide lines for the
  formatting of tables and figures. You must
  follow these guidelines.