Through the use of clearly defined instructions and examples, How to Write in Psychology is a concise and comprehensive guide for the well-prepared student on the principles of writing essays and research papers for psychology. Presents everything the well-prepared student needs to know about the principles and practice of writing for psychology Compares and contrasts the different writing requirements and techniques for essays and research reports in psychology Offers advice on constructing figures and producing properly formatted graphs and tables Includes exercises to improve grammar, style, and critical awareness Provides checklists, tips for getting started, and examples of a properly written essay and lab report

Table of Contents:
List of Illustrations ix Acknowledgements xi Introduction XII 1 Some Preliminaries 1 Essays and Lab Reports 1 The Importance of Preparation 4 How Psychologists Write 6 The Case for Writing Up Using the Computer 9 The Case for Writing Up on Paper 10 Starting to Write: Ten Ways to Get You on Your Way 11 Chapter Summary 13 2 Writing the Essay 15 The Minimalist Approach 15 The Value of Effort and Motivation 16 Tools for Writing 17 Methods of Collecting Information from Published Sources 17 The Planning Stage 21 Paragraphing and Planning the Essay Structure 28 The Topic and the Thesis of the Essay 33 Putting Yourself into Your Writing 35 Developing an Argument in an Essay 37 The Editing Process and its Interaction with Writing 38 Chapter Summary 40 3 Preliminaries to Writing the Lab Report 42 Hypotheses and Variables 42 Hypotheses, Theories, Models and Laws 43 Formulating Hypotheses for Yourself 47 Experimental Controls 49 Effect Size, Sample Size and Statistical Power 51 The Ethos of Psychology 53 Ethical Conduct 58 Chapter Summary 59 4 Writing the Quantitative Lab Report 61 The Title 62 Method 62 Participants 62 Apparatus and Materials 66 Design 70 Procedure 70 Results 73 Introduction 75 Discussion 78 Conclusion 81 Abstract 81 References and Appendices 82 The Relative Length of the Different Sections 83 Exploratory Studies 85 Chapter Summary 85 5 Writing the Qualitative Research Report 88 Grounded Theory 89 Writing the Report Itself 90 Introduction 90 Method 91 Results 93 Discussion 94 Final Remarks 96 Chapter Summary 96 6 Presenting Numbers, Tables and Figures 98 How to Present Numbers 98 Should I Use a Table, a Graph or Just Put the Data in the Text? 103 How to Present a Table 104 How to Construct a Table Using Word 105 How to Present a Figure 108 How to Produce Figures in Excel 111 Chapter Summary 116 7 Writing the Project 118 Planning the Study 118 Writing Up the Project 122 Comparing the Project and Short Report 123 Revising Your Writing 125 Chapter Summary 128 8 Writing for Exams and Answering MCQs 129 Preparation for Essay Exams 129 The Essay Exam – In the Exam Room 132 Ten Points to Consider for a Multiple-choice Exam 137 Contrasts Between the Two Kinds of Exams 140 Chapter Summary 141 9 Writing for Other Purposes 143 Writing to Recruit Participants and Writing Letters to Organisations 143 Giving Instructions About Your Experiment 146 Debriefing After an Experiment 147 The Wording and Other Aspects of Questionnaire Construction 148 Chapter Summary 153 10 Attention to Detail: More on APA Formatting, Especially References 155 Writing the List of References 155 How to Reference Citations in the Body of the Text 164 Punctuation (including Hyphens, Quotes and Quotation Marks) 167 Font Style (Bold, Italics and Capitalisation) 177 Abbreviations 180 11 Some Basics of Grammar and Common Confusions 182 A–Z Guide to Grammar and Common Confusions 183 12 Improve Your Editing Skills 199 Exercises in Proofreading and Making Corrections 199 Abstract 199 Introduction 200 End Part of the Introduction 208 Method 209 Results 210 Discussion 212 The Essay 212 References 214 Concluding Remarks 214 Appendix 1: An Example Student Essay 216 Appendix 2: An Example Student Quantitative Lab Report 223 References 234 Index 237