1. Title Page

   1. See an example title page.
   2. The manuscript page header is the first thing that appears on the title page. It consists of the first two or three words of the title and is followed by the page number. It is used by the editors and reviewers to identify the pages of the manuscript. It is placed in the upper right hand corner of all pages of the manuscript (except for any figures). Thus, the manuscript page header should appear as the first line of the title page, right justified with the number '1' either double spaced below it or 5 spaces to the the right of it. If you are using a word processor, you can have it put this manuscript page header on all pages automatically.
   3. The running head comes next and is no more than 50 characters (including punctuation and spaces). It typically consists of a couple of key words from the title. Type this running head flush left and in all capital letters. For example, Running head: ABORTION ATTITUDES IN COLLEGE STUDENTS (note that the 'R' in running is capitalized, but the 'h' in head is not).
   4. Choosing a title. The title should summarize the main idea of the paper in 10-12 words. A good recipe to work with when reporting the results of an experiment is (Dependent Variable) as a Function of (Independent Variable) or The Effects of (Independent Variable) on (Dependent Variable). Another option is to use the main finding as the title, for example, Prenatal Alcohol Impairs Passive Avoidance Learning in Rats. With other types of research you should try to include the variables of interest in the title (and be careful not to imply causality). Also, it is a good idea to include the species if you're working with animals or some details about the type of population if you're working with humans.
   5. When typing the title, center it on the page and capitalize only the first letter of important words. On the next double spaced line is the author's name and on the next double spaced line is the institutional affiliation.
   6. For the purposes of this class, I would also like you to include something like In partial fulfillment of the requirements for PSY389, Instructor's Name, and the Date.

2. Abstract

   1. The abstract page is Page 2.
   2. Center the word Abstract on this page, then begin typing on the very next double-spaced line (i.e., do not insert any extra blank lines here).
   3. Type this section as a single (double spaced) paragraph in block format (i.e., do not use indentation).
   4. The purpose of this section is to provide a brief and comprehensive summary of the study. It is very important because it is all that many people will read. It should include a brief description of the problem being investigated, the methods used, the results, and their implications.
   5. https://college-researchpaper.com/ should be accurate (do not include information here that is not in the body of the manuscript), self-contained (spell out abbreviations), concise (120 word maximum), and specific (begin this section with the most important information and limit it to the four or five most important concepts, findings, or implications of the study).
   6. As part of the theme of being concise, use digits for all numbers except when they begin a sentence.
   7. Avoid citing references in the abstract.
   8. Paraphrase rather than quoting.
   9. Use active rather than passive voice (but without personal pronouns), for example, use Researchers instructed participants to . . ., rather than, Participants were given instructions to . . .
   10. Use past tense for procedures and present tense for results.
   11. It is a good idea to write this section last (after all of the other sections are written). You might try taking the lead sentences from the various sections of the manuscript and integrating them.
   12. Introduction

       1. The introduction begins on Page 3.
       2. Start this page by retyping your title (centered), then begin typing the section (on the next double spaced line) using normal (5 space indented) paragraphs. Do not type the word Introduction.
       3. The main purpose of this section is to tell the reader why you performed the study. In other words, you have to inform the reader of the research question and indicate why it is important, and how it is unique when compared to previous studies.
       4. It starts out broad and becomes more and more specific. For example, you might begin by defining any relevant terms. Then go on to review the relevant literature. Avoid an exhaustive and historical review. Then go on to make clear the connection between previous research and the present work.
       5. You might include any hypotheses and the rationale for them.
       6. The final paragraph usually contains a statement which clearly and explicitly states why the study was performed, such as The purpose of this study was to. or The present study was designed to investigate the. Be especially careful not to use a sentence of this type earlier in your introduction.
       7. Thus, this section should contain an absolute minimum of four paragraphs: the general introduction, the literature review, the connection of the present study to the literature and the explicit statement of purpose.

   13. Methods

       1. Do not purposely start a new page for this section. Simply center the word Method and continue typing on the very next double-spaced line (i.e., do not insert any extra blank lines here).
       2. The purpose of this section is to describe in detail how you performed the study. Someone should be able to replicate your study based on the information you provide in this section.
       3. Make it sound professional, that is, do not make it sound like a class project. Assume you are writing for submission to a scientific journal.
       4. Avoid unnecessary details like the data were displayed on the computer screen and recorded on the data sheet(s). This is similar to the empty word problem described in I.C.6.
       5. For an experiment, this section is typically divided into four subsections: subjects, apparatus, design, and procedure. The order of design followed by procedure is arbitrary. In other words, you could have the procedure come before the design. Sometimes researchers combine the design and procedure sections, however, in an experimental psychology or research methods class, a separate design section is typically required.
       6. For a survey study (i.e., one in which the participants are simply asked a set of questions), the design section is not necessary (and the survey itself may be included as an appendix).

          Subjects/Participants

       7. This section is labeled as subjects or participants depending on whether animals or humans are used in the study. If animals are used, use the term subjects. If humans are used, use the term participants.
       8. Do not purposely start a new page for this section. Type the appropriate title for this subsection flush with the left margin and italicize it. On the next line, begin typing normal paragraphs.
       9. Indicate who participated in the study, how many, and how were they selected. With human subjects, be sure to address the issue of informed consent.
       10. Include any details which are relevant to the study. For animals, include the gender, age, strain, weight. For humans, include the gender, age, race/ethnicity, and, when appropriate, the socioeconomic status, disability status, sexual orientation, etc. If the subjects were human, what type of reward or motivation was used to encourage them to participate?

           Apparatus

       11. Do not purposely start a new page for this section. Type the word Apparatus flush with the left margin and italicize it. On the next line, begin typing normal paragraphs.
       12. Describe what materials were used and how they functioned in the study.
       13. If you use a piece of equipment, you must give the model number, company, and state where the company resides (as a two-letter abbreviation).
       14. You must give the dimensions (and perhaps other descriptive details) of any important items used in the study.
       15. Standard equipment such as furniture, stopwatches, pencils and paper, can usually be mentioned without providing a lot of details. In fact, you may often simply mention these items in passing as part of the procedure.
       16. Be careful not to describe procedures in this section. You should make clear what purpose the apparatus served, but do not give a lot of details on the use of the apparatus at this point. One hint in this regard is to avoid using action verbs in this section.

           Design

       17. Do not purposely start a new page for this section. Type the word Design flush with the left margin and italicize it. On the next line, begin typing normal paragraphs.
       18. Describe the design and clearly spell out the independent and dependent variables. Indicate what the levels of the independent variables were, and whether the factor(s) were repeated, matched, or independent.
       19. Describe how the subjects were assigned to groups.
       20. Describe any control procedures used.

           Procedure

       21. Do not purposely start a new page for this section. Type the word Procedure flush with the left margin and italicize it. On the next line, begin typing normal paragraphs.
       22. Carefully summarize each step in the execution of the study.
       23. Indicate what a typical test, trial, or session involved.
       24. Describe any phases that the study had or any instructions that the subjects received.
       25. When referring to groups, try to use descriptive labels. For example, instead of saying Group 1 or the experimental group, you might say the drugged group. Another technique in this regard is to use abbreviations that emphasize meaning. For example, There were three groups, including, the control group which received 0 mg/kg of morphine (M0), a low dose group receiving 1 mg/kg of morphine (M1), and a high dose group receiving 4 mg/kg of morphine (M4).

   14. Results

       1. Do not purposely start a new page for this section. Simply center the word Results and continue typing on the very next double-spaced line (i.e., do not insert any extra blank lines here).
       2. Look carefully at the results. That is, take a good hard look at all those numbers you collect. Think of different ways to summarize them (describe), as well as to make sense of them (analyze). You might find my Psychological Statistics Site helpful. This section will be easier to write if you make any tables and/or figures you intend to use first.
       3. Briefly state the main findings in words. That is, first give a general description, then go into the details.
       4. When presenting the results of statistical tests, give descriptive statistics before the corresponding inferential statistics. In other words, give means and/or percentages (perhaps referring to a table or figure), before talking about the results of any statistical tests you performed.
       5. When presenting means, it is reasonable to use one additional digit of accuracy than what is contained in the raw data. In other words, if the raw data consisted of whole numbers, then the means should contain one decimal place.
       6. When presenting nominal or ordinal data, give the percents rather than frequencies (since percents are independent of the sample size).
       7. The general format for presenting an inferential statistic is: Statistic(df) = value, probability = value. Note that exact p values are preferred. Also, if the computer output says the probability is .0000, then report it as .001.
       8. When possible, include some statistical estimate of effect size.
       9. When actually presenting the results, try to emphasize the meaning of the statistics. That is, clearly describe what it is you are testing and what significance means for the variables involved.
       10. See some examples of the correct way to present the results of several common statistical tests.
       11. Do not discuss the implications of the results in this section.
       12. Do not talk about the meaning of the alpha level or the null hypothesis, and what chance factors have to do with it. Since you are writing for the scientific community, you can assume the reader will have a working knowledge of statistics.
       13. If you are presenting a lot of material here, you may wish to employ subheadings (as is done in the methods section). These subheadings should have meaning and relevance to the data and should help to organize your presentation of it. In other words, they should not be organized by the type of analysis employed. Since this is not expected by the reader, it is a good idea to precede the subheadings with a paragraph informing the reader of the logical organization of this section.
       14. In cases where the reader would expect something to be significant and it is not, you should address the issue.
       15. Do not provide raw data unless, for some reason, you require a single subject approach.
       16. Be careful with the word "prove". Since statistical tests are based on probability and can be in error, they do not really prove anything.
       17. You can only use wording that implies causality if you actually manipulated the independent variable (i.e., performed an experiment). For example, suppose you manipulated whether subjects received a drug (while employing appropriate control procedures, etc.) and found a significant difference in memory performance (with the drug users performing more poorly than nonusers). In this case, you would be able to conclude that the drug caused the difference in memory ability; it impaired it. As another example, suppose that you compared drug use (as determined from the results of a survey) with memory ability and found a correlation (greater use went along with poorer memory performance). Since correlation doesn't say much about causality, we could only conclude that there is a relationship between drug use and memory ability.

   15. Discussion

       1. Do not purposely start a new page for this section. Simply center the word Discussion and continue typing on the very next double-spaced line (i.e., do not insert any extra blank lines here).
       2. The purpose of this section is to evaluate and interpret the results, especially with respect to the original research question.
       3. Start off with a brief, non-technical summary of the results. In other words, tell the reader about the main findings without using statistical terminology.
       4. Then go on to discuss the implications of the results. In other words, whatever was found needs to be discussed.
       5. It is also important to discuss how the results relate to the literature you cited in the introduction. In other words, emphasize any theoretical consequences of the results.
       6. You might (or might not) also mention any limitations of the study and any suggestions for future research in this section.
       7. Finally, you need an ending paragraph in which you make a final summary statement of the conclusions you have drawn. You are also encouraged, when appropriate, to comment on the importance and relevance of your findings. How are your findings related to the big picture?
       8. Thus, this section should contain an absolute minimum of three paragraphs: the non-technical summary, discussion of the results and their implications, and the concluding paragraph.

   16. References

       1. Start on a new page. Center the word References at the top. As usual, double space.
       2. Any citations made in the manuscript must be presented in this section and vice versa. That is, if something is not cited in the text, then it should not appear in this section. In still other words, this is not a bibliography.
       3. In any of the previous sections, whenever you say something like studies have shown you must provide a citation. This section tells the reader where they can find these citations.
       4. This section is alphabetized by last name (of the first author involved in the study).
       5. A hanging indent is employed for each reference, that is, the first line is not indented and the rest are five-space indented.
       6. For each author, give the last name followed by a comma and the first (and middle) initials followed by periods.
       7. Separate multiple authors with commas and the last author with the ampersand ('&') rather than the word "and".
       8. After the author(s) comes the year (in parentheses and followed by a period).
       9. For a journal reference, italicize the title of the journal and the volume number. Note that issue numbers are typically not included. Also, capitalize the important words of the journal title.
       10. For a book reference, just italicize the title. Only capitalize the first word of the title. Do include the city, state (as a two-letter abbreviation without periods), and the publisher's name.
       11. See the example reference section. It provides several types of references, including: Single and multiple author, journal articles, book, and book chapter, web page, as well as a government document.

   17. Other Sections

       1. After the above sections come any tables, the page(s) with the figure captions, and finally any figures, respectively. Each belongs on a separate page (multiple figure captions can appear on one page however).
       2. Tables and the figure captions page have a manuscript page header and page number just like all the other typed pages. Note that figures are not typed, and so do not have a manuscript page header and page number.
       3. Tables and figures should be able to stand alone (i.e., you should not have to read the manuscript to be able to understand a table or figure). A big help in this regard is the table title or the figure caption. Use these wisely to explain what is going on in the table or figure. In other words, do not be afraid to be a little bit verbose in your table titles and figure captions.
       4. Tables and figures should not duplicate the same information. Likewise, you should not repeat the data point values in a table or figure in the text of the manuscript.
       5. Tables and figures are more expensive to include in the manuscript than text. Therefore, if you include one, it should include a reasonable number of data points. In other words, if you only have a few data points to present, do it in the text of the manuscript rather than in a table or figure.
       6. Tables and figures are most often used to present results, but may also be used to present other information, such as the design or a theoretical schema.
       7. If you include a table or figure, you must introduce it in the text of the results section (e.g., Table 1 displays the. ) and describe to the reader what should be seen in it.

          Tables

       8. See an example table.
       9. Note that APA style tables do not contain any vertical lines, so do not draw them in or use your word processor to generate them.
       10. Type the table number and then (on the next double spaced line) type the table title flush left and italicized. Note that there are no periods used after the table number or title.
       11. There are different ways to format tables. Your best bet is to set the tabs for the table or to use your word processor's table generating ability.
       12. When using columns with decimal numbers, make the decimal points line up.

           Figure Captions

       13. See an example figure captions page.
       14. Start on a new page. Center the phrase Figure Captions at the top.
       15. Each figure caption is typed flush left in block format.
       16. The word 'figure' and the number are italicized, for example, Figure 1. The effects of.

           Figures

       17. 'Figures' is the technical term for graphs, charts, drawings and pictures.
       18. Figures (other than pictures) may be drawn in black and white only (using a ruler and preferably on graph paper) or they may be generated with a computer graphics program (keeping it in two dimensions).
       19. Center each figure on the page vertically as well as horizontally and arrange for the figure to use the bulk of the page.
       20. If the figure is a chart or graph, verbally label the axes (do not use "X" and "Y") and provide a key if necessary (e.g., explaining what open vs. filled circles are).
       21. On the back of each figure (with a pencil), put the manuscript page header, the figure number, and the word TOP to indicate how the figure should appear on the page.
       22. Do not put the figure caption on the figure, since that is what the figure captions page is for.

3. Research Reviews There are a number of kinds of research reviews. You could describe a phenomenon, review an existing theory or present a new one. You could critically evaluate how one theory accounts for some data as compared to some other theory. Whatever the kind of review, the goal is to organize, integrate, and evaluate previous research in order to clarify a particular problem or issue. This type of manuscript does not follow as standard a format as a research report. Instead of the introduction, methods, results and discussion sections, there is an introduction, body and conclusions.

   1. Introduction

      1. Begins on page 3 (after the title page and abstract). Note the abstract for a research review should include the topic and purpose, the scope of the material covered, the sources used and the conclusions.
      2. Start this page by retyping your title (centered), then begin typing the section (on the next double spaced line) using normal (5 space indented) paragraphs. Do not type the word Introduction.
      3. The introduction should clearly define the problem or issue. This section is not unlike the introduction for a research report.
      4. It starts out broad and becomes more and more specific.
      5. It is often useful to use headings (and perhaps subheadings) in the body of the research report to help communicate the outline and organization of the paper to the reader. It is a good idea to precede the headings with a paragraph informing the reader of the logical organization (i.e., other headings that will be employed). This paragraph should appear at the end of the introduction just before the actual body of the paper and is important because it lets the reader know the directions that the paper will take.

   2. Body

      1. If you use headings, the primary main heading levels should be treated like the main heading of a research report, that is, type the main heading using upper and lower case, and center it horizontally on the page. Second level headings are flush left and italicized. Third level headings (if necessary) are indented like the normal paragraphs that they start off. Thus, the words of the third level heading lead off the paragraph, are separated from it by a period, and are italicized. The rest of the paragraph follows the period.
      2. This section should present the relevant literature and ideas.
      3. Often the instructor will set a minimum number of references that are required. These references will be listed in the reference section and are cited using a particular style which you can see most clearly in the literature you are reading for your review.
      4. A common mistake that students often make is to organize the paper around the specific references they are using (even using the reference titles as the main headings of the manuscript). The paper should be organized around the relevant phenomenon or theory and not by the specific references that one uses in the paper.
      5. This section can be lengthy (depending upon how much material is presented).
      6. You might try to identify relations, contradictions, gaps, and inconsistencies in the literature.
      7. You might suggest possible solutions to any problem(s) identified.
      8. You might suggest future directions for research to take.

   3. Conclusions

      1. Finally, you need an ending section, in which, you summarize the main points you have made.

Attitudes Towards Abortion