BSC201 lab report APA style guide PDF

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lab report APA style guide (very important and useful!)...

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Tips for Writing an APA Paper

Papers for BSC201 should be double-spaced, 12 point font, with 1 inch margins. EVERYTHING is double-spaced (i.e., select-all, double space). Your final paper will include the following elements.

I.

Title page

II.

Abstract

III.

Introduction

IV.

Method a. Participants b. Materials (if needed) c. Apparatus (if needed) d. Procedure

V.

Results

VI.

Discussion

VII.

References

This guide includes information on the different components of an APA paper. This document provides only a brief summary of the sections of an empirical report. This guide does not provide a complete description of all of the regulations to follow when presenting empirical data, as defined by the American Psychological Association (APA). Others references that may be valuable: APA (2019). Publication manual for the American Psychological Association (7th Edition). American Psychological Association. Bem, D. J. (1987). Writing the empirical journal article. In M. P. Zanna & J. M. Darley (Eds.), The compleat academic (pp. 171-201). Random House. Norman, C. (1987). Writing essays: A short guide. (2nd ed.). Queen's University.

Tips for Writing Your Title The title should be descriptive and specific to the variables investigated in your study. There is a stock format that you can always use: The Effect of IV#1 and IV#2 on DV The Effect of Need for Cognitive Closure and Perspective Taking on Prejudice If you want to highlight the role of unique independent variable or mediating variable that you are adding that extends previous research, you might use this format: The Effect of IV#1 on DV: The Role of IV#2 The Effect of Perspective Taking on Prejudice: The Role Cognitive Closure You can also get more creative as long as you retain a title that is somehow related to your study. Take a look at some of the titles of readings in your book: Some use a catchy initial phrase that gives the main point of the study, followed by a bit more descriptive information Compensating for Stigma: Obese and Nonobese Women's Reactions to Being Visible Prejudice as Self-Image Maintenance: Affirming the Self through Derogating Others Some are pretty direct about the topic, task, and sample: Stereotype Threat and the Intellectual Test Performance of African Americans Others try to state bottom line of what the study shows: Gender Stereotypes Stem from the Distribution of Women and Men into Social Roles

Tips for Writing Your Abstract The abstract should be a concise summary of what is in your proposal. It should be no more than 150 words. There is a pretty straightforward formula you can use for writing your abstract in about 4-7 sentences (note that this is the same formula used to evaluate your abstract). 1-2 sentences: Introduce the general topic and the central thesis of your proposed study. Try to make your central point in only 1 sentence. 1-2 sentences: Say something about what variables you will manipulate (you independent variables) and measure (your dependent variables). 1-2 sentences: State the key results. If you have additional results, you can add another sentence for them. 1 sentence: Wrap it up with a summary statement about what you will say in your discussion by highlighting the implications for how it relates to past research. This sentence that is most frequently omitted by novice writers. Act like an old pro and include it. Here is an example (116 words): Abstract Perspective taking may reduce how people feel about members of disadvantaged groups. The present study (N = 398) examined whether need for cognitive closure moderates the effect of perspective taking on prejudice reduction. White participants who score high or low in need for closure were asked to take the perspective or remain objective while reading an interview with an African American target. Perspective taking was more effective at reducing prejudice among low need for closure participants than among high need for closure participants. These findings not only provide strong evidence of the importance of perspective taking to improve interracial relations, but indicate that the role of perspective taking has been overlooked by models of prejudice reduction.

Sample Abstracts Levy, B. R., Pilver, C., Chung, P. H., & Slade, M. D. (2014). Subliminal strengthening: Improving older individuals' physical function over time with an implicit-age-stereotype intervention. Psychological Science, 25, 2127-2135. Negative age stereotypes that older individuals assimilate from their culture predict detrimental outcomes, including worse physical function. We examined, for the first time, whether positive age stereotypes, presented subliminally across multiple sessions in the community, would lead to improved outcomes. Each of 100 older individuals (age = 61– 99 years, M = 81) was randomly assigned to an implicit-positive-age-stereotype-intervention group, an explicitpositive age- stereotype-intervention group, a combined implicit- and explicit-positive-age-stereotype-intervention group, or a control group. Interventions occurred at four 1-week intervals. The implicit intervention strengthened positive age stereotypes, which strengthened positive self-perceptions of aging, which, in turn, improved physical function. The improvement in these outcomes continued for 3 weeks after the last intervention session. Further, negative age stereotypes and negative self-perceptions of aging were weakened. For all outcomes, the implicit intervention's impact was greater than the explicit intervention's impact. The physical-function effect of the implicit intervention surpassed a previous study's 6-month-exercise-intervention's effect with participants of similar ages. The current study's findings demonstrate the potential of directing implicit processes toward physical-function enhancement over time.

Dziura, S. L., & Thompson, J. C. (2014). Social-network complexity in humans is associated with the neural response to social information. Psychological Science, 25, 2095-2101. Humans have evolved to thrive in large and complex social groups, and it is likely that this increase in group complexity has come with a greater need to decode and respond to complex and uncertain communicatory signals. In this functional MRI study, we examined whether complexity of social networks in humans is related to the functioning of brain regions key to the perception of basic, nonverbal social stimuli. Greater activation to biological than to scrambled motion in the right posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) and right amygdala were positively correlated with the diversity of social-network roles. In the pSTS, in particular, this association was not due to a relationship between network diversity and network size. These findings suggest that increased functioning of brain regions involved in decoding social signals might facilitate the detection and decoding of subtle signals encountered in varied social settings.

Frenda, S. J., Patihis, L., Loftus, E. F., Lewis, H. C., & Fenn, K. M. (2014). Sleep deprivation and false memories. Psychological Science, 25, 1674-1681. Many studies have investigated factors that affect susceptibility to false memories. However, few have investigated the role of sleep deprivation in the formation of false memories, despite overwhelming evidence that sleep deprivation impairs cognitive function. We examined the relation between self-reported sleep duration and false memories and the effect of 24 hr of total sleep deprivation on susceptibility to false memories. We found that under certain conditions, sleep deprivation can increase the risk of developing false memories. Specifically, sleep deprivation increased false memories in a misinformation task when participants were sleep deprived during event encoding, but did not have a significant effect when the deprivation occurred after event encoding. These experiments are the first to investigate the effect of sleep deprivation on susceptibility to false memories, which can have dire consequences.

Tips for Writing Your Introduction The introduction can be considered as containing three parts: (a) an introduction paragraph, (b) support paragraph(s), and (c) a concluding paragraph(s). The first and concluding paragraphs are almost always one paragraph in length. The number of support paragraphs varies in length given the number of different research questions and literatures considered in your paper. I.

II.

III.

First Paragraph a. The first paragraph should begin broadly: What general problem are you assessing? b. Lay out the general behavioral phenomenon you are interested in examining. c. It is a good idea to start by talking about the "real world," not existing literature in psychology. As an opening sentence, "Olmstead and MacDonald (1999) summarized information that would help students to write laboratory reports. . ." is less interesting than "Learning to present scientific information is an essential part of any undergraduate programs in psychology. How can professors train students to write effective laboratory reports?" d. An easy beginning to a paper is to start with a question. e. End by stating, in one sentence, what the general goal or purpose of your study is. Support Paragraphs a. Describe past theory and research on your topic. Do this in such a way that tells a story and justifies the elements of your argument in a logic sequence. b. Once the reader has established the research question, address and integrate the existing literature in that area. Do not summarize individual studies. c. When describing previous research, ONLY go into more detail for those studies that are of the most relevance either theoretical or methodologically to the study you are proposing. If you are just providing support for a basic idea, then you can cite the research without much detail. For example, "Boys are more physically aggressive than girls (Smith, 1992)." d. Each paragraph must begin with a topic sentence and end with a concluding sentence. "Purpose of this Research" Paragraph a. The previous section of the introduction was designed to update the reader on the state of existing research. Now you want to sell them your idea. Point out how what you plan to do extends or builds off of existing research. For example, "Although research has examined X, it has not specifically tested Y. This study intends to fill this void." b. State your hypothesis without operationalizing the variables. You do not need to specify all of the comparisons, just the most important one. Clearly state what you expect to find. It is important to include a rationale for your hypotheses. This allows for the opportunity to explain the logic underlying your predictions.

Tips for Citing Research Articles

1. Always start each support paragraph with a topic sentence (a sentence that states what the "main point" of the paragraph is 2. Always end each support paragraph with a concluding sentence (a sentence that states what the reader should take away from the paragraph). 3. Talk about only what is important/relevant about any given article. Helpful Demonstration #1 Each "support paragraph" should be organized as such: 1. Reader should not have to do any work. 2. Tell the reader WHAT the article found, and HOW it relates. 3. Talk about only what is important about any given article. LACKING: 1. Greater levels of alcohol consumption were associated with a reduced ability to judge the outcomes of a group decision (Jones & Smith, 1990). A LITTLE BETTER: 2. Research, however, has shown that there is a strong relation between alcohol consumption and impaired judgment. Greater levels of alcohol consumption were associated with a reduced ability to judge the outcomes of a group decision (Jones & Smith, 1990). ACCEPTABLE: 3. Research, however, has shown that there is a strong relation between alcohol consumption and impaired judgment. Higher levels of alcohol were associated with decreased ability to judge the outcomes of a group decision (Jones & Smith, 1990). Moreover, greater memory loss for group judgments was also associated with high levels of alcohol consumption (Blue & Cheese, 1976). Such research provides consistent evidence that alcohol consumption reduces one's ability to think critically. Helpful Demonstration #2 What do you include in your description of a previously published article? Simply, describe research that addresses the question of interest. Discuss and mention those aspects of the research that are relevant to your paper. If they used a method similar to the one you used, mention the method. If you are only interested in their theoretical approach, mention just that. I would suspect that most papers you cite could be summarized in one paragraph. In only the rarest of circumstances would you need to include the sample size or the results of inferential statistics in your description of a paper.

Tips for Writing Your Method Participants In this section, you provide the reader with information about the participants in your experiment. There are two pieces of information you must provide: the total number of participants in your study (if sex is a variable in your design, specify how many men and how many women), who the participants were (students? local residents?), and were the participants compensated (or, how did you find your participants, volunteer?). Also, provide any additional information that is relevant to the topic of research (e.g., if conducting a memory study on the elderly, the age of the sample is an appropriate thing to mention). Materials For each scale used in your research, you MUST provide the following information: (a) from what source did you get the scale (or did you make it yourself?), (b) number of items in the scale, (c) the reliability of the scale (α = .83), (d) the range of possible scores (i.e., 1-7, 1-10), (e) the anchors (e.g., not at all to very much), and most importantly, (f) describe what the scale measures. Procedure The procedure section will probably be the longest section of your methods section. In this section you will provide the reader with a step-by-step, time-sequenced description of your observational study. Provide enough detail so that the reader could replicate your procedures if he/she wanted. In your description, you will include a description of when and how your independent variables were assessed. Be sure to identify when and how the dependent variable was assessed.

Further Tips for Writing Your Materials section SAMPLE DESCRIPTIONS OF SURVEYS/QUESTIONNAIRES Materials Positive attitudes. Positive evaluations of an outgroup were measured using a 12-item version of the Allophilia Scale (Pittinsky, Rosenthal & Montoya, 2008). The Allophilia Scale measures the degree to which individuals like a specific outgroup. The scale included items such as "I like Latinos," rated on a 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree) scale. The measure was reliable, α = .88. Benevolent intentions assessment. Four items, each on a nine-point scale, assessed perceptions of the partner's intent to act favorably. The four items (e.g. "On the upcoming interaction with my partner, I believe that my partner will act benevolently." "I believe that my partner will look out for my interests.") were averaged to form an index of perceived benevolent intentions (α = 0.83). Equality value. Participants completed a value scale measuring the degree to which they value international harmony and equality (Braithwaite & Law, 1985). The scale comprised 10 equality-value items (e.g., "A good life for others: improving the welfare of all people in need"). Participants indicated the extent to which they thought each of these values was important to them on a 7-point scale ranging from 1 (not at all important ) to 7 (extremely important). The scale was reliable, α = .86. Social policy support. The degree to which participants advocated social policies supportive of multiracial individuals was assessed using two measures developed for this study. Support of policies relating to recognition of multiracial individuals as a legitimate distinct minority group was assessed with three items (e.g., "Multiracial individuals should be able to identify themselves with more than one race on the U.S. Census," "Multiracial individuals should choose one of the major ethnic groups on the U.S. Census, but not be able to choose multiple racial identifications." [reverse scored]). Support for social policies relating to the rights of multiracial individuals to access assistance programs and policies to benefit them were assessed with three items (e.g., "Multiracial individuals should be eligible for minority scholarships intended for Black Americans," "Black History Month should be dedicated equally to Black Americans and multiracial achievers."). For each item, participants indicated their response on a 7-point scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). The reliability of the measures was acceptable, α = .73 and α = .80, respectively.

Further Tips for Writing Your Procedure section Example #1 (not formatting): While in a highly social setting (a bar), participants were identified and observed. Observers were placed nearby and out of the main walkways. Observers identified a male or female participant and set timers for two minutes. Observers then recorded the frequency of hand gestures for two minutes. The frequency and type of hand gestures were recorded when there was a definite distinction between the end of one gesture and the beginning of another. Example #2 (not formatting): Children were observed through a viewing window for 30 minutes on two consecutive mornings (see Appendix A for room layout). On the first day the younger infants were observed and on the second day the older infants were observed. A behavioral checklist was used to record each instance of a listed behavior during the 30 minute period (see Appendix B for checklist). Example #3 (not formatting): Children were observed from a corner of the room for two 30-minute periods during the afternoon free play period, two days apart. Younger toddlers were observed on day one and older toddlers were observed on day two. All behaviors related to physical and motor activity were recorded and later categorized as fine or gross motor.

Tips for Writing Your Results Basic organization of the section is as follows: Organize this section by dependent variable. Begin by summarizing the hypotheses, but *do not* simply restate them. Describe them relative to the statistical test you conducted. For instance, if you hypothesized that men were more extraverted than women, in the results section, state something akin to, "A t-test investigated whether men were higher in extraversion than women." Begin by briefing describing why you are conducting the analysis you will conduct. Then, describe the data analytic strategy you will employ. Next, specify the type of effect you tested (main effects, an interaction). Then specify the exact nature of the predictions in terms of what conditions will be different from what other conditions. Next, you get to present the results of your analyses. Do not interpret the results—that is for the discussion section. With respect to how to organize a specific analysis, if you used a checklist and counted frequency of behavior you can report that—you do not have to report every item. Report the most interesting findings, even if it was that there were no differences between the groups. Example #1: For each analysis, after the topic sentence, describe the following things, in this order: describe the test used, describe descriptive account of what happened, and then report test statistic and p value. The last two components can be presented using the following format: Participants who were wearing red waited longer at the crosswalk (M = 10.45 seconds, SD = 3.21) than the participants who were wearing any other colored shirt (M = 7.54 seconds, SD = 4.44), t(49) = 4.45, p < .05. Example #2: Older toddlers verbalized more often (M = 3.23...