As copied from the Department of Psychology.
How to write a report according to the APA format
- A guide for 200/300 level subjects
General formatting points to note:
1. All Level 1 headings (Abstract, Introduction, Method, Results, Discussion, References, & Appendix) should be centered. But that is it – no bold, no underline, no italics, and no larger font.
2. All Level 2 headings (Participants/Subjects, Materials, and Procedure – under the Method section) should be formatted in Italics and left justified, i.e. they are to the left.
3. The Abstract appears on one page by itself. Subsequently, the other sections can follow one after another without having to start on a fresh page, EXCEPT for the References, which must be on a new page. In other instances, use your own discretion. If there is very little space left at the bottom of one page, then instead of starting a new section there, you can start it on a new page. But if there is a lot of space left, you have to continue.
4. Do not justify the text. The left margin is justified, but the right margin is not. Just keep the text left justified like the way it is written here.
5. Paragraph indent i.e. how you start each paragraph – 5-7 spaces. Pressing the “Tab” key once should give you 5 spaces without having to press the “Space” key 5 times.
6. Within each section, paragraphs should be continuous – do not press <Enter> twice when you are starting a new paragraph.
7. Each paragraph should be longer than 1 sentence, but no longer than 1 page.
8. Your paper must be typed, Times New Roman size 12 font, double-spaced.
9. Top, bottom, left, right margins – 1 inch
10. When you are writing numbers, use figures for numbers that are larger than 10 (e.g. 35 participants). Numbers that are smaller than 10 can be expressed in words (e.g. five, eight).
Title page
1. There should be a page header to the right as well as a page number. You only need to do this once – when you set the page header (in Microsoft Word, go to View, Header & Footer) – and then Word will automatically continue on the subsequent pages.
2. When you format your header (following the steps listed above), you can insert the page number here. The icon looks like a piece of paper with the “#” sign on it – that allows you to insert page numbers.
3. There should be about 5 spaces between the page header and the page number.
4. The page header is usually the first two-three words of the title.
5. The following items need to appear on your title page:
1) Title of your research (10-12 words)
· Make sure it includes the IV & DV
2) Name – as in your IC or your passport
3) HELP ID number
4) Department of Psychology
5) Class (e.g. PY 301 B)
6) Lecturer’s name
6. The items listed above should be double-spaced and centralized. The font should be Times New Roman, size 12 – no bold, no Italics.
Abstract
1. A brief summary of your study; length no more than 120 words
2. Aim = to give the reader a rough idea what your study is about
3. Especially important to include a summary of method and results
4. Points you should have: objective (1 sentence), participants (1 sentence), design (1-2 sentences), findings, support hypotheses (1-2 sentences), & conclusion, implications (1 sentence).
5. The estimate lengths cited in number 4 are just that – estimates. Depending on what your research is about, you might write slightly more or less.
6. Note that there is no paragraph indent for the abstract.
Introduction
1. Do not use the word “Introduction.” Repeat the title of the research paper here.
2. Short paragraph introducing the field of research you will be examining. Aim is to give your reader a general idea of the area and why it is interesting/applicable to day-to-day life.
3. State theoretical background i.e. theory.
4. Past research – describe past studies that are relevant to your study. Typically these are the studies on which your own research is based on. You need to describe what they have done (method), what they found (results) as well as the conclusions they drew from their results. Remember that you need to cite your sources. Refer to the section below entitled “Citations” to learn about the proper method of citing.
5. How you structure the introduction is up to you. For example, you could state the theory & then state the past research that has been done that is related to that theory. Then state another theory & state the past research linked to that theory. Another example would be to state all the theories and then all the past research. For a guide on how to structure your introduction, look at how the articles in the APA journals are written.
6. Next, introduce your research – this is where you talk about the aims of your research i.e. what are the research questions you hope to answer through your research. Give a very brief general description of your study (what you did).
7. Then state the hypothesis – what you predict the results will be (as far as possible your hypothesis should be based on what past research has found). It is VERY important for you to state your hypothesis.
8. So the idea is to flow from theoryà past research à your research à your hypothesis.
Method
1. Purpose of the method section is to give the reader a detailed account of how you ran your research – so much so that anyone could duplicate your research based on your report without having to communicate with you.
2. Participants – give details of people who took part in your study. Include information like age-range, number of participants, gender, how you recruited them (sampling), where you recruited them from, as well as any other details that may be relevant to your particular research (e.g. if you were doing a study that involved intelligence testing you may want to include participants’ education levels).
3. Design – describe the research design you used e.g. 2 x 2 independent design. State your variables here i.e. IVs and DVs. When you state your DV, make sure it is operationally defined e.g. the DV was the time taken (in seconds) to identify the color of the shapes/words.
4. Materials – describe (if necessary) all the equipment you used for your research. If possible, include samples of the equipment (e.g. the questionnaire, test sheets) in the appendix. State that the sheets, etc. are in your appendix. Say for example “Refer to Appendix A for a sample of the questionnaire.”
· The Appendix Section should appear after the references.
· Every appendix should be labelled individually. E.g. the questionnaire is Appendix A, the table is Appendix B, etc.
· The title of your appendix should appear as follows:
Appendix A: Sample list of words used in the memory test
· The title of your appendix is a Level 1 Heading i.e. centralized, no italics, no underline.
5. Procedure – describe what the participants had to do during the experiment. Also mention what were the instructions you gave them.
· When you are giving the instructions, you can paraphrase what you said to the participants.
· However, if your instructions are (a) very specific and unique and/or (b) part of your independent variable (i.e. the manipulation is in your instructions), then state the instructions verbatim (i.e. word for word).
Results
1. The aim of the Results section is to give a clear account, both graphically & written, of the results you obtained.
2. The Results should include:
· How the data was collated.
· Tables/figures of your data.
· A brief interpretation of your results – point out to the reader what you would like him/her to notice about your results. Use means (M) & standard deviations (SD).
· State alpha level used.
· Make sure you write out the statistics appropriately e.g. t (df) = t value, p…
· If the results are significant, merely state p < .05. If the results are not significant, state the specific p value – p = .32.
3. When you are labeling your table, the words “Table 1” should appear as normal text. The title, which comes one line below “Table 1” should appear in Italics. Refer to the example given in the sample paper.
4. When you are labeling your figure, the words “Figure 1” should appear in Italics and the title should appear in normal text. E.g.
· Figure 1. Comparison of mean levels of aggression among children.
5. The titles of the table/figure should be left justified and not centralized.
6. The title of the table should appear above the table while the title for the figure should appear below the figure.
Sample table:
Discussion
1. Start with a brief summary of your main results. Eg. Chinese-speaking participants took significantly less time to identify colors than non Chinese-speaking participants did. When it comes to the discussion, you don’t have to re-state the numbers. However, you might want to re-state the significance levels.
2. State whether or not your results supported your hypotheses (what you predicted) & re-state the hypotheses.
3. Link the results with past research i.e. which results are consistent with the past research (as you described in the introduction) & why? which results are inconsistent with the past research & why?
4. Describe confounding variables & suggestions to overcome them in the future.
5. Describe shortcomings (that are not confounding variables) e.g. the research required mood manipulation & your manipulation check revealed that it was unsuccessful.
6. Describe general improvements & future studies.
7. Describe implications of the research – at the end of the day, what does your study reveal, how does it contribute to our understanding of human behavior, mental processes, emotions, etc?
Citations
1. When you write research papers, you “borrow” information from many authors because this gives your paper strength.
2. However, you cannot use other people’s words without giving them credit for it.
3. Citing is the process of giving credit to the author of the sentence(s) you are using.
4. When you take the author’s words and change them to your own words, it is called paraphrasing. You still have to give credit to the author because the idea(s) did not originate from your head.
Examples:
1) Smith (1999) reported that….
2) Research (e.g. Yancey, 2001) shows that…
3) According to Johnson and Frank (2002)…
4) … (Sedgewick & Adams, 1993).
5. Do not use authors’ first names in the text.
6. Do not state authors’ university affiliations or designations (e.g. Professor, PhD)
7. When you copy the author’s words verbatim (word for word) that is called a direct quotation. Direct quotations need to be put in quotation marks (“ ”). Citations for direct quotations also require page numbers.
Examples:
1) Smith (1999, p.2) reported “there is a correlation between violence in television and aggression in children.”
· Note that in this direct quote, the period (full stop) comes before you close the quotation.
2) “There is a correlation between violence in television and aggression in children” (Smith, 1999, p.2).
8. If you omit material in the middle of your direct quote, use three ellipsis points to indicate that there is omitted material.
Example: “Children who watch television…appear more aggressive” (Frank, 2002, p.3).
· The three ellipsis points show that there is actually some text in between these two statements, but that you have excluded these words (or sentences) in your quotation.
9. Try to avoid having direct quotations that are longer than 40 words. If you have a direct quotation that is longer than 40 words, you do not need to have any quotation marks, but the direct quote needs to be indented (2 tab spaces).
10. A primary citation (paraphrased or directly quoted) is when you read the article/book and use what you read in your paper. The examples given above are primary citations.
11. A secondary citation (paraphrased or directly quoted) is when you read 1 author who quotes a second author and you want to use this second author’s information in your paper. You did not personally read this second author’s work – you read the first author’s work. Therefore you cannot cite this second author like a primary citation.
Examples:
1) Children who watch more than 2 hours of television a day appear to be more aggressive than children who watch less than 2 hours of television a day (Smith, 2002, as cited in Frank, 2003).
2) “There is a correlation between violence in television and aggression in children” (Smith, 2002, as cited in Frank, 2003, p. 3).
12. Try to avoid tertiary citations i.e. you want to cite what Author 1 said Author 2 said that Author 3 said. So what you really want to cite is Author 3, but Author 3’s work was in Author 2, and Author 2’s work was in Author 1, whom you read. It becomes too confusing.
13. You need to have secondary citations but you do not need to have secondary references. For example: Smith, 2002, cited in Johnson, 2003. You will reference Johnson, but not Smith. Refer to the following section on how to reference.
14. If there are between 3-5 authors, the first time you use this citation, list all the authors. Subsequently, state the 1st author & then write “et al.” e.g.
· Johnson, Smith, Duvall, and Autry (2003) stated… [1st time]
· Johnson et al. (2003) stated… [2nd time & all subsequent times]
15. If there are 6 or more authors, you use “Johnson et al.” all the time.
16. However, in the references section, ALL authors need to be listed.
17. If you’re citing more than one sources (e.g., Tan, 2008; Johnson, 2006; Tan & Lee, 1997; Tan & Lee, 2008), arrange the citations by alphabetical order of first author’s name, followed by chronological order (if same author/s). Single author will be come before multiple authors.
à Therefore, the above example should be arranged this way:
E.g., Several studies supported this notion (Johnson, 2006; Tan, 2008; Tan & Lee, 1997; Tan & Lee, 2008).
References
1. The following is a list of the more commonly used references. For more information, refer to the APA Publication Manual (5th edition) in the library.
1) Journal reference:
Author, A. (date). Title of article. Title of Journal, vol, pp.-pp.
Wine, J. (1971). Test Anxiety. Psychological Bulletin, 76, 92-104.
2) Book reference:
Author, A. (date). Title of book. Location: Publisher
Thorndike, E.L. & Lorge, I. (1944). The teachers wordbook of 30,000 words. New York Columbia University Teachers’ College
3) Chapter in an edited book:
Author, A. (date). Title of chapter. In B. Editor (Ed.). Title of book (pp-pp). Location: Publisher.
Rachman, S.J. (1976). Observational learning and therapeutic modelling. In M.P. Feldman & A. Broadhurst (Eds.). Theoretical and experimental bases of behaviour therapies (pp.245-295). London
4) Magazine/Newspaper:
Author, A. A. (year, month date). Title of article. Title of magazine, volume, pp.-pp.
Smith, S. (2000, April 9). Anxiety. Time, 135, 28-31.
5) Lecture:
Lecturer, A. (year, month). Title of lecture. Lecture presented to class, name of institution.
Waterman, M. (1995, July). Thought and language. Lecture presented to Psychology 111, University of ABC
6) World Wide Web sources:
Author / Organization. (date). Title of article. Date retrieved from the World Wide Web: URL address.
National Consumers League. (1997). Helping seniors targeted for telemarketing fund. Retrieved
a. If there is no author/organization, then just start with the title of the article. Example:
Helping seniors targeted for telemarketing fund. Retrieved February 3, 1999 from the World
Wide Web: http://www.fraud.org/elderfraud/helpsen.htm.
b. If there is no author/organization and no title, then just list the website address. However, it is not very safe to cite a website that does not list an author/organization and title. Be wary of websites that do not seem to have legitimate sources.
7) Online journal article:
Author (date). Title of article. Title of Journal, vol. Date retrieved from URL.
Smith, I. A. (2000). A Buddhist response to the nature of human rights. Journal of Buddhist
Ethics, 8(4). Retrieved February 20, 2001 , from http://www.cac.psu.edu/jbe/twocont.html
8) A print journal or newspaper article retrieved from an online database:
Author (date). Title of article. Title of Journal, vol, pp-pp. Date retrieved from XXX database.
Vello, J.A. & Cohen, D. (1999). Patterns of individualism and collectivism across the
2. However, a couple of things to note:
a. Alphabetize the list of references.
b. Journal titles should be spelled out fully.
c. The references should be double-spaced.
d. Listing of references should be continuous. Do not press <Enter> twice when you are typing a new reference.
e. The first line is not indented but the rest of the lines (for the same reference) are indented. For example:
Nevid, J.S., Spencer, A.R., & Green, B. (2000). Abnormal psychology in a changing
world (4th ed.). New Jersey , USA
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