Research Report

• Writing  a research report
• APA Style
• Presenting results effectively
• Using the library effectively

• Good writing techniques are learned
• Practice, practice, practice
• Write something, get criticism, rewrite
• Tips
• Know your audience
• Don't assume they know too much
• Better to leave a lot in the paper then to take a lot out
• Remind readers of the purpose of different sections
• Identify a global purpose at the start
• State the purpose of smaller sections (if not obvious)
• Example:  Non-standard analyses

• Work on grammar and usage
• Poor grammar distracts the reader from the main point
• Undermines their faith in your intelligence
• Use long words only when they are more precise
• Key things to remember
• Datum-Data
• Phenomenon-Phenomena
• Stimulus-Stimuli
• Criterion-Criteria

Gender Neutral Language

• Avoid sexist language
• This applies both to he and she
• Constant use of "he or she" is cumbersome
• Rephrase to avoid sexist language
• Problems of designation:  Ambiguity of referent
• The participant is often the best judge of his performance
• Problems of designation:  Stereotyping
• Doctors often work long hours, neglecting their wives and children

APA Style

• Why?
• Consistency of format
• Reader knows what to expect in a paper
• Ensures that the same information is included in papers
• Allows reader to focus on main points
•  Information for printers and publishers
• Tables and Figures
• Separate Footnotes
• If it seems unnecessary, it is for the printer

Structure of a Research Report

• Title Page
• Abstract
• Introduction
• Method
• Results
• Discussion
• References
• Author Identification Notes
• Tables
• Figures

Title Page

• Title
• Your Name
• Institution
• Heading
• See Book

Abstract

• One paragraph (100-175 words)
• Summarize Article
• Highlight the main points
• Talk about the relevance of the article
• Try to interest the reader in the paper
• Do not evaluate results in the abstract
• After the title, next most widely read part of a paper
• Suggestion:  Write abstract last
• Easier to summarize something already written

Introduction

• Provide
• Objectives of the study
• Broad implications of study (why should reader read?)
• Review of relevant previous work
• Relation of experiments to theory
• How long should introduction?
• Must make it clear why study was done
• Often outlines the methodology used
• May need to discuss particular choice of method
• No longer than that.

Referring to Previous Work

• Direct quotes:
• Tversky (1977) stated that finding the features of an object was "the result of a prior process of extraction and compilation (p. 329)."
• Indirect references
• Tversky (1977) did not provide a process for determining the features of an object.
• Many models of similarity assume that the features of the objects have already been determined (Tversky, 1977).
• Quote only when necessary
• Indirect references are generally better.

Don't Play Telephone

• Do not cite a paper unless you have read it.
• You can say:
• Sjöberg (1972) as quoted by Krumhansl (1978) stated that people seek to maximize the commonality between objects when rating their similarity.
• The source you use may have misquoted the original.
• Later on, someone may cite your discussion without reading the original.

Method

• This section defines the study that was carried out
• Give enough information for reader to:
• Comprehend the study
• Replicate the methodology
• Divided into sub-sections (order often varies)
• Participants
• Design
• Procedure
• Materials/Apparatus

Participants Section

• How many?
• How many in each condition (if relevant)
• How did you get them
• How many did not complete the experiment
• Demographic considerations (if relevant)
• Gender, Age, Race, etc.
• If participants are animals (called subjects)
• Give relevant information
• Species, Age

Design Section

• Operational definitions of constructs
• Design considerations
• Within/Between subjects
• Number of Factors (Independent Variables)
• Levels of each Factor
• We will discuss more design issues later

Materials or Apparatus

• If experiment requires an elaborate mechanical setup, call this section Apparatus.
• If experiment presents varied materials with a simple apparatus, call the section Materials.
• Describe materials/apparatus
• Be specific enough that study could be replicated
• Consider including samples of materials in a figure and/or in an Appendix

Procedure

• What did participants do?
• What did they see?
• What steps were involved in the task?
• What were the instructions?
• Paraphrase
• Give exact instructions only if absolutely necessary
• How long did study take?
• Were there practice trials?
• How did they work?
• Did participant take part in multiple tasks/studies?

Results

• Report findings of study in this section
• Presentation of statistics
• Focus on descriptive statistics
• Amplify with inferential statistics
• Inferential statistics will be the focus on this later
• Consider presenting graphs or tables

More on Results

• Assume a basic knowledge of statistics
• Use Graphs and Tables when there is a lot of data
• Use lines for continuous independent variables
• Use bar graphs for discontinuous independent variables

Tables

• Brief explanatory title
• Clear labels on rows and columns
• Use consistent alignment
• Tables will be re-set by the publisher

More Format Information

• Tables
• Put at end of paper, each on a separate page
• Pages should be numbered from end of text
• Tables should be numbered sequentially
• Figures
• Each on separate page, no caption or page number
• Captions on separate page before figures
• Put figure number an orientation on back of figure

Discussion

• Give relationship between data and hypotheses
• How do data support hypothesis?
• How do data fail support the hypothesis?
• What are the general implications of this work?
• What further work needs to be done?
• Be explicit about both strengths and weaknesses of the results
• In multiple study papers, each study gets its own Method, Results and Discussion
• Include a General Discussion at the end.
• May also include a Conclusions section

Footnotes

• Use footnotes sparingly (if at all).
• Number footnotes consecutively
• Place footnotes on a separate page at the end.

Author Identification Notes

• Current address of contact person
• Acknowledgements to individuals
• Thank people who gave comments
• Thank people who inspired work
• Thank people who ran the study or analyzed data
• Acknowledge funding sources

References

• Enter every article cited in text into references section
• Use APA format for specific kind of paper
• Some samples:
• Journal
• Slanted, J.Q., & Enchanted, J. (1992). How to get between here and there.  Journal of Quixotic Psychology, 15(3), 50-75.
• Book.
• Smith, J.T., & Jones, H.H. (1975).  Deep Sea Diver has Gone too Deep.  New York:  HoHum Publishers, Inc.

Effective Presentation of Results

• The problem
• You collected a lot of data
• Now you have to report it
• Issues to consider
• What data are most important?
• What is the best way to make important patterns clear?
• Must ensure that both confirmatory and disconfirmatory evidence are presented.

What data are important?

• Descriptive statistics
• The data you collected are important
• Inferential statistics only illuminate the data you collect
• Which data to report?
• Data relevant to central claims
• Report all data for which you made a prediction
• Report any other reliable differences obtained

How to Present Data

• Visual patterns are easy to see
• Numerical patterns are hard to see
• Example:  Visual search:
• How quickly can you detect the presence of a target
• If search is done in serial, then the response time should increase with the number of target items.
• If search done in parallel, search time should not increase with set size.

Pattern in Table

Pattern in Graph

 
 
 
 
 

Finding Previous Studies

• You are probably not the first person ever to study a particular topic
• What previous work has been done?
• What methodologies have been used?
• What are the competing theories?
• Have some theories been shown to be faulty?
• Good research makes connections to previous work.
• "If I have seen further, it is by standing upon the shoulders of Giants."    --Sir Isaac Newton

Where to Go?

• Experts in the field
• The Library
• PsychLIT/Psychological Abstracts
• Social Sciences Citation Index
• Books.