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Psychology - Academic Referencing and Writing

Overview

Academic Writing 

This page will give you advice on academic writing and referencing.

Academic Writing

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Style guidelines

Academic style is one of the more challenging ways to communicate, but it is important in order to help your investigation be interpreted as clearly a free from subjectivity as possible.  Look at the following examples and suggested improvements:

  1. Researchers have been interested in what influences perception for loads of time.
    1. SUGGESTION: Researchers have been interested in the factors that inform perception for many years
      1. REASON: avoid general words like “things” / avoid informal language like “loads of” and “a lot”

  1. First we give students a questionnaire after they handed in informed consent approvals.
    1. SUGGESTION: First, participants were asked to sign informed consent before being asked to complete questionnaire 1 (Appendix 1) on their attitudes about stereotypes
      1. REASON: Generally, avoid first person “I” or “we” / be sure to use past tense consistently (don’t mix and match tenses) / be sure to label all documents and appendices clearly and link to these in your materials and procedure
      2. Using “-ing” phrases like “before being asked” or “having signed informed consent” is a good way to include more complex sentences in your work

  1. We cannot generalise these findings to the wider population
    1. SUGGESTION: There are some limitations on generalising these findings beyond the population from which the sample was drawn in the present study.
      1. REASON:It is more appropriate to use softer language called “hedging” – rather than make absolute statements of certainty, it is more effective to use phrases like “there are some problems”, “one way to improve might be”, “future research should explore the possibility that…”
      2. The easiest way to talk about what you have done (as opposed to what people did in other studies) is to use the phrase “in the present study

  1. These results clearly indicate that there is a significant difference between those who watch TV and those who don’t, and therefore our hypothesis was proven.
    1. SUGGESTION: Results indicate that those who watch TV have significantly higher stress levels than those who do not.  These results support the hypothesis that watching TV leads to elevated stress levels.
      1. REASON: avoid the word significant UNLESS you have conducted a statistical test that shows p < 0.05. Otherwise use words like “large”, “small”
      2. Avoid the word “prove”.  Results from one study can ONLY ever support or fail to support (or contradict) a hypothesis.  Scientific proof only comes through multiple replications of a particular result or findings.
      3. Avoid contractions – they are too informal

Writing an abstract

Year 11 Psychology

You abstract is like a blurb on the back of a book – it should summarise the key details of your study so that others can decide if they should continue reading in further detail.  Your abstract should be the last thing you write, and should be no more 150-200 words.

Write one sentence to answer each of the following questions:

What are the main concepts relevant to your study?

What is the aim of your study?

Who are the participants in your sample?

What did you do to collect your data?

What results did you observe?

What conclusions can be drawn from these results?

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