This set of questions and answers came from an idea to put together all the questions we kept on hearing from students in the first year practicals at Applied Psychology in UCC - and to supply some answers! Of course this does not mean we don't like people asking questions (that is: we do like people asking questions) and no doubt many students will have their own slant on the questions summarised here. But at least it tells us the teachers and demonstrators which are the best answers and it might give our students a pause for thought. If you find this list useful for other courses and at other universities, please refer to it with our compliments, but do attribute authorship to us. Give the URI rather than copying: this list may change as the years roll by. We welcome correspondence on this topic.

How do I write an abstract?

Write the abstract last of all.

You have to say, within 200 words, what branch of psychology the work fits into, what hypotheses did you test, who were your subjects, what did they do, your result, and your conclusion. That’s about 30 words for each of those. Each is equally important and don’t forget also that any outstanding feature of your work should also appear in the abstract.

The test – is it a good abstract? – can be done by reading only your abstract, and asking yourself, have I put in enough to let someone who will only read this abstract understand what is so special about my work.

Don’t put in references or statistics unless they are very important.

How do I structure an introduction, building up an argument for a hypothesis?

The start of the introduction should be a statement of the general area of psychology into which your work is to be classified. The end of the introduction should be a statement of the hypotheses or objectives of the research. Those are the start and end points. You have to go from the general to the particular. You have specifically to do four important things in between:

• clarify the terminology being used – special words or phrases that have significant meaning in this area;
• review what work has already been done in the area, putting it into such an order that your work is seen as a culmination of this work, that is, what the previous work has led to;
• explain how you have put into practice (see ‘Operationalisation’, below) the relevant concepts with which you are concerned;
• describe the approach you are going to adopt...

...which should lead naturally to a statement of objectives or hypotheses.

Where should I or should I not state the hypothesis?

There are three places where you should.

1. You state the hypothesis first of all at the end of the introduction. By the time the reader reads the statement of the hypothesis, they should be able to understand precisely what you are doing and why you are doing it.
2. The next place is in the Results section. If you have more than one hypothesis, state each in turn, exactly as you stated them in the Introduction. Then show the statistics or other analysis to determine whether the data supports the hypothesis. By the time the reader has finished reading your Results, they should know the scientific status of each of the hypotheses you outlined at the end of the Introduction.
3. Finally, in the discussion, you should review each hypothesis and comment on why do you think it was supported by the data or not, what you can do better next time, and what new hypotheses does it lead to. By the time the reader has finished your discussion, they should know exactly what you think of the value to science of each of your hypotheses.

What does "Primary Source" mean and why is it important?

“Primary Source” is the text of what the people who did the research or created the theories wrote. It is their words. Primary sources are important for at least two reasons. Firstly, because you are getting the information at first hand. It has not been filtered through someone else’s analysis, distorted by their way of thinking. Secondly, because the way people write about their work often tells you other important things as well. Primary sources are often full of the excitement of discovery, and sometimes contain ideas and suggestions that somehow get left behind in the increasingly narrowing focus on what the research is considered to have shown. You encounter the greatest minds in our science when you read the primary sources.

From this you should be able to see that review articles and summary chapters in books are usually already one step away from being primary sources – unless they themselves are written by extremely eminent practitioners or writers with a deep insight into the area they are summarising they tend to sound a bit grey and boring.

Perhaps lowest on the scale of transmission are sections in introductory textbooks, magazine articles, and gossip pieces on the internet. In these, the original ideas of the creators have become so transformed, simplified and edited that they are in danger of becoming a tasteless mishmash.

How do I write in "professional" style?

The abiding principle of the scientific method is that it is objective and that it does not depend on accidents, personal charisma, or sheer good luck. Statements made describing work done following the principles of professional scientific method should be true and accessible to all scientists wishing to follow in your footsteps.

To this end, the use of ‘I’ and ‘we’ is avoided. If something is agelessly true, then the personal has no place in it. Write in the third person, describing and detailing what you have done objectively, in a detached way.

Professional style does not make grandiose claims or try to persuade the reader by adding words. The reader should be able to deduce for themselves from your description that the work was ‘precise’, ‘meticulous’ and that the results are ‘interesting’ and the conclusions ‘breath-taking.’ In fact, in order to show the robustness of your claims, you should attempt to under-state them – not in the sense of making light of them or trivialising them, but by stating the facts and implications soberly and without exaggeration.

Professional style does not lie, mislead, or exaggerate. Everybody else should be able to trust what you have written (interpretation is another thing!)

Professional style may be terse but it should never be dry. It delivers its kicks by giving the reader the ‘pure drop.’

What should be put in the main body of the report and what in the appendices (graphs, calculations, instructions to participants etc.)

Think of the main body of the report as a novel or short story that someone will read, to get from your initial statement of where you are coming from to your final conclusions about the value of your work.

The short answer is, put in as much or as little that will allow the reader to follow this ‘golden thread’ through your report. All questions of detail, raw data, computations (if they are necessary) go into the appendices. In the body of the report show enough of these so-called exhibits to give the reader a flavour of what you have done or discovered.

Take particular care that you do show enough information in the body of the report to shed light on your hypothesis/es. The reader must be able to follow your reasoning as they read the report; they will only look into the appendices if they have doubts on some points, or want to explore something in detail, possibly following a side-line of their own.

What does IV, DV and operationalisation mean?

The logic of scientific method states that there are Independent Variables, which are what the experimenter manipulates independently of the subjects.

In psychology (and most science, actually) these Independent Variables are talked about in a sort of abstract way – ‘humour’, ‘memory’, ‘intelligence.’ But you can’t do science with these abstract things. You have to make them concrete. So measuring ‘humour’ can be defined concretely for example as counting the number of times a Subject laughs while reading the stimulus materials. ‘Memory’ can be measured as the number of stimulus digits the Subject correctly reports in their right place. A measurement of ‘intelligence’ may be defined as the score on a particular test. Thus these abstract qualities become defined as observable things the Subject does and the Experimenter observes. Transforming from abstract to concrete is called ‘operationalisation.’

Formally speaking, Operationalisation is the process of describing our Independent Variables in terms of the operations one has to do to measure them.

Dependent Variables are behaviours of the Subjects which are said by scientific logic to depend on the Independent Variables. They are sometimes also known as ‘outcome variables.’

How do I refer to the appendices?

Do the appendices, starting each one on a separate page and heading it with a title such as “Appendix 1: Detailed instructions to subjects for all conditions” (note punctuation and capitalisation.)

The page numbering of the Bibliography and Appendices follows on from the report.

In the body of the report refer simply to “Appendix 1.” It should be clear from the context of what you write what the reader should expect to find in the appendix you refer to.

If you are including an appendix you do not refer to in the work, ask yourself, do you need it (you may have to write in a specific reference somewhere to justify its existence or just ditch the appendix!)

What's the difference between a figure and a graph and how should they be labelled?

A figure is a diagram, or picture. A graph is a graphical representation of data that can also be displayed in tabular format. Both are called Figures, frequently abbreviated to “Fig.” as in “Fig. 1: Seating arrangement in test situation” (note the style of punctuation and capitalisation very carefully.) Figures are numbered continuously in the order in which they appear. The first is Fig. 1, and the last of 23 figures is Fig. 23.

How much should I say about tables, figures or graphs?

There are two places in which you should say things about tables and figures.

1. The first is in the captions and legends which are part of the tables or figures: remember the ideal is that if you snip out a table or figure and show it to someone else who has not read the rest of your report, it should be (fairly) self-explanatory.
2. The second is in the commentary in the text around the table or figure. In this text, the basic minimum is to explain why this table or figure is relevant to the report, and then for extra value to point the reader’s eye to what you consider to be the significant element of the table or graph (e.g., that the scores in one experimental condition are much, much lower than in the others.)

Nothing to say about a table or figure? Then either make sure you do, or leave it out!

What is appropriate to put in a discussion (introducing theory/research)?

Anything that allows the reader to follow your line of thought as you reflect on the outcome of the experiment or investigation, and consider where it is leading you.

You may add in extra analysis of data; other published research that sheds light on your findings; criticisms of your method (but don’t forget also to defend your choice of methods by comparing them to the adequacy of other researcher’s methods and their results!)

A good discussion starts with a consideration of the findings such as they are, and leads the reader to an opening out of the problem domain, showing what has been achieved and what should be tackled next.

How do I reference a web site?

The APA rules of citation, to which we now subscribe as a department, give the detailed rules for these and many other forms of citation. The most important thing is to give the URI and the date you last accessed it. Try to find the name of the person who wrote or edited it, and the title by which the web site or page is known.

How do I reference a secondary source?

Just as you do a Primary Source. That’s one of the confusions: the form of reference makes no distinction between a primary and a secondary source. Sometimes you actually have to actually read it to find out!

If you are referring to something you have only read about, like Freud (1910) then do Freud (1910) in the body of the text, but in the references you write “Freud, S., (1910) (title and publisher etc.) Cited in: Wig, W., and Wonk, W., (1975) What Freud did wrong. Basock Books, Requiem, Mass.”

Go on… read Freud! It’s called education. Plus then you can cite him directly.

How should I label appendices?

You number each Appendix in turn, starting from 1. You then give an extremely descriptive title which tells the reader what they are likely to find in the Appendix. Don’t worry about not being catchy: I’d rather see at a glance what’s in it than be dazzled by an ingenious play on words.

Each Appendix should start on a new page with the title at the top of the starting page.

What is the difference between a condition and a trial?

A ‘trial’ is one action where a stimulus is presented and a response is obtained… usually. Trials are the lowest unit in which an experiment can be described. You get a lot of information about what the experiment is about by trying to visualise a typical experimental trial. So make sure in your Procedure section you give the reader a good idea of what a trial involves.

An experimental ‘condition’ may be one or more trials. It is defined as a ‘unique combination of independent variables.’ Things are usually so arranged that there is a small number of summary statistics which each subject gives as the result of participating in each experimental condition. For instance, a condition may have ten trials, each of which gives one data item. The condition data for one Subject may be their average over all ten trials.

What is the difference between controls and a control condition?

Controls are things you worry about in your experiment to make sure that you are measuring the dependent variable and only the dependent variable.

A ‘Control Condition’ is usually a condition of the experiment when the Independent Variable(s) are at their base level, or entirely absent. So in an experiment on alcohol and reaction time, a control condition might be the one in which the Subjects drink an equivalent amount of water (by weight!) to ensure that the measure of the Independent Variable is not contaminated by the effect of drinking something.

How do I write a hypothesis and how many should I have?

The hypothesis is formally defined as a statement of the effect of the Independent Variable on the Dependent Variable. You should have as many hypotheses as you have Dependent Variables and Independent Variables. Try not to multiply hypotheses. If you have more than four for an undergraduate report, you may be seriously over-doing it.

What is the difference between random and ad hoc?

Random means that the entire population from which you are sampling has an equal chance of being selected into your sample. As such, no sample can be random in psychology since a lot of people live in other countries, have died, or are as yet unconceived or unborn. Typically, we assume that if we have a sample, a group of people, the characteristic which we are testing for is spread out among them to the same extent that it is spread out in the population and so we can say that this characteristic is ‘randomly distributed’ in the sample.

Undergraduates are such special people that it is difficult to think of an example of a characteristic which is distributed truly randomly in a sample of them, that is, in the same way that it is distributed in the rest of sufferin' humanity. Memory, attention, personality, intelligence… all these are characteristics which we may expect to find differently distributed. Even height and weight may be differently distributed in a sample of undergraduates!

An ‘ad hoc’ sample is a sample of individuals which we have just found and put together, not making too many claims for their representativeness of the general population to which we aspire to generalise. The term ‘ad hoc’ has a slightly pejorative ring, which reminds us continually as scientists where we should be setting our sights.

When can I say something is significant?

The word ‘significant’ by itself is slightly suspect in scientific writing. It should only be used to highlight a finding or a fact that really does stand out prominently and which you are going to enlarge upon in the paragraphs which follow. The ironic use of this word – when you use it to refer to something that can only be seen after careful examination – is depreciated in scientific writing and lessens your credibility.

The term ‘statistically significant’ is a technical term which implies that some data has been analysed using difference testing methodology, and that it has had its probability of happening by chance evaluated, and that the probability is 5% at the very most that a finding like that can occur by chance.

Do not mistake statistical significance for significance. And do not say something is statistically significant when you have not carried out the difference testing on it.

A statistically significant finding may, in the great scheme of things, be extremely insignificant; and conversely it may well be significant that you have handed up eight reports this year, none of which is statistically significant.

What does "normality" mean?

There is no such thing as “normality” except by reference to behaviours, feelings or ideas shared by the greater part of the cultural group about which you are talking. Normality is by definition, what most people in that cultural group subscribe to. You can have abnormal cultures in which people think, feel or do things that people in most other cultures do not, but that is the start of a slippery slope down which we will not tumble further.

In statistics, this word has a special technical meaning, as does the word ‘population.’

A normally-distributed population (or, loosely, a ‘normal population’) is a set of numbers, perhaps extremely large if not infinitely so, from which one can compute two parameters (the mean, and the standard deviation) and from which two parameters, and those only, the entire shape of that population distribution can be predicted (using an ingenious formula called the ‘normal distribution equation.’)

It must be added hastily that this is an ideal: no empirically derived collection of numbers has ever been known to fall into precisely a normal distribution pattern (although some come extremely close!)

Samples are accidents that have happened. Although with large enough samples we might hope that their distribution approaches that of the population distribution, it is extremely fortuitous if it should do so. Normally distributed populations can yield the most abnormally-distributed samples. And yet in science, samples are simply signposts to populations.

Why is it so difficult to write a really good practical report?

Because of the need to compress and still retain that golden thread – and so that it doesn’t become a dirty brown thread or a frayed piece of old string!

Good communication is a continuous process of refinement where you clarify for yourself what that precious golden thread is, and where you try to present it to others in its arresting purity. Because you are communicating in the medium of writing, the best way to develop this golden thread is by writing, reviewing, and refining. It's never too early to start writing. The secret is, knowing when to stop.

All professional communication is difficult. Writing papers for journals and presenting papers at conferences is difficult. Writing an FAQ is difficult. There are many books which give you good advice and show you the technicalities of writing. But in the end, it is between you and your reader.

Refine that golden thread.

Communicate it.

JK, October, 2006