Psychology

Scientific research is a public venture. Therefore, one of the essential skills of the scientist is to be able to communicate ideas and research results effectively. This hypertext guide is an attempt to make the style of writing used in the field of psychology clear to you. It summarizes a lot of the material available in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (5-th edition) (2001) and is oriented toward undergraduate students. For example, it includes numerous hints to avoid common mistakes students make. Note the examples appear in a teletype font to distinguish them from the normal text. Finally, the document is organized in an outline format for at least two reasons. First, it should make it easier for students to quickly locate the information they seek. Second, it should make it easier for an instructor to grade students papers. In most cases, the student can simply be referred to the outline item that addresses the problem rather than writing the comment repeatedly on multiple papers. Note that a checklist version of this writing guide is available.

I. General Topics

A. Typing - Here is a Microsoft Word 2002 document/template that should help you with some of the basic formatting.

1. Your papers must be typed or printed on a computer.

2. Set the typewriter or word processor to double space and keep it there throughout the entire manuscript.

3. Use one inch margins on the left, right, top, and bottom of the page. These margins are wide in order to leave room for reviewer's comments.

4. Use normal paragraphs in which the first line is indented five characters for all paragraphs in the manuscript except the abstract, block quotes, titles and headings, subheadings, references, table titles, notes, and figure captions.

5. Use a 12 point font. In other words, there should be 10 typed characters per inch.

6. Single space after sentence terminators (i.e., '.', '?', '!').

7. Capitalize the first letter following a colon if the clause following the colon is a complete sentence.

8. Make sure the text is left aligned and not justified. With left aligned text, the left margin forms a straight line and the right margin is ragged. With justified text both the left and right margins form a straight line.

9. Do not hyphenate (split) words at the end of a line.

10. Finally, just staple or clip the finished product (do not bother with fancy folders, etc.).

B. Writing in General

1. You must use complete sentences.

2. The first sentence of a paragraph must be independent (able to stand on its own). For example consider While these studies are important, there is... This sentence would be correct in the middle of a paragraph, but as the first sentence, it should more appropriately read, While studies of the effects of whatever on whatever else are important, there is...

3. Try not to use slang (e.g., ...put a damper on...).

4. Do not use contractions. That is, instead of it's, use it is.

5. If you are doubtful about the spelling of a word, do not guess. Look up the correct spelling in an appropriate reference source (e.g., Merriam-Webster.com).

6. Proofread the copy that you submit and do correct minor typographical errors, formatting, spelling, or even the wording, with a pencil. These corrections are inevitable and will communicate that you are serious about your work.

C. Style Details in General

1. Study this handout. When in doubt about a detail, check with the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association.

2. Assume you are writing the paper for submission to a scientific journal.

3. A lot of the formatting details can be learned by carefully modeling another APA journal article. It would be a good idea to acquire a few fairly recent articles, because the format was revised in 1995. Try the Psychological Record or The Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society. Both of these journals publish relatively short articles that are not too complicated.

4. Avoid excessive use of the terms I, me, and my, as well as the phrase personally speaking...

5. Avoid the use of sexist language. For example, consistently referring to a person as a him or he when it is just as likely for the person to be a she or a her, is sexist. However, using (s)he or him/her all of the time can also be awkward. If you phrase it right, you can often use the word person instead.

6. Avoid using 'empty words' or words which serve no purpose. For example, In the Smith (1990) study it was found that... should read more like Smith (1990) found that...

7. Generally speaking, use past tense in the abstract, introduction, and method. Results and discussion sections can be in the present tense.

8. Get friends to read it. If they cannot understand it, then it needs work. If you cannot get a friend to read it, then try to read it yourself making believe that you are naive.

D. Abbreviations

1. When abbreviating any terms, spell them out the first time (in both the abstract and again in the body of the manuscript, if need be). For example, The Sexual Opinion Survey (SOS) was used to...

2. Do not use too many abbreviations. Whereas one, two, or three can be helpful, four or five can be confusing.

3. You will often see the following Latin abbreviations used:

cf. compare etc. and so forth

e.g., for example i.e., that is

et al. and others vs. versus, against

4. Note that (except for et al.) these abbreviations are only used in parenthetic material. In non parenthetic material, use the English translation.

5. Do not use E and S as abbreviations for experimenter and subject. This was done in articles written many years ago.

6. Note the following common abbreviations and note also that you do not use periods with them.

cm centimeter s seconds

mg milligrams min minutes