Writing in Psychology

Laura B., Writing Xenter tutor

Please keep in mind that these are only general guidelines; always defer to your professor's specifications for a given assignment. If you have any questions about the content represented here, please contact the Writing Centers so that we can address them for you.

Introduction

When writing in psychology, you can think of your writing as making an argument. Because psychology operates on different theories and perspectives, there is always room for debate—room for your viewpoint. As with any argument, you will need to support your assertions with evidence from empirical research. Remember, psychology is a science, so the more credible the research, the better. Therefore, avoid questionable sources such as websites, and choose instead scientific journal articles and peer-reviewed books.

Some general tips to remember when writing in psychology are:

• Always use APA style.
• With the exception of classical studies, newer research is preferred over older research.
• Avoid quoting. Instead, paraphrase major points of previous research.
• Be as concise as possible.

Preferred Bibliographic Style

Psychology uses APA style for documentation. Having a current APA style manual on hand is helpful when writing in psychology, but you can also find some great web resources for APA style (e.g., The Purdue OWL). The APA recently released the 6th edition of its style manual, so make sure that any resource you use provides instruction for documentation according to this edition, not previous editions.

Common Writing Assignments

In Psychology classes, you’ll likely encounter three types of writing: literature reviews, research papers, and lab reports. Although each of these documents is structurally different, all serve the same basic purpose: to communicate scientific findings in a coherent and concise manner. Most often, writing in psychology functions to both inform and persuade. Therefore, before you even begin to write, think about what you want your reader to take away from your writing, be it a literature review, a research paper, or a lab report. Some questions you may ask yourself are:

• What does the research tell us?
• Does there need to be more research done on the topic?
• Is there a reason to question the research findings?
• Has the research overlooked anything?
• How could the research be expanded?
• Does previous research actually answer the questions it sets out to answer?

Literature Review

In psychology, literature reviews are often the first stage in a larger project, such as an experimental study. Literature reviews summarize and evaluate existing research, theories, and studies. Because literature reviews often precede research proposals and experimental studies, they usually focus on a particular set of theories or research topics. Literature reviews are a great way to begin developing and organizing logic for later research. Accordingly, they should be organized by topic rather than date of publication. Finally, literature reviews should describe the relations between topics and theories.

The three main components of literature reviews are:

• A description of previous research related to the topic (including APA style citations)
• Identification of theoretical conflicts or controversies in existing research
• Statement of needs or questions for further research

Research Paper

In many ways, research papers are very similar to literature reviews. However, research papers are usually longer than literature reviews, and they may be a writing endeavor unto themselves. That is, they may not be part of an ongoing project. Professors often assign research papers so that students learn more about a topic of their choice without necessarily expecting that students will use the research to develop their own experimental study. Like literature reviews, the purpose of a research paper is to summarize and evaluate existing research and make suggestions for future research. With that said, a research paper may be approached similarly to a literature review.

Writing a Research Paper: The first step in writing a research paper is to choose a topic. Most often you will choose your own topic, but some professors assign a specific topic to the entire class. If you are having trouble choosing a topic, think about what you are interested in and do some preliminary research to see how that topic has been studied so far. If you are still stuck, your professor may be able to give you some suggestions for research topics. Keep in mind, however, that the more interesting your research question is to you, the easier it will be to research and write about.

Once you choose a topic, know that it is subject to change. Once you begin doing research, you may find that there is little information about your topic. Conversely, you may find that there is a wealth of information and that you have to narrow your focus. Therefore, it is important to be flexible when beginning your research. It’s often helpful to begin with a couple of research topics in mind – you may find that one topic is more interesting or more researchable than another.

With a topic or two in mind, start looking for journal articles and books about that topic. The library’s website is a great resource for this stage of writing. DePaul’s library gives you access to PsychInfo, which archives research articles from many journals. If you come across an article in the database that DePaul does not have, you can order it from another library, or you can search Google Scholar to see if you can find the article elsewhere online.

After you’ve gathered your resources, group similar ideas together and begin to form an outline of your paper. To begin conceptualizing your paper, think in terms of the goals of each section.

• The first section should give an overview of your topic and identify the goals of your paper.
• The second section should summarize the research on your topic.
• The third section should critically evaluate the research reported and end with suggestions or questions for future research.

As with a literature review, make sure that your research paper meets the goals of your research. Address all questions specified by your professor’s rubric and organize the information in a coherent manner such that one topic logically leads to the next. As in other types of psychology writing, you can use headers to assist you in dividing the sections of your paper, but be sure that even without the headers, each section follows logically from the previous section.

Lab Reports

Lab reports are most commonly written in the research-oriented branches of psychology. They are also often requirements of Research Methods classes, which all psychology majors at DePaul are required to take. Therefore, at some point in your undergraduate career as a psychology student, you will likely encounter lab reports. While your first lab report may seem daunting, lab reports become easier with practice. Rather than being nervous, get excited! Lab reports are your chance to contribute to science!

The basic function of a lab report is to convey information about an experiment or research project that you (or your class) conducted. Lab reports tell how and why you conducted an experiment, what you found in conducting your experiment, and how you interpreted the results of your experiment. You can think of your lab report as telling a story; you acknowledge what has already been found, describe what you did in your research, and weave together this new information with previous research in order to interpret your findings. Because lab reports are written in the same style as journal articles, reading journal articles can give you a good idea of how to write your lab report.

When writing a lab report, remember that you are the expert. As the experimenter, you have a better knowledge of the experiment than anyone else, and you have the responsibility of reporting the rationale, methods, and results of the experiment to others. Fortunately, you do not have to figure out how to do this on your own; APA style dictates a specific format for all lab reports. Before the body of your lab report, you should include a title page with the title of your project, your name, and the university at which you conducted the research. On the next page, you should include a short abstract summarizing your experiment and results. The body of your lab report should contain the following:

• Introduction – Review previous research on your topic and make a case for your research; describe how your research adds to the current understanding of the topic. This literature review should lead logically to your hypotheses, showing how your predictions stemmed from previous research. Be direct in stating your hypotheses, and do not fear passive voice. Stating “Based on these previous findings, it was predicted that…” is more professional than adopting the third person to state, “Based on previous findings, the researchers predicted that…” In fact, in many instances, passive voice is the most concise way to convey your message. Most importantly, focus on being objective and concise; parsimony takes precedence over verbosity.


• Methods – The methods section must contain information about the participants, materials, and procedure. You can place each of these elements under their own headers, or you can create two sections, one for participants, and one for materials and procedure.

In the participants section, describe where your sample was taken from (e.g., a DePaul University Research Methods class), how many males and females were in the sample, what, if any, compensation participants received, and any other pertinent information about the participants (e.g., if your study concerns attitudes about political issues, give the number of Republicans, Independents, and Democrats).

In the materials section, describe any materials used in the study. If you administered a survey, describe what the scales were supposed to measure, state their reliability, and include example items.

In the procedure section, describe chronologically how you conducted the experiment.

• Results – Report relevant statistical analyses that help you to make sense of the data. When reporting statistics, be sure to use proper form according to the current APA style guide, and always tell what the statistics mean. For example, it’s not enough to simply report the value of an F score; you must tell what that ¬F score means, what it tells us about the relationships between groups. Do not, however, interpret the statistics in the results section, as interpretation should be reserved for the discussion section.


• Discussion – Begin the discussion by restating the hypotheses. Next, interpret the results in terms of your hypotheses. State whether the results supported or failed to support the hypotheses, and offer an explanation for the results. Why does it make sense that the results would support the hypotheses? What do the results tell us about the topic under investigation? If the results failed to support the hypotheses, why could this be? Was there an experimental error, or is it possible that there is no relationship between the variables under study?

  In your discussion, refer to previous research, describing how your findings are situated within the current understanding of the topic. Additionally, describe practical and theoretical implications of your findings. End your discussion with a description of the limitations of your study as well as suggestions or questions for future research.

Finally, end your lab report with a references page. It may be helpful to keep a running list of resources as you find them. After writing your lab report, you should read through it to ensure that every source cited within the text appears in the references list.

Helpful Resources

For a complete, up-to-date APA guide, visit the Purdue OWL.

For step-by-step instructions on writing essays, literature reviews, research papers, lab reports, and poster presentations in psychology, visit George Mason University’s Guide to Writing in Psychology.

For tips on the psychology writing process, visit Allegheny College’s Writing in Psychology page.

The University of Washington’s Writing Center offers a variety of handouts regarding writing style, steps in writing literature reviews, avoiding plagiarism, and personal statement construction.

View a list of tutors who specialize in writing in psychology