what is a good psychology paper to research
I taught my first psychology class in 1994—and I almost e'er include some kind of paper assignment in each of my classes. Quick math says that I take probably read about 2,000 student papers. I think I'one thousand qualified to requite advice on this topic.
With a large batch of pupil papers gear up to hit my desk on Monday upcoming, information technology occurred to me that it might be squeamish to write a formal statement to help guide this process. Hither it is.
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Tell a Story
If you are writing a research paper, or whatsoever paper, you are telling a story. Information technology should take a kickoff, centre, and cease. Farther, it should read how yous speak. Some students think that when they are writing for a higher professor, they take to upwardly their language and commencement using all kinds of fancy words and such. Delight! Nosotros are training y'all to communicate effectively—not to show others how smart you are. We know y'all are smart—that is how you got into college in the showtime identify!
While there are certain standards of formality that should exist followed in your paper, at the end of the solar day, always recall that you are primarily trying to communicate some set up of ideas to an audience. Thus, yous should exist dandy to attend to the following:
- Create an outline and use it every bit a roadmap.
- Start from the top. That is, think about your actual question of interest—and outset in that location—clearly and explicitly.
- Brand sure that every unmarried sentence points to the next sentence. And every paragraph points to the next paragraph. And every department points to the side by side section.
- Write how you speak—imagine that you are telling these ideas to someone—and always assume that someone is a layperson (only a regular quondam person, not an proficient in the field).
- Brand the paper as long equally it needs to exist to tell your story fully and finer—don't let page limits drive your process (to the extent that this is possible).
- All things equal, note that writing a high number of relatively brief sentences is a amend approach than is writing a lower number of relatively long sentences. Often when students write long sentences, the chief points go confused.
Use APA Mode for Practiced
Psychology students have to principal APA format. This means using the formal writing fashion of the American Psychological Clan. At first, APA style may well seem like a huge pain, but all of the details of APA style actually exist for a reason. This style was designed so that periodical editors are able to see a bunch of different papers (manuscripts) that are in the same standardized format. In this context, the editor is then able to make judgments of the differential quality of the different papers based on content and quality. Then APA mode exists for a reason!
In one case y'all get the basics downward, APA style tin can actually be a tool to help facilitate great writing.
Write a Skillful Outline and Flesh it Out
For me, the best thing about APA Style is that it gets you lot to retrieve in terms of an outline. APA style requires you to create headings and subheadings. Every paper I e'er write starts with just an outline of APA-inspired headings and subheadings. I make sure that these follow a linear progression—and so I tin see the big, basic idea at the get-go—and follow the headings all the way to the end. The headings should exist like the Cliff Notes of your story. Someone should exist able to read your headings (just like the headings for this post) and become a basic agreement of the story that you are trying to communicate.
Another great thing about starting with an APA-inspired outline is that information technology affords you a very clear fashion to compartmentalize your piece of work on the paper. If you lot are supposed to write a "big" college newspaper (possibly xx or then pages), y'all may dread thinking about it—and you may put information technology off because you encounter the task every bit too daunting.
However, suppose y'all have an outline with 10 headings and subheadings. Now suppose that you pretty much have most two pages worth of content to say for each such heading. Well y'all can probably write two pages in about an hour or maybe less. So maybe you flesh out the first heading or two—then sentinel an episode of The Office or go for a run. Maybe you lot flesh out another section after in the day. And and then tomorrow you wake up and yous've completed xxx% of your paper already. That doesn't audio so dreadful, now, does it?
No One Wants to Hear Minutia about Other Studies in Your Research Paper!
I'k commonly pretty tolerant of the work that my students submit to me. I know that higher is all nigh learning and developing—and I always remind my students that the reason they are in school is to develop skills such as writing—so I don't look whatever xix-year-one-time to be Walt Whitman.
This said, in that location are some rookie mistakes that make me milk shake my caput. A very mutual matter that students tend to practice is to describe the enquiry of others in unnecessary detail. For your introduction, you often have to provide testify to support the points that you raise. So if you are writing a paper near the importance of, say, familial relatedness in affecting altruistic behavior, you probably need to cite some of the archetype scientific literature in this area (e.m., Hamilton, 1964).
This said, delight, I urge you lot, don't draw more nearly these past studies that you cite than is necessary to tell your story! If your betoken is that there past work has found that individuals beyond diverse species are more probable to aid kin than non-kin, possibly just say that! There is a time and a identify for describing the details of the studies of others in your own research paper. On occasion, it is actually helpful to elaborate a bit on past studies. Merely from where I sit down, it'south much more common to see students describe others' studies in painstaking detail in what looks like an endeavour to fill upwardly pages.
As a guide on this issue, here are some things that I suggest you NEVER include in your paper:
- The number of participants that were in someone else's written report.
- Information from statistical tests from someone else's written report (e.g., The researchers constitute a significant F ratio (F(ii,199) = iv.32, p = 0.008)).
- The various conditions or variables that were included in some other written report (east.g., These researchers used a mixed-ANOVA model with three between-subject factors and two within-subject factors).
When you mention the piece of work of others, you are doing then for a purpose. You lot are citing just enough of their work to substantiate some point that you are making every bit you work toward creating a coherent story. Don't always lose sight of this!
Bottom Line
I've read about 2,000 educatee papers to this indicate in my life. And I hope I am lucky enough to read another four,000+ earlier I am pushing up daisies. Equally I tell my students, if you are going to develop a single skill in college, allow it exist your ability to write in a clear, effective, and engaging manner.
Students who write psychology papers frequently detect it difficult. That's OK—that's expected. If you are a higher student, so don't forget the fact that college is primarily about developing your skills.
Everything yous write has the ultimate purpose of communicating to an audition. Clear, straightforward, and narrative approaches to any writing assignment, then, are well-nigh probable to hitting the marker.
References
Hamilton W.D. (1964). The genetical development of social behaviour. International Journal of Theoretical Biology, seven, 1–16.
Source: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/darwins-subterranean-world/201704/how-really-write-psychology-paper
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