Title Page The title page is the first page of your psychology paper. In order to make a good first impression, it is important to have a well-formatted title page in proper APA format that clearly represents your paper. Elements of the title page Article title (specific) “The Effects of Caffeine on Short Term Memory Retention” Authors name Author’s school affiliation Running head (general) “Retention of Memory” Page number

Abstract The abstract is the second page of the report. Think of it as a condensed summary of your entire paper Begin with a brief summary of the introduction Continue with a summary of the method, results and discussion. Abstracts should be around 150 - 250 words I would suggest searching up so abstracts to read before you write yours

Introduction The purpose of an introduction in a psychology paper is to justify the reasons for writing about your topic. Your goal is to introduce the topic to the reader, provide an overview of previous research on the topic and identify your own hypothesis.

How to write the introduction… Step 1: Introduce the topic: provide a brief description of the research question. What is study attempting to demonstrate? What phenomena are you studying?

Step 2: Summarize previous research: provide a summary of previous research that is relevant to your topic. It is important to thoroughly research your topic. You need 3 sources. Step 3: provide your hypothesis: once you have summarized the previous research, explain areas where the research is lacking or potentially flawed. What research questions have yet to answered? At the end of your introduction, offer your hypothesis and describe what you expected to find in your study.

Methods This sections provides the methods and procedures used in a research study or experiment. You should provide detailed information on the research design, participants, equipment, materials, variables and actions taken by the participants. The method section should provide enough information to allow other researchers to replicate your study

How to write methods… Sections can utilize subheading Participants: describe the participants in your experiment, including who they were, how many there were and how they were selected. Talk about the break down of gender, age group, ethnicity, etc. Materials: describe the materials, measure, equipment, or stimuli used in the experiment. This may include testing instruments, websites, survey monkey, books, images, etc.

Design: describe the type of designes used in the experiment Design: describe the type of designes used in the experiment. Specify the variables, control group, experimental group, etc. Procedure: explain what you have participants do, how you collected data, and the order in which steps occurred. Tips Always write in past tense in the method section. Provide as much detail as possible so another research could replicate the study.

Results This section of an APA format paper summarizes the data that was collected and the statistical analyses that were performed. The goal of this section is to report the results without any type of subjective interpretation.

How to write the results Step 1: State all relevant calculations. Don’t omit the findings if they failed to support your prediction Step 2: Do not include the raw data in the results sections. You are summarizing the results, not reporting them in full detail Step 3: include one graph that is relevant and you much explain it’s meaning in the text.

Discussion This section is like the introduction, which returns to the significance argument set up in your introduction. Reread your intro carefully before writing your discussion.

How to write the discussion Step 1: address the hypothesis – did the data support your hypothesis? How do your findings relate to the previous research? Step 2: Problems and limitations – to what extent did your study provide an adequate test of your hypothesis? What ethical issues were raised? Step 3: closing- to what other populations can your finds be generalized? What are the partical implications of your findings? What direction should further research on this topic take?