Lycoming College
(Prepared by Berthold, Revised by Olsen/Kelley)
Last Revised 9/17/01

The following pages describe the structure and content of a laboratory report in psychology.

Running Head, Title, Author, and Institutional Affiliation

These appear on the first page of the report in the stated order, one below the other. Use capital and lower case letters. The running head appears at the top of the page and the rest appear centered on the page. I selecting a title, it is a good idea to mention both the independent and the dependent variables - e.g., "The Effect of Food Deprivation on Activity in the Rat," or "Attitudes and Memory for Pro-Versus Anti-Attitudinal Statements." The Running Head is a shortened title of no more than 60 spaces including punctuation and space between words appearing on the bottom third of the page.

Abstract
(actual heading)

The second page contains a no more than 120 word summary of the content and purpose of the article. It should include statements of the problem, method, results, and conclusions.

Introduction
(not used as an actual heading)

The introduction starts on a new page. It should begin with a brief history of the problem (Obtainable from any source, including textbooks, lecture notes, journals, etc.) and it should clarify why the problem is interesting or important. In other words, the introduction serves as the justification for the current research project.

After the history, the hypothesis (or hypotheses) is presented and explained. The hypothesis is a statement of the kinds of results which are expected.

Method
(actual heading)

This section describes in detail how the study was done. It is divided into three subsections (labeled as below). Each section is written in complete sentences.

Participants (actual subheading)

Describe in a sentence or two the number of participants and the population from which they were drawn; e.g., "Participants were pets brought to class by undergraduate students enrolled in introductory psychology at Lycoming College."

Materials (actual subheading)

This section gives a complete description of the apparatus or materials employed.

Design and Procedure (actual subheading)

This is a complete step-by-step description of the exact way the experiment was performed, including a summary of the instructions. A good rule for the entire Method section is to write it so exactly the same study could be repeated by someone unfamiliar with the situation.

Results
(actual heading)

In this section, present the results together with a brief summary of your statistical treatment of them.

"...It was hypothesized that...Figure 1 shows the expected findings which pertain to this hypothesis. It can be seen that the mean for the kangaroos (52.5 cm) was greater than the mean for the armadillos (48.2 cm). The difference was statistically significant, t(48)=2.22, p<.05 ..."

This section must be limited to facts. Do not discuss the implications of the results in this section. For example, it would be appropriate to say, "The kangaroos jumped further than the armadillos." It would not be appropriate to say, "This suggests that kangaroos are cantankerous whereas armadillos are uppity."

Discussion
(actual heading)

Begin with a clear statement of how the data support or fail to support the original hypothesis. Examine, interpret, qualify, and draw inferences from the data. Discuss theoretical consequences and the validity of your conclusions. Relate your findings to previous research.

References
(actual heading)

List in alphabetical order all sources which you have cited in your paper. Do not list sources you have not cited in your paper. There are several forms for references:

Books should be listed like this;

Elzey, F. (1967). A first reader in statistics. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth.

Singer, J., & Whaley, F. (Eds.). (1966). Patterns of psychological research. Boston:
Allyn & Bacon.

Single chapters from an edited volume should be listed like this:

Mason, W. A. (1967). Motivational aspects of social responsiveness in young chimpanzees. In H. W. Stevenson, E. H. Hess, & H. L. Rheingold (Eds.), Early behavior: Comparative and developmental approaches (pp. 103-126). New York: Wiley.

Articles should be listed like this:

Klein, D. B. (1932). Scientific understanding in psychology. Psychological Review, 32, 552-569.

Lamb, M. E. (1987). Predictive implications of individual differences in attachment. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 55, 817-824.

Secondary Sources:

Secondary sources may be used if and only if the library does not have the book or journal from which you cited information. List the secondary source in the reference list; in the text, name the original work and give a citation for the secondary source:

In text:
Mills and Rothbart's study (as cited in Mitchell, 1993)

In reference list:

Mitchell, P. C. (1993). From boys to men: Examining relations between early externalizing problems and later antisocial behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 38, 123-234.

Often you must use information obtained from on-line abstracts (this is usually the case with Dissertation Abstracts because they are very hard to obtain through interlibrary loan). If this is the case, then you must cite the source of the abstract as well:

Bismo, P.V. (1973). Behavior of pink elephants. Journal of Motor Behavior, 97, 407-426. Abstract retrieved September 17, 2001, from PsycINFO database.

More and more publications are now provided on-line. If you obtain a professional article from an on-line source, you must indicate that you obtained the article via the internet:

VandenBos, G., Knapp, S., & Doe, J. (2001). Role of reference elements in the
selection of resources by psychology undergraduates [Electronic version]. Journal of Bibliographic Research, 5, 117-123.

Note: Only the first word of either book titles or article titles begin with a capital letter. Also, book titles, and volume numbers should be underlined. Present form dictates that journal names (e.g., Psychological Review) are spelled out and all major words are capitalized. See the Publication Manual or the Reference sections of any recent journals published by the American Psychological Association for specific examples.

Footnotes
(actual heading, if needed)

Avoid using footnotes if at all possible. If you must comment about the paper in general, indent the first word and use complete sentences. If you must comment on some specific aspect, label that with a raised number and refer to it by the same number in this section. Footnotes are on a separate page. e.g.,

Despite my explicit instructions, my roommate typed the Results and Discussion sections in reverse order. There wasn't time to retype the paper.

1The distance one kangaroo jumped may not have been typical because its tail got caught in a desk just as it left the ground.

Tables

Tables must be mentioned in the text, but are not placed in the text (e.g., There was an interaction between jumping distance and gender for kangaroos (see Table 1).). The actual tables belong after References and Footnotes (if present). Be sure to accurately label tables, capitalizing first letters of major words. e.g.

Table 1

Distance Data

(remainder of table)

Figures

Figures must be mentioned in the text, but are not placed in the text. The actual figures belong after the Table section (if present). Place the figure caption(s) (actual heading) on a separate page before the figure(s). Type all figure captions together, including any for figures to be included in the appendix. Only the first word and any proper names in the Figure Caption are capitalized. Be sure to label the coordinates of all figures.

Figure Captions

Figure 1. A clear, brief description of the figure.

Figure 2. A clear, brief description of the figure.

Note: Only one table or figure should be placed on a single page.

Additional Comments about Report Writing

1. Use a formal writing style. Do not employ personal pronouns ("I," "we," etc.).
2. Avoid sudden shifts in tense. Past tense is usually appropriate for literature review, experimental design and procedure. Present tense is appropriate for results that are literally before the reader. Future tense is rarely needed.
3. "Data," "Criteria," and "Phenomena" are plural. Be sure that verbs agree with their subjects, and pronouns with the nouns to which they refer.
4. Published reports attempt to convey research as accurately and concisely as possible. Part of the purpose of lab reports is to provide practice and guidance in writing concisely and objectively. A second purpose is to encourage creative thinking about a research exercise. Because of the latter objective, you may write a longer report than would be acceptable for publication. For example, you may want to include extra data analyses, whether or not they led to new discoveries. You may want to spend more space discussing the implications of your results. The introductory section may be expanded to demonstrate that you thought through the relationship between studies. The method section might contain more detail. The critical question is whether the extra length does in fact convey important or creative thought. If it doesn't, added length detracts from the paper.
5. All papers must be double spaced throughout.
6. The final authority in all matters relating to style is the more recent edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. A copy is on Reserve in the library.
7. Appendix.
   
   Appendices are rarely used in published reports. Their usage is somewhat more common in student reports, since the process by which a report was written may be as important as the end result. Hence, it may be helpful to include raw data, calculations, data sheets, exact instructions to subjects, stimuli used in the experiment, etc. Such matter should be labelled as Appendix A (etc.) and included at the end of the paper. Reference may be made to such material in the text as follows: "See Appendix A for..." or simply, "(see Appendix B)."