How To Write in Psychology

Dr. John R. Beech is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Leicester. He has authored many journal articles and has written or co-edited several books, including The Psychological Assessment of Reading, Assessment in Neuropsychology, and Assessment in Speech and Language Therapy.

In the average psychology degree, there's a whole lot of writing to be done, and much of it is very stylistically prescribed, and the student new to psychology has to quickly develop and use a new vocabulary and understand the demands of examinations, essays, experimental reports, and longer works such as final-year research projects. Furthermore, even research reports differ, depending on whether they are write-ups of quantitative or qualitative research, and so on. This book is clear, well-structured, readable, enjoyable and highly informative. Given that students have a lot to learn in the course of their studies, any book that propels them forward has to be welcomed. There are hundreds of volumes on writing, a handful of which are focused on writing in psychology. This, in my opinion, is by far the best of them. Mark Forshaw, Staffordshire University "Written in a style that is clear, direct, and concise, How to Write in Psychology is an indispensable handbook for students - a must for anyone starting a BSc Psychology course, or preparing their final year project." Dean D'Souza, BPS Student Rep

• List of Illustrations ixAcknowledgements xiIntroduction XII1 Some Preliminaries 1Essays and Lab Reports 1The Importance of Preparation 4How Psychologists Write 6The Case for Writing Up Using the Computer 9The Case for Writing Up on Paper 10Starting to Write: Ten Ways to Get You on Your Way 11Chapter Summary 132 Writing the Essay 15The Minimalist Approach 15The Value of Effort and Motivation 16Tools for Writing 17Methods of Collecting Information from Published Sources 17The Planning Stage 21Paragraphing and Planning the Essay Structure 28The Topic and the Thesis of the Essay 33Putting Yourself into Your Writing 35Developing an Argument in an Essay 37The Editing Process and its Interaction with Writing 38Chapter Summary 403 Preliminaries to Writing the Lab Report 42Hypotheses and Variables 42Hypotheses, Theories, Models and Laws 43Formulating Hypotheses for Yourself 47Experimental Controls 49Effect Size, Sample Size and Statistical Power 51The Ethos of Psychology 53Ethical Conduct 58Chapter Summary 594 Writing the Quantitative Lab Report 61The Title 62Method 62Participants 62Apparatus and Materials 66Design 70Procedure 70Results 73Introduction 75Discussion 78Conclusion 81Abstract 81References and Appendices 82The Relative Length of the Different Sections 83Exploratory Studies 85Chapter Summary 855 Writing the Qualitative Research Report 88Grounded Theory 89Writing the Report Itself 90Introduction 90Method 91Results 93Discussion 94Final Remarks 96Chapter Summary 966 Presenting Numbers, Tables and Figures 98How to Present Numbers 98Should I Use a Table, a Graph or Just Put the Data in the Text? 103How to Present a Table 104How to Construct a Table Using Word 105How to Present a Figure 108How to Produce Figures in Excel 111Chapter Summary 1167 Writing the Project 118Planning the Study 118Writing Up the Project 122Comparing the Project and Short Report 123Revising Your Writing 125Chapter Summary 1288 Writing for Exams and Answering MCQs 129Preparation for Essay Exams 129The Essay Exam – In the Exam Room 132Ten Points to Consider for a Multiple-choice Exam 137Contrasts Between the Two Kinds of Exams 140Chapter Summary 1419 Writing for Other Purposes 143Writing to Recruit Participants and Writing Letters to Organisations 143Giving Instructions About Your Experiment 146Debriefing After an Experiment 147The Wording and Other Aspects of Questionnaire Construction 148Chapter Summary 15310 Attention to Detail: More on APA Formatting, Especially References 155Writing the List of References 155How to Reference Citations in the Body of the Text 164Punctuation (including Hyphens, Quotes and Quotation Marks) 167Font Style (Bold, Italics and Capitalisation) 177Abbreviations 18011 Some Basics of Grammar and Common Confusions 182A–Z Guide to Grammar and Common Confusions 18312 Improve Your Editing Skills 199Exercises in Proofreading and Making Corrections 199Abstract 199Introduction 200End Part of the Introduction 208Method 209Results 210Discussion 212The Essay 212References 214Concluding Remarks 214Appendix 1: An Example Student Essay 216Appendix 2: An Example Student Quantitative Lab Report 223References 234Index 237