PSY 3220 Module 8 Reporting Research Paper: APA Style, Reporting Standards and Clear Scientific Writing Example

Writing It So Others Can Repeat It: Planning an APA Report on Phones and Reading

Student Name

Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, Thomas Edison State University

PSY-3220: Research in Experimental Psychology

Mentor Name

Month Day, Year

Writing It So Others Can Repeat It: Planning an APA Report on Phones and Reading

Introduction

A study that is poorly reported is almost as useless as one never conducted. Readers cannot evaluate it, and other researchers cannot repeat it. Instructors, too, grade the report as much as the design behind it. As I prepare to write up my study, I used three sources to plan a report that meets professional standards and is easy to read.

The Structure of an APA Report

The current Publication Manual (American Psychological Association, 2020) describes the standard structure of an empirical article: a title page, an abstract of about 250 words, an introduction that reviews relevant research and states hypotheses, a method section, a results section, a discussion and references, with tables and figures as needed. It also sets style rules for headings, citations, numbers, statistics and bias-free language, such as describing participants with specific, respectful terms.

What Must Be Reported

Appelbaum et al. (2018) presented journal article reporting standards for quantitative research, developed by an APA task force. For every study, the report should describe participant characteristics and how they were recruited, the intended sample size and how it was determined, the measures used with their reliability and validity, the research design, any data exclusions and the reasons, the statistical analyses and results with effect sizes and confidence intervals and how the study was preregistered, if it was. Additional modules apply to particular designs; for experiments, authors should describe the manipulation in detail, how participants were assigned to conditions and whether those running the study knew the conditions.

Writing Well

Gernsbacher (2018) offered advice for writing empirical articles organized around four goals. Transparency means reporting everything relevant, including exclusions and analyses that did not support the hypothesis. Reproducibility means giving enough detail, and sharing materials and data where possible, for others to repeat the work. Clarity means using short sentences, familiar words and consistent terms; she advises against switching between synonyms for the same concept, which confuses readers. Memorability means helping readers remember the work by telling a coherent story, using concrete examples and making the main finding easy to restate.

Title and Abstract

My title will state the variables and population: "The Presence of a Smartphone and Reading Comprehension Among Adult Online Learners." The abstract will summarize the question, participants, design, main result with effect size and the conclusion in plain terms.

Introduction

The introduction will move from the problem, adults studying at home with phones nearby, through Ward and colleagues' findings and the replication questions that followed, to my hypothesis. Following Gernsbacher, I will use one term, "phone presence," consistently rather than alternating among "proximity," "location" and "nearness."

Method

Following Appelbaum and colleagues, the method section will describe participants' ages, gender, employment and enrollment status and how they were recruited; how the sample size of 50 per condition was chosen and that it was preregistered; the reading test, phone dependence scale and anxiety measure, with reliability in this sample; random assignment by computer-generated sequence; the standardized procedure; the blind research assistant; and exclusion rules.

Results

The results will report descriptive statistics for each condition, the planned analysis exactly as preregistered, exact p-values, effect sizes with confidence intervals and the manipulation check. Exploratory analyses of phone dependence will appear in a separate, labeled subsection.

Discussion

The discussion will restate the main finding, compare it with Ward and colleagues' study and the replication, address limitations and consider what the finding means for adult learners. Gernsbacher's memorability principle suggests ending with a concrete takeaway rather than a generic call for more research.

Transparency

I will share materials, the reading passages and questions where copyright allows, and anonymized data in a public repository, and the report will link to the preregistration.

Tables and Figures

A single table will show means, standard deviations and sample sizes for each condition, and a figure will plot mean comprehension by condition with confidence intervals as error bars, which lets readers see both the differences and the uncertainty at a glance. Both will follow APA formatting, with numbered titles and notes explaining abbreviations.

Bias-Free Language

The Publication Manual asks writers to describe participants precisely and respectfully. I will report ages as numbers, describe gender as participants reported it and refer to participants as adult learners or participants rather than labels that reduce people to a single characteristic.

Common Student Errors

In reviewing my earlier drafts, I found habits to avoid: reporting p-values as "p = .000," leaving out effect sizes, describing results as "proving" a hypothesis, mixing past and present tense in the method section and citing studies in the discussion that were never introduced. Each will be checked before submission.

Abstract Draft

My draft abstract states the question in one sentence, the sample and design in two, the main result with its effect size in one and the implication for adult learners in one, staying under the word limit.

Keywords and Title

The title and keywords determine whether other researchers find the study. I will include "smartphone," "reading comprehension" and "adult learners" as keywords, so that searches on any of these terms lead to the report, and I will keep the title free of jargon.

Limits

Course reports may not require every element of journal standards, but using them builds good habits.

Conclusion

The APA Publication Manual provides the structure and style of a research report, Appelbaum and colleagues specify what must be reported so that a study can be evaluated and repeated and Gernsbacher shows how to make that report clear and memorable. Planning each section with these sources will turn my study into a report others can trust and build on.

References

American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000

Appelbaum, M., Cooper, H., Kline, R. B., Mayo-Wilson, E., Nezu, A. M., & Rao, S. M. (2018). Journal article reporting standards for quantitative research in psychology: The APA Publications and Communications Board task force report. American Psychologist, 73(1), 3-25. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000191

Gernsbacher, M. A. (2018). Writing empirical articles: Transparency, reproducibility, clarity, and memorability. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, 1(3), 403-414. https://doi.org/10.1177/2515245918754485