Tips for Writing a Research Paper in APA format:
Basics:
A research paper (especially one that requires APA style) is different than a term
paper, a creative writing paper, a composition-style paper, or a thought paper.
A research paper requires you to leave out any personal information (both as
content or in your writing style – see below) and to focus on research findings that
have been put forth previously (the Intro section), that you have looked at and
how (the Purpose (hypothesis), and Method section), and what your findings were
(the Results and Discussion section).
Research papers although generally similar may have different requirements
depending on the course (and more specifically the instructor). This is not meant
to confuse or frustrate students, rather it comes out of the requirements for
publication that vary among fields (e.g., the type of information and the way it is
presented has different requirements for behavioral journals than for social
psychology journals). Best advice is to follow your instructor’s guidelines!
APA style, although similar, may change over the course of time – information
such as how to write the reference section has been changed from edition to
edition in the APA Publication Manual
General Tips on Writing Style:
Impersonal style – as a guideline minimize using first person (e.g., “this study was
conducted…” rather than “we conducted this study…”) although there are
exceptions; see the APA Publication Manual for any questions about this
Do not include any personal statements or anecdotes (e.g., “I was interested in
studying eating disorders because my sister was diagnosed with…” does not
belong in a research paper!)
Verb tense – as a guideline use past tense (e.g., “the results indicated” rather than
“the results indicate”) although there are exceptions; see the APA Publication
Manual for any questions about this
Contractions – do not use contractions! (e.g., “it does not follow” rather than “it
doesn’t follow”)
Biased language– keep up to date with appropriate terms, especially if you are
writing a paper that involves gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc. The
APA Manual includes information about terms that are deemed appropriate for
use in research papers
Citations – be sure to cite your sources. Try to paraphrase as much as possible (as
opposed to quoting)…a couple of ways to do this:
1. State a fact or make a claim in the text; then cite your source in parentheses within
the same sentence: “It has been demonstrated that immediate recall is extremely
limited for 5-year-old children (Jones, 1998).” OR “Previous research has shown
that response to an auditory stimulus is much faster than response to a visual
stimulus (Smith & Jones, 2003).”
2. Can use source as the subject of your sentence: “In a related study, Jones (2005)
found that…” OR “In a similar study, Jones and Smith (1999) found that…”