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Title …………..………………………………………………………………………………………. 5
Coversheet ................................................................................................ 5
Abstract ……………………………………………………………………………………………. 6
Introduction ………………………………………………………………………………………. 7
Method ……………………………………………………………………………………………. 10
Results ………………………………………………………………………………………………. 11
Discussion …………………………………………………………………………………………. 15
Referencing ………………………………………………………………………………………. 18
Formatting …………………………………………………………………………………………. 22
Bibliography ………………………………………………………………………………………. 29
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APA style is the format and style requirements outlined in the Publication Manual of the
American Psychological Association (APA). It is simply a set of standardised guidelines for
setting out your written work. It covers format, structure, punctuation, spelling,
abbreviations and referencing. APA style is accepted worldwide as the standard for writing
in the discipline of psychology.
Standardizing the writing style across the discipline of psychology means consistency
between papers. When everyone uses the same style conventions it makes it easy for a
reader to understand what has been written and compare one set of findings with other
findings.
As a student of psychology, APA style guidelines also apply to you. At this introductory
level, you are expected to apply at least the key elements of APA style.
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Title
Outline the relationship between the key variables or highlight the main issue
Abstract
Give a very concise overview of the contents of your report
Introduction
Critically evaluate past research
Explain why you conducted the study
Describe what you expected to find
Method
Describe how you conducted the study
Results
Report what you found
Discussion
Suggest some conclusions that one might draw from your findings
Reference list
Provide a list of the sources you have cited in your report.
RULE OF THUMB
Your Introduction and Discussion sections should each make up about a
third of the word count. Your Method and Results sections, combined,
should make up the remaining third.
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TITLE
Your title should be no more than 10-15 words long. Aim to summarise the main idea so
your reader can quickly comprehend what your report is about.
A good title should either outline the relationship between the key variables or highlight the
main issue.
Some examples of good titles from UWA researchers:
The Relationship between motor coordination, executive functioning
and attention in school aged children.
From brief gaps to very long pauses: Temporal isolation does not benefit serial recall.
COVERSHEET
Your lab report must include a coversheet that contains the following information;
a. Your full name
b. Your student number
c. The title of your lab report
d. An EXACT word count
e. A signed (initialled) declaration of originality
A coversheet template is available on LMS for you to copy and paste into the front page of
your lab report.
RULE OF THUMB
Avoid unnecessary words like "A Report on a Study of . . ."
or "An Experiment to Examine . . ."
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ABSTRACT
An abstract is a very concise overview of the contents of your report. It should be no longer
than 120 words. A good abstract should:
a. Define the research problem
b. Outline your method
c. Describe key findings
d. Discuss key implications
You may notice that these key points correspond to information from/a summary of each
section of the report.
Some examples of good abstracts:
Abstract
The emphasis on greater intra and inter-disciplinary collaboration in Australian
universities has stimulated research in to strategies of facilitation success in cooperative
endeavours in the research sector. Sixty-six academics, making up 33 collaborative
dyads, were jointly exposed to humorous or bland audio-visual material over a period of
eight weeks. Those jointly exposed to the humorous material reported significantly
higher ratings of enjoyment and productivity in the collaboration, but no significant
difference in perceived satisfaction. Implications for further research are discussed,
particularly the need for the development and implementation of an objective,
standardized measure of productivity.
Abstract
This study examined the effects of short-term food deprivation on two cognitive
abilities: concentration and perseverance. Undergraduate students (N = 51) were tested
on a concentration task and a perseverance task after one of three levels of food
deprivation: none, 12 hours, or 24 hours. It was predicted that food deprivation would
impair both concentration scores and perseverance time. Food deprivation had no
significant effect on concentration scores. Participants in the 12-hour deprivation group
spent significantly less time on the perseverance task than those in both the control and
24-hour deprivation groups, suggesting that short-term deprivation may affect some
aspects of cognition and not others.
TIP
You may find it easier to come back and write the Abstract after you have
written the report, when your experiment and its results and
implications are clear in your mind.
INTRODUCTION
Think of your introduction as a funnel into your experiment. You start relatively broad and
general, by introducing your topic and mentioning relevant background information. Then
narrow down to explain theories and empirical findings especially relevant to your
experiment. Then narrow down further to point out gaps in the exisiting research literature
and establish the rationale for conducting your particular experiment. Then finish by very
specifically stating your aims and hypotheses.
Start general
Finish specific
Specific
Provide background information
Introduce the topic your study addresses and the theoretical framework that underlies your
study. Define any key terms you will be using.
REMEMBER
Your lab report title is the heading for your Introduction section.
There is no heading “Introduction”
REMEMBER
Everything about the participants and what you did in the experimental session
belongs in your Method section, not in the Introduction.
WHAT’S IN AN AIM?
When writing your introduction, it’s easy to get confused between
your aim, your hypothesis and your experimental predictions. Here’s a
rough guide to distinguishing these concepts.
Aim
Your aim is what you are interested in finding out. You’ll often use the
word ‘whether’ when writing your aim.
This study aimed to determine whether anxiety is associated with an
attentional bias to threat.
Hypothesis
Your hypothesis is your informed guess about how the world is.
It was hypothesised that social trait anxiety is characterised by
enhanced attentional engagement with threat.
Prediction
Your prediction (or expectation) is what you expect to happen in your
experiment if your hypothesis was “true”/correct.
It was expected that people with high trait anxiety would react faster
to images of angry faces than would those with low trait anxiety.
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METHOD
The purpose of the method is to explain how you conducted your study. The Method
usually contains three sections: Participants, Materials, and Procedure.
Participants
Who participated in your study? How many people completed the experiment?
Include information that demonstrates the degree to which your sample is generalizable to
the wider population; such as age, gender ratios, level of education, nationality. Some of
this information will not be relevant to the variables that you are investigating in your study,
and do not have to be reported. Do not include guesses about the demographic
characteristics of your sample if these characteristics were not measured.
Mention how your participants came to be involved in the study (e.g., were they volunteers
recruited from nursing homes via an advertisement, undergraduate students who took part
as a course requirement, inpatients from a particular hospital who were referred by their
doctor?)
Were there any selection criteria? (e.g., were participants screened for anxiety level? Did
they have to meet criteria for a particular disorder? Did they have to be a particular gender,
age or ethnicity?)
Materials
What materials did you use in the study? Describe any standardised tasks or questionnaires
your participants completed.
Include information about any unusual items or specialist equipment you used (e.g., audio
recording equipment). There’s no need to provide details about common items such as
pens, pencils, chairs. For example, it may be important to mention that participants
completed a task at a computer, but only include details about the computer’s brand,
speed, screen resolution and size if it is relevant.
Procedure
What did the participants do? In what order? Include information such as how participants
were divided into groups, the instructions they were given, the tasks they performed.
REMEMBER
Your Method section is concerned only with what the participants did during the
experimental session. Any mention of your results should be saved for the
Results section.
RULE OF THUMB
There should be sufficient detail in your Method section that the reader could
replicate your experiment. BUT do not include every detail – only what is relevant.
co9in
RESULTS
The purpose of the Results section is to present, but not yet discuss, the outcome of your
experiment. What did you find?
REMEMBER
In your Results section, you are concerned only with numbers and
patterns in your data. Do not say here what you think the data mean
about people and the world. This goes in your Discussion.
REMEMBER
You don’t need to present every participant’s score. When you present
descriptive statistics (means and standard deviations etc.) you are
summarising the raw data for your reader.
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There are different types of inferential statistics that you may have to report when
presenting your findings in the results section. The inferential statistic(s) that we choose
depends on the research question.
TIP.
For more information about correlations, see these pages in the Passer textbook:
pp. 45-49, and pp. 723-725.
TIP.
If you are confused about standard deviation, standard error or other statistics,
don’t worry, you will learn how to analyse your data in your lab.
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Formatting tables
Tables are a clear way to present lots of data. Your table should help to illustrate your
narrative – it shouldn’t repeat what is said in the text. Avoid using a table if your data could
be presented more succinctly in a couple of sentences.
For tables, APA format stipulates you:
- Use Times New Roman font, size 12pt
- Double space your whole table, including the title.
- Put a label and number above your table (e.g., Table 1 )
- Give your table a title. This should be a concise description of the data it presents.
Use italics.
- Put an unbroken horizontal cell border under the title, under the row headers, and
under the last row of the table.
- If you present means, include standard deviation
Table 1
Means (SD) for the distracted and control groups on two working memory tasks.
RULE OF THUMB
Place your table or figure close to (preferably immediately after) the text that refers to it.
TIP
Use the Insert Table command in Windows (or download
this table from LMS to use as a template).
TIP
Check your table: Is the table necessary? Have you introduced and explained the table in the text?
Are all the tables in your report presented consistently? Are all abbreviations explained?
Are the table and title of the table together on the same page?
Formatting figures
35.0
30.0
Mean working memory score
25.0
20.0
15.0
10.0
5.0
0.0
Control Distracted
Condition
Figure 1. Mean working memory scores for participants in distracted and control
conditions. Error bars represent standard error of the mean.
TIP
Check your figure: Have you mentioned the figure in the text?
Are all figures in your report presented consistently? Are all abbreviations explained?
Are the figure and the title of the figure together on the same page?
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DISCUSSION
The purpose of the discussion is to review your findings and consider their implications.
Think about the structure of your Discussion as the reverse of your ‘funnel’ Introduction:
you start more specifically and gradually get broader in scope.
Start specific
Finish general
Specific
Consider limitations of your study and suggest directions for future research
Are there any methodological flaws that may have impacted on your results?
Mention limitations, but remain positive (e.g., you could cite previous research that
suggests this limitation is unlikely to have influenced your results OR offer suggestions for
future researchers to follow to overcome the limitations).
It is not enough to just say “future research is necessary” – your ideas need to be concrete
and specific. Remember this is one of the last things your marker reads so dazzle them with
your brilliance.
Conclude
In a few sentences, summarise the theories your study has supported, and the implications
of your findings. Your conclusion should leave the reader with a concise understanding of
the main theoretical consequences of the results.
Note that your conclusion is not a separate section, but a paragraph within your Discussion.
TIP
Your Discussion section is an opportunity to be original! Your marker will reward
you for creative ideas, as long as they are not unreasonable or fanciful.
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REFERENCING
Why reference?
In academic writing, you use references to support your argument. The general process is:
1. Read the literature
Consider:
- theoretical models of the phenomenon you are investigating
- the results of previous empirical studies.
3. Use the evidence you have collected from your reading to support your argument;
referencing is critical to justifying the reasonableness of your position.
How to reference
Your reader must be able to find the source to which you are referring.
A citation must appear in two places in your essay:
1. in the body of your text (abbreviated citation)
2. in your References section at the at the end of your paper (full reference with all
publication details).
In text citation
After referring to someone else’s idea or to someone else’s research, reference! APA style
stipulates two main ways of doing this:
1. Insert the author’s(s’) surname or surnames and the year of publication in
parenthesis at the end of your sentence. Note that the citation comes BEFORE the
full stop – because the citation forms part of your statement:
A recent study demonstrated links between these two factors (Jones & Smith, 2008).
2. If the surname of the author makes up part of your narrative, put only the year in
parentheses. This goes immediately after the author’s surname:
Whiteman (2008) compared smokers and nonsmokers…
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Use the word and if the authors’ surnames make up part of your narrative
Kelson and Smith (1991) found that children with autism…
On second and subsequent citings, abbreviate the citation by using only the first author’s
surname and the words “et al.” A full stop must be used after et al. as et al. stands for et alia
(and all) in Latin.
Crabbs et al. (1999) argued that …
Direct quotes
If you use direct quotes, use quotation marks, and include the associated page number(s) in
your citation. Use p. if it the quotation is on one page, pp. if it spans two pages.
Jeffers et al. (2000) hypothesised that “direct quotation” (p. 24).
RULE OF THUMB
Try to avoid direct quotations. If it is possible to put something into your own words then do so. The
overuse of quotations breaks the flow of your writing and comes across as lazy.
Aim for no more than two per assignment.
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REFERENCE LIST
Your Reference list should begin on a new page after your Discussion, and be titled
‘References’. APA style references should be formatted with a hanging indent. They should
not be bullet pointed or numbered.
Here is how to format references for the main kinds of texts you will encounter. Pay close
attention to which parts are italicised and to the exact placement of full stops, parenthesis
and commas.
Journal article
Author, initial. (Year). Article title. Italicised Journal Title, Volume (Issue), page-page.
Erceg-Hurn, D. M. (2008). Drugs, money, and graphic ads: A critical review of the
Montana Meth Project. Prevention Science, 9(4), 256-263.
Authored book
Author, initial. (Year). Italicised book title. Place of publication: Publisher.
Rhodes, G. (1996). Superportraits: Caricatures and recognition. Hove: Psychology
Press.
Edited book
Editor, initial. (Ed.). (Year). Italicised book title. Place of publication: Publisher.
Anderson, M. (Ed). (1999). The development of intelligence. East Sussex, UK:
Psychology Press
Locke, V., & Johnston, L. (2001). Stereotyping and prejudice: A social cognitive
approach. In M. Augoustinos & K. J. Reynolds (Eds.). Understanding
prejudice, racism, and social conflict (pp 107-125). London: Sage.
REMEMBER
Only reference papers that you have cited in text. Papers you
read but didn’t refer directly to in your report are left out.
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RULE OF THUMB
Don’t ever reference Wikipedia, Dolly Doctor, The West Australian, your friend’s blog or anonymous
websites. Unless your topic specifically calls for you to mention what’s in the popular media, stick to
articles in genuine scholarly journals and textbooks – these are peer-reviewed by other psychologists
and therefore carry more credibility.
RULE OF THUMB
There is no rule about how many references you should have. But reading beyond the literature provided
to you is highly encouraged. Extra reading is likely to result in a well- informed Introduction and
Discussion … and so increases your chance of getting a good mark!
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FORMATTING
Layout
APA format stipulates you:
- Use Times New Roman font, size 12pt
- Use double spacing (24pt line spacing) for your whole report
- Set your margins at: 2.54cm (i.e. 1 inch) at the top, bottom, left and right.
Headings
Use headings to divide your work into sections. APA format uses levels of headings; use the
same level of heading for topics of similar importance. Do not number your headings.
APA style requires particular formatting for each level of heading. The levels you are likely to
use at this stage are:
Level 1: Centred, Boldface, Uppercase and Lowercase Heading
Level 2: Flush to Left Margin, Boldface, Uppercase and Lowercase Heading
Level 3: Indented, boldface, lowercase paragraph heading ending with a full stop.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Materials
← Level 3 Heading
Anxiety questionnaires.--------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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For example:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Body text
Your text should be left aligned (not justified). Indent each paragraph by 1.25cm on the first
line. Double space your lines.
For example:
The current study aimed to examine whether increased mirth would facilitate
from a large metropolitan university who were about to embark on new collaborations.
Given the findings by Python (1954), it was hypothesised that the dyads jointly
exposed to regular comedy would report greater perceived cooperation and personal
satisfaction with the collaboration. It was also hypothesised that the self-judged productivity
of the collaboration would be significantly greater in the dyads exposed to regular comedy
Abbreviations
Do not use abbreviations or acronyms in the main body text. The only exceptions are:
a. If you explicitly introduce your abbreviation when it first appears.
This study measured reaction time (RT). Results showed that RT differed across
conditions…
Standard deviation SD
Standard error SE
Mean M
Number N
Correlation coefficient r
c. Within parentheses you may use standard Latin abbreviations. Do not use these in
the main text.
(e.g., ) (i.e., ) (c.f., )
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Numbers
Write numbers between zero and nine in words. Use numerals for all other numbers.
There were six conditions...
Participants pressed each key 18 times.
If you are directly comparing a single digit number to a larger number, use numerals.
In the control condition, 3 of 19 participants withheld their data.
Italics
Use italics only for foreign words or for the first use of a technical term or a term with a
specific meaning within your study.
ipso facto
Bavelas also acknowledges a functional role for generic responses - those acts like
nodding or generic vocalisations (e.g., “mhm”, “u-huh” or “yeah”). These generic
responses do not convey narrative content, but…
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WRITING STYLE
Don’t be pompous
If there’s a simpler word, use it.
Don’t be flowery
Avoid all unnecessary words.
TIP
Remove unnecessary information from your report. Try writing your topic down
and sticking it next to your computer; refer to it often and ask “Does this sentence
help answer my question/topic?” If the answer is no, don’t include it.
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Avoid jargon.
Don’t be tempted to use fancy, specialist terminology just to sound competent, especially if
you’re not sure of the exact meaning of the word. This will backfire.
Be non-discriminatory
Cite attributes such as age, gender, religion, race, sexual preference, marital status only if
they are relevant to your analysis.
Labelling Better
at-risk students students who are at risk of….
depressed people people with depression
autistic children children with autism
schizophrenics people with schizophrenia
RULE OF THUMB
Be direct, clear, precise and concise. In psychology report writing,
wordiness is not valued.
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RECCOMENDED READING
O’Shea, R., Moss, S., & McKenzie, W. (2006). Writing for Psychology. Melbourne, Australia:
Thomson Learning.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
American Psychological Association. (2009). Publication manual for the American
Psychological Association (6th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.
Curtis, G., Palermo, R., & Lewandowsky, S. (2004). Psychology 101 guide to writing a lab
report. (Available from the School of Psychology, University of Western Australia, 35
Stirling Hwy, Crawley, WA 6009).
O’Shea, R., Moss, S., & McKenzie, W. (2006). Writing for Psychology. Melbourne, Australia:
Thomson Learning.
Owens, R., Bucks, R., Bogdanovs, J., Farrant, B., Horlin, C. Lampard, A. & Webster, K. (2008)
Lab report checklist. (Available from the School of Psychology, University of Western
Australia, 35 Stirling Hwy, Crawley, WA 6009).
If you have any queries about how to write your lab report after working
through this online guide, you can ask your tutor.
See your Psychology 1101 Handbook for information about how many
marks your lab report is worth, how to apply for an extension and
plagiarism.
Don’t forget to go to LMS and do the Online quiz on how to write a lab
report. The marks for this quiz will contribute towards your participation
mark. Good luck!