Question

I did SPSS analysis on whether females text more than males, now I need to do a report of my findings in APA format. The report is to include an abstract, introduction, method, and results. What is this type of report called or could you include an outline of what is supposed to be included in each section?

Answer 1

The APA format stands for 'American Psychological Association'. It is recommended that the report be double spaced throughout, with margins of 2.54 cm (1 inch) all around. Use good quality paper, and only print on one side of the paper.

Do not 'right justify or fully justify' your report (that is, don't use a uniform right margin, as you see in published books). Set your word processor to ‘left justify’. Normally the font used is Times New Roman, set in 12 points.

The start of each paragraph is indented 5-7 spaces (use the tab button), except for the abstract. Each page must be numbered at the top right-hand side of the page in the header section.

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The heading has different formats for different levels as shown -

For many research reports only three levels of headings are required. In this case, I would suggest using heading level 1,2 and 3 as illustrated below -

The other levels of headings will need to be used if additional headings are used throughout the introduction or if you need to divide your results or discussion sections into subsections.

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Abbreviations and Punctuations -

The commonly used abbreviations are -

Do not abbreviate the words: day, week, month, year. Do not add an ‘s’ to make abbreviations of units of measurement (e.g., 12 cm not 12 cms).

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Numbers -

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Decimal Places -

The number of decimal places to be used to report the results of statistical analyses depends on the particular situation. The rule is a few as possible, while still maintaining sufficient information. Most information can be presented effectively with only two decimal places (e.g., correlation coefficients, proportions, values of t, F and chi square). When presenting p values you should report the exact value that is output from the computer program - this will usually be to three decimal places (p=.051). The only exception to this rule is when the program indicates p=.000. This should always be presented as p < .001. A zero should be used in front of the decimal place for numbers that are less than 1, but the value could exceed 1 (e.g., Cohen’s d = 0.50). When the value being calculated cannot exceed 1 (e.g, correlations, proportions, probability values) no zero should precede the decimal point (e.g, r(120) = .56, p = .001).

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Now, we come to the main section of report.

The report is made up of a number of distinct sections including the title page, abstract, introduction, method, results, discussion, references and appendix.

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Author’s Name

Underneath the title type your name (usually your first name, initial and then surname). Do not include titles (e.g., Dr). Centre your name under the title.

Institutional Affiliation

Below your name put the name of your university or organisation.

Author Note

This section is usually only included for actual journal articles. It is not necessary for student assignments or theses. In this section provide details of any acknowledgements, conflict of interest, and contact details for readers.

Sometimes the results of analyses can be presented more clearly in table or graph format, rather than described in a paragraph. Don't go overboard with graphs though, save these for dramatic effect (e.g., when presenting significant ANOVA interactions). All tables and figures must be referred to in the text and sufficient explanations provided to ensure that the reader can understand what is presented. There are some quite strict guidelines for the formatting of tables and figures. The basics are covered in the next section, however I recommend that you consult the Publication Manual (see pp. 125-161). When submitting an article manuscript for publication the tables and figures are presented at the end of the manuscript following the references. For a thesis, however, the tables are incorporated in the main body of the report. You should check with your lecturer or supervisor concerning the specific requirements for your report.

Footnotes

Footnotes are only used if you need to add extra information concerning a particular point you have made in the main body of the article. These should be numbered and presented in the order they appear in the manuscript using a superscript number 1 The list of the footnotes can be presented on a separate page at the end of the paper after the references. Example -

1. The PCOISS was developed as part of a multidimensional, multidomain inventory. Copies of this inventory can be obtained from the author.

Appendix

If you have additional material that the reader might like to refer to, but is not central to your report, this can be provided in the appendix. This could include the items of a scale used in the questionnaire, the results of additional analyses conducted, or an example of responses to an openended question. If you need to use a number of appendices (a common situation when presenting a thesis), these are labelled using a letter, rather than a number (Appendix A, Appendix B, and so on).

Each appendix must be given a title (e.g., Appendix A: Details of PCOISS scale items)