Five Basic Sections of a Research Paper 1) Abstract 2) Introduction 3) Method 4) Results 5) Discussion

Order of APA Paper Sections The order of the sections of the manuscript are as follows:  

A.Title Page B.Abstract C.Introduction D.Method E.Results F.Discussion G.References H.Other Sections

Appendix Tables Figure captions Figures

Title Page

The title page formally announces the title and running head of your lab report.

The title page contains: The article title Author name(s) Author affiliation Manuscript page header Page number Running head

Abstract The abstract is the "Reader's Digest" version of the

paper Its purpose is to show the reader the research at a glance.

Condensed format. Abstracts must be condensed yet stand alone. The abstract

should be understandable to someone who has not read the paper.

Order. Each section of the paper requires 1 to 2 sentence in the

abstract. Information is arranged in the same order as the sections in the lab report: Introduction, Method, Results, and Discussion.

Single paragraph. Abstracts should be presented as one paragraph.

Introduction

The goal of the introduction is to justify your study. Introduce the research question Summarize the research done to date

Not just the studies whose results you agree with. Identify studies that support an opposite finding, and explain what might underlie the differences.

Explain what work has yet to be done (your study). At the end, state your hypotheses.

Method

The Method section is a detailed breakdown of your experiment.

Give the reader enough information to be able replicate the experiment.

The Method section is often divided into subsections (for example: ) Participants and Design Materials Procedure Measures

Note: Current APA style requires ITALICS where you see underlining here.

Results This section presents the statistical analysis of the

data collected. States what stat procedures were used and the results of the

analyses The Results section is the most condensed and

standardized of all the sections in a paper Statistical results are presented but not discussed in

this section. As predicted, children who viewed the aggressive model were

significantly more aggressive than children in the no-model condition t (18) = 4.03, p < .01. The mean aggression score in the model group was M = 5.20 and in the no-model group was M = 3.10.

Discuss results in the Discussion section.

Note: Current APA style requires ITALICS where you see underlining here.

Note: Current APA style requires ITALICS where you see underlining here.

Discussion

In this section, interpret your results by relating them to your hypotheses.

Use words to explain the quantitative information from the results section.

Discuss the results in relation to each hypothesis. Discuss possible explanations for your results.

Do the results agree or disagree with the ideas that you introduced in the Introduction?

How do the results relate to previous literature or current theory?

Identify and discuss limitations of the study. Generalize your results.

References

Must contain complete citations for all sources mentioned in the paper

Use APA format Capitalization, spacing, punctuation, and

underlining must be exactly as specified.

Appendix, Tables and Figures

Appendix Put information that would be distracting in the body of

the paper (like questionnaires or a list of stimulus items) Tables and figures often represent results more

clearly and concisely than does text. Tables

Often statistical information (correlations, means, etc) are placed in a table.

Figures AKA Graphs A separate page with Figure Captions is provided before

the figures

Note: Current APA style requires ITALICS where you see underlining here.

The Hourglass Method

INTRODUCTION Starts out very broad, ends up narrowly focusing on your specific study

and its hypotheses METHOD

Very narrow, detailed, technical, and specific. RESULTS

Still narrowly focused on the specific results of the specific tests you performed to test your hypotheses.

DISCUSSION Starts out very narrow, summarizing your results; then becomes

broader as you discuss the implications and limitations to your research; ends up broadly conveying the 2-4 most important things you want your readers to remember from your research.