APA Formatting and Lab Report Writing (2)

7/31/2019 APA Formatting and Lab Report Writing (2)

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APA Formatting and

Lab Report Writing

Yong Sook Yee (Samantha)

Bachelor of Arts in PsychologyUniversity of Nebraska-Lincoln , USA

Student Tutor

Center for SNHU Programs

HELP College of Arts & Technology



Purpose of Lab Report

• To communicate to others what you did

• To explain why you did it

• To describe how you did it

•To present what you found

• To say what you think it means

Simple Rule:

Could someone replicate your experiment with theinformation you provide?



Appendix

References

DiscussionThe Format of the Lab Report

Results

Methods

Introduction Abstract

Title page



Appendix

References

DiscussionPart 1: Title Page

Results

Methods


Title page



Title Page

1. Title of research must be concise to give reader an idea of

your research (10-12 words). Most research title includes

independent and dependent variables , no abbreviation or

words that serve no purpose.

2. Full name

3. HELP CAT Student ID number

4. Center for SNHU Programs

5. Class code (PSY 105)

6. Lecturer’s Name

7. “Running head: TITLE OF YOUR PAPER”

** If it is a group paper, write the names in alphabetical order.



Title Page Example

Running head: Relationship between Bullying and Stress 1

Relationship between Bullying and Stress among Women in Organizations

Karen Wong Ai Cheng

B0900123

Center for SNHU Programs

PSY 105

Dr. Chan Mei Ling

5 Spaces between Header

and Page Number

Press “enter” 3

times Page number must appear on every page

Full Name

Times New Romans.

(Size: 12), double-spaced

3 to 5 words for the Header



Appendix

References

DiscussionPart 2: Abstract

Results

Methods


Title page



Abstract • Begins on a new page

• Include the page header: TITLE OF YOUR PAPER

• Center the word “Abstract” – no bold, formatting, italics,

underlining, or quotation marks.• Beginning with the next line (no indent) , write a concise

summary of the key points of your research.

• Not more than 120 words in one paragraph

•

Written last after you have written up the report



Abstract

• Give a brief summary of the main points:

Objective of the study/brief statement of the problem

being investigated (1 sentence)

Information about participants (age, demographic) (1

sentence)

The design used (case study, experimental design) (1-2

sentences)

Findings and whether or not hypotheses were

supported (1-2 sentences)

The main conclusion and implications drawn (1

sentence)



Abstract ExamplePage Header

Page Number

Centered, no Bold,

italics, underlining,

or quotation marksNo indent

Times New Romans.

(Size: 12), double-spaced



Appendix

References

DiscussionPart 3: Introduction (Literature

Review)Results

Methods


Title page



Introduction

• Start on a new page

• First line will be the title of your paper , centered it, but

no bold , italics, underline or quotation marks.

• For the title, every first letter of the word of the title

should be capitalized.

• E.g. : Relationship between Bullying and Stress

among Women in Organizations



• Opening remarks to catch reader’s interest

• First paragraph

• introduce your field of study

•

reasoning behind the particular experiment• why it is important/interesting/applicable to daily life

• Theoretical background

• what is the current theory, research or clinical work,

• how is this study useful, important or of interest.



• Review relevant past research/past studies that relate to

your study

What they have done (methods)

What they have found (results)

Conclusion they drew from their results (discussion)

• Two ways presenting past research:

• State the theory , then state the past research that has

been done that is related to that theory.• State all the theories and then all the past research

*** While introducing the past research, you must cite all

the sources you used, or else it will be consider as

plagiarism.



• Introduce your research:

• Purpose of your research

• What research question you hope to answer through your

research

• Give reason on conducting the current study

• Brief general description of your study

• State Hypothesis

• Proposing new knowledge• Hypothesis should be based on a thorough understanding

of what is known and how it was learned, you identify

some “guess” about what “ new knowledge” you propose

to identify with your research.



Flow of the Introduction

TheoryPast

researchYour

researchYour

hypothesis



Past Research ( Journals) -Academic Database

EBSCOhost

http://search.ebscohost.com/

Username:ns014962

Password: password







Step 1:

Log-in



Click “Continue”

Step 2: Choose Database

(10 database):

Psychology, Business,Computer Science,

Hospitality.



Step 3: Use the

Search Engine

Step 4: Narrow

Your Search



Click



Step 5:

DownloadPDF

Step 4: Read

the Abstract





Introduction Section ExamplePage Header Page Number

Centered, no Bold,


or quotation marks



Plagiarism

What is Plagiarism

• Plagiarism is the verbatim use of another’s work as if it is

the student’s own work. If students take the writing of a

published author and present it as their own, this

constitutes plagiarism. Sometimes this is done

unintentionally because of poor research habits;

sometimes it is quite deliberate. In either case, plagiarism

is unacceptable.

(Faculty of Education, University of Sydney, Australia).



• To avoid Plagiarism

• Paraphrase

• your own rendition of essential information and

ideas expressed by someone else, presented in a

new form.

• one legitimate way (when accompanied by accurate

documentation) to borrow from a source.

• a more detailed restatement than a summary,

which focuses concisely on a single main idea.

• Give credit to the author

• Citations section later ( in-text citations, references )



Original Text A legitimate paraphrase

• Students frequently overusedirect quotation in taking

notes, and as a result they

overuse quotations in the

final [research] paper.

Probably only about 10% of your final manuscript

should appear as directly

quoted matter. Therefore,

you should strive to limit

the amount of exacttranscribing of source

materials while taking

notes.

• In research papers studentsoften quote excessively,

failing to keep quoted

material down to a

desirable level. Since the

problem usually originatesduring note taking, it is

essential to minimize the

material recorded verbatim

(Lester, 1976).



Original Text An Acceptable Summary











notes.

• Students should take just afew notes in direct

quotation from sources to

help minimize the amount

of quoted material in a

research paper (Lester,1976)



Original Text A plagiarized version:











notes.

• Students often use toomany direct quotations

when they take notes,

resulting in too many of

them in the final research

paper. In fact, probably onlyabout 10% of the final copy

should consist of directly

quoted material. So it is

important to limit the

amount of source materialcopied while taking notes.



Appendix

References

DiscussionPart 4: Methods

Results

Methods


Title page



Methods

1. Continue on the same page as the Introduction

2. Give readers a detailed account on how the research

was conducted. Sufficient information must be given in

order for the readers to replicate your study.

3. The method section is split into sub-sections:

a) Design

b) Participants

c) Materials & Apparatusd) Procedure



1. Designs

• Able to identify the followings:

• How were the subjects assigned to conditions or groups ?

(e.g. randomly assigned )

•

How many groups were included in the design?(e.g. 2x2 independent design).



• How are the groups similar and different in how they

are treated in the study ? (e.g. Independent Variable &

Dependent Variable)

• The independent variable includes the conditions

you selected to represent different levels of the IV

• The dependent variable includes details of the units

of measurement used (e.g. seconds, milliseconds,

number of correct responses)



2. Participants


• Who are the participants and how many are there in this

study ? (e.g. Sample Size)

• How was this sample obtained, recruited, and selected?

(e.g. Random sampling)

• What are the demographic characteristics of the

participants

(e.g. sex, age , ethnicity , race, socioeconomic status)?• What, if any, inclusion or exclusion criteria were invoked ,

that is, what were the selection rules to obtain the

participants.

(e.g. people with eating disorder)



3. Materials


• What equipment were used (e.g. computers, video

cameras, questionnaires, test sheets) – attach

questionnaires at the Appendix section.

• Where was the research conducted -- laboratory or

natural setting ?

• Discuss the validity and reliability of the measures.

Validity: Questionnaires measures what it was intended

to measure.

Reliability: Repeatability of results or observations over

time.



4. Procedures


• How the study was conducted.

• What your participants did.

•

What instructions you have given to the participants.

*There should be enough information for someone to

replicate your experiment exactly.



Method Section ExampleMethod

Design

This research has non-experimental design….(continue)

Participants

The sample of this survey includes 200 women staff from University of XYZ, aged 20-30 years old. Researchers

administered the questionnaires…(continue)

Materials

Questionnaires were used for gathering the data for hypothesis test. The questionnaires have two sections, stress

and bullying. Each section has 35 objective questions. Cronbach's Alpha’s scale for stress assessment queries was 96% and for

92% for bullying assessment queries. Procedures

The questionnaires were given out to participants. All participants were instructed to fill the questionnaires and

return the questionnaires to the researcher on the same week….(continue).



Appendix

ReferencesDiscussion

Part 5: Results

Results

Methods


Title page



Results

• Continue on the same page as the Method Section.

• Centered the word “Results” but no bold , italics,

underline or quotation marks.

• Provides the reader with a clear, concise summary of the

data you collected and the results of any statistical tests

• Reports the data and the analysis

• No interpretation of the results which is left to the

discussion section



Tables & Figures

• Should be titled

• Label them clearly

Must include explanatory text to describe what dataappears in the table



Guide to the results section

• Summary tables include:

Central tendency (mean, median, mode)

Dispersion (standard deviation, variance, range)

• Report the statistical analysis conducted on the data

The value of the test statistic

Degrees of freedom

One- or two- tailed testThe observed p-value

Whether the test result was significant



Result Section ExamplePage Header Page Number

Centered, no Bold,


or quotation marks



Page Header Page Number



Appendix


Part 6: Discussion

Results

Methods

Introduction

Abstract

Title page



Discussion

•

Continue on the same page as the Result Section.• Centered the word “Discussion” -- no bold , italics, underline

or quotation marks.

• Stating the results

Was there a significant difference between theexperimental conditions?

Were the findings consistent with the hypothesis?



Accounting for the findings

• The next stage is to discuss what the findings mean.

• If you have rejected the null hypothesis then

You need to establish whether this was really caused by

the manipulation of the independent variable

You need to make sure that there are no other

confounding variables that can be said to be the cause of

the outcome of the experiment

• If you have failed to reject the null hypothesis

You need a plausible explanation for the absence of

relationship that was not significant between the

independent and dependent variable.

W th fi di i t t



Were the findings consistent

with the research hypothesis?• Yes

What have we learned about the relationship between the

independent and dependent variables?

Does this new understanding allow us to improve our

theories or our explanation of a particular phenomena?

• No

Give alternative explanations with supporting evidences



You have to describe the shortcoming of the experiment

e.g. The sample of this research is only done

among Iranian women. The results

cannot be generalized to other

organizations because it is limited to one

culture.e.g. Failed manipulation



• Describe confounding variables and suggestions to overcome

them in the future

e.g. Music and memory

Room 1: Pop music

Room 2: Rock music

Room 3: No music (unintended ‘noise)



• General improvements/suggestions for future research

e.g. We suggest that future research would

regenerate this research in industrial and

production organization, aside from the

educational organization.



• Implications of the research

e.g. We suggest that organizations should

establish morale restrictions and anti-bullying instructions to prevent bullying in

workplace.

• Show how the study you have conducted has benefited the

research community and improved our understanding of theideas that you introduced earlier

• General closing remark



Appendix


Part 7: References

Results

Methods

Introduction

Abstract

Title page



References

• Start a new page

• Center the word “References” – no bold, formatting,

italics, underlining, or quotation marks.

• Alphabetical order

• Type out the journal titles fully

http://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/current/tmp/scratch21608/APA%20Format%20reference%20list.docx

http://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/current/tmp/scratch21608/APA%20Format%20reference%20list.docx



Reference Section ExamplePage Header Page Number

Centered, no Bold,


or quotation marks



Revision: Follow APA Format

In-Text Citation

• Whenever you use a source for your paper, in-text citation were

needed, showing that you give credits to the author.

• In-text citations also help readers locate the cited source in the

References section of the paper.

Karasek’s job strain model postulates that health problems are associated with job strain

resulting from the combination of high psychological demands and low decision latitude at work

(Karasek & Theorell, 1990). Meanwhile, social support — namely, helpful social interactions

available on the job from coworkers and supervisors — is hypothesized to reduce the effect of job

strain on health (Johnson, Hall, & Theorell, 1989; Karasek & Theorell, 1990). An Italian health

care professional study (Klersy et al., 2007) demonstrated that an important consequence of

burnout is poor quality of life.

In- Text Citation

http://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/current/tmp/scratch21608/APA%20Format%20cite%20references.docx






Appendix


Part 7: Appendix

Results

Methods

Introduction

Abstract

Title page



Appendix

Appendix 1Sample Mood Scale

Q1: Do you feel you suffer stress in your life?

____________________________

Q2: Can you provide some of the symptoms of stress that are visibly palpable?

__________________________

Q3: How often do you have peaceful sleep?a) Rarely

b) Sometimes

c) Mostly

d) Almost everyday

Q4: Are you suffering a financial turmoil?

a) Yes

b) No



For More Information:

• APA Style

www.apastyle.org

• Purdue University Online Writing Lab (APA Formatting)

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/

http://www.apastyle.org/





http://www.apastyle.org/



• Yong Sook Yee (Samantha)

E-mail: [email protected]

Telephone: 2788 2000 (Ext:2066)

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

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APA Formatting and Lab Report Writing (2)