Effective Writing in Psychology

Papers, Posters,and Presentations

Bernard C. Beins, Agatha M. Beins

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781118242223
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Psychologie
• Subtopic: Recherche et méthodologie en psychologie

The second edition of Effective Writing in Psychology helps users produce crisp scientific communication, form concise unambiguous arguments, and render technical information clear and comprehensible. The new edition incorporates the latest guidelines contained within the 6 th edition of the APA Publication Manual.

• Clear guidelines on effective writing illustrate how to generate strong and compelling prose, even when the writing is not aimed at a research audience
• Incorporates changes to the guidelines contained in the 6 th edition of the APA publication manual
• Includes material on how to adapt APA style for poster presentations using PowerPoint, and for oral presentations
• Contains a new section on using the Internet to present research papers and a new chapter on conducting a literature search, to guide students through databases, keywords, sources, and connections between articles
• Highlights methods for selecting a research topic and organizing papers
• Features a sample manuscript showing common deviations from correct APA style and a version demonstrating appropriate use of APA style

1

Writing in Psychology

Write what matters. If you don’t care about what you’re writing, neither will your readers.

Judy Reeves

I’m not a very good writer, but I’m an excellent rewriter.

James Michener

When you write about psychology or any of the other sciences, you are telling a story about people. Scientists are people, complete with individual personalities, likes and dislikes, and ordinary human qualities. The way they are affects what they do and how they do it. As such, “science writing is not so much about science, but about people—human problems and their solutions, curiosity and discovery” (Holland, 2007). In this book, you will learn how to convey your thoughts on the important problems and ­solutions in psychology.

It would be hard to overstate how important it is to write effectively. Writing constitutes one of the “3 Rs” of a basic education: reading, writing and ’rithmetic. In the world of business, success is dependent, in part, on effective writing. For high-­level positions, “writing is a ‘threshold skill’ for both employment and promotion” (College Board, 2004, p. 3). In one survey, many companies noted that writing was important in hiring. One respondent asserted that, “in most cases, writing ability could be your ticket in … or it could be your ticket out” (College Board, 2004, p. 3). Potential employees who do not write well are unlikely to be hired and, if they are, are unlikely to be promoted.

Graduate school admission may also depend on writing effectiveness. Graduate programs routinely request essays as part of the application process. This writing is “often used to make final selections of students with similar GPAs and standardized test scores. If you are on the borderline of being accepted and the admissions committee could go either way, a ­sterling essay can increase your chances of success considerably” (American Psychological Association, 2007, p. 132).

The type of writing that you learn in psychology provides the same skills that will help advance your career. You develop clarity and logic in your ideas, along with a style that will engage the reader. If you create such prose, you will attract the attention of possible employers and graduate school admissions committees, and you will effectively present your ideas in psychology.

Writing in Psychology

Most people find psychology interesting and are eager to learn more about it. But they do not want to fight through dull and meaningless writing. As writers, our biggest hurdle involves turning complex, technical concepts into prose that others can appreciate.

Writing successfully is not easy. It requires knowledge of the topic we are addressing; judicious selection of the best words, phrases, and sentences; and editing and revising what we have composed. If there were a magical formula that we could use to generate good prose, everybody would succeed in communicating even complex and hard-­to-­understand ideas. If you have read the work of scientists, though, you will have discovered that, much of the time, scientific writing is dense and impenetrable. Many ­writers hide interesting concepts inside packages of dull prose.

On the other hand, people sometimes produce lively prose that may not convey the message accurately. Engaging, but deceptive, prose is no better than accurate, incomprehensible writing.

Fortunately, there is the desirable middle ground that Sigmund Freud and Williams James occupied, where prose was stimulating, not sleep inducing. Those of us who do not initially fall into this category can learn to communicate effectively. The purpose of this book is to help you find the path to better communication. If you are motivated, you can work on the skills you need to get your point across meaningfully and accurately.

How Does Psychological Writing Differ from
Other Kinds of Writing?

If you are trying to write like a psychologist, your style will be unlike much of the writing that you have done in the past. When psychologists write professionally, they usually attempt to convey specific information with a great deal of precision, minimizing ambiguity and the possibility of misunderstanding. The adage to say what you mean and mean what you say is highly appropriate for technical writing. You want your reader to understand the points you believe are important, and you want the reader to know exactly what you intend to say.

In other forms of writing, the emphasis may be on crafting artistic prose. The writer attempts to impress the reader with both content and style. The words that Shakespeare wrote for Macbeth illustrate the point. Macbeth lamented that life “is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” These poetic words convey Macbeth’s despair. However, Shakespeare’s style would not be appropriate for a scientist because the style of science is to be straightforward and unambiguous so the reader does not have to puzzle through the words to find meaning in them.

Psychologists often receive training in how to write objective, scientific papers. Unfortunately, the writing style is often “bloodless” (Josselson & Lieblich, 1996, p. 651), meaning that it is not particularly engaging. Sommer (2006) has encouraged psychologists to learn to write with color and style for lay audiences without sacrificing accuracy. But he also implied that the writing style in academic journals need not be dreary.

In scientific writing, we focus on the content of the message. The point is not to impress the reader with the prose, but to render the prose ­invisible while making the content foremost. This type of writing can be as difficult to do well as literary writing because you need to be concise without ­omitting important information; you need to choose your words carefully so they engage the reader without obscuring your point; you need to say enough to let your reader understand your message without being repetitive.

Another difference among the various types of writing is that, when we write scientifically or technically, we generally rely on a vocabulary specific to the topic at hand. Professionals understand this wording, but others are not likely to be as conversant with the terminology. This is one of the reasons that scientific writing has the reputation of being incomprehensible—you need to know the jargon. (The concepts are also complex and may be hard to understand, which does not help.) Actually, technical terms are helpful because they let us communicate complex ideas clearly in a few words, although if you do not know the meanings of the words, the prose is meaningless or, at best, difficult.

Using APA Style

A further difference between scientific or technical writing and less formal writing is that, in science, authors typically follow a specific format in preparing reports. In psychology, for instance, authors use guidelines that appear in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (American Psychological Association, 2010), commonly just called APA Style. (Some other disciplines, such as sociology, education, and nursing, may also use APA style.) Research reports usually include seven sections, as described in Table 1.1.

Table 1.1 Typical Sections in an APA-­Style Research Report

Section of the report	What the section contains
Title page	The title of the paper, the names of authors, and the affiliations of the authors
Abstract	A brief overview of the entire project of about 150 to 250 words
Introduction	The background and logic of the study, including previous research that led to this project
Method	Minute details of how the study proceeded, including descriptions of participants, apparatus, and materials, and what researchers and participants actually did during the study
Results	A detailed statement of the statistics and other results of the study
Discussion	What the results tell us about thought and behavior
Reference	Where to find the work cited in the paper that relates to the present study

Most of the time, if a writer submits to a journal editor a manuscript that deviates from an expected style, the editor is not likely to reject the manuscript as unsuitable for publication. Instead, editors work with authors so that the final version of the manuscript is consistent with APA style (Brewer, Scherzer, Van Raalte, Petitpas, & Andersen, 2001). However, editors have commented that deviations from APA style often accompany problems with the content of a manuscript. So if you create a manuscript that fails to follow appropriate style, a reader who is familiar with (and used to) APA style may assume that you paid as little attention to your ideas as you did to the way you expressed them. In the workplace, employers have expressed similar sentiments, that poor writing reflects poor thought (College Board, 2004).

According to the research of Brewer et al. (2001) on the use and the importance of APA style, writers are likely to depart from APA style in their presentation of research results and in citing references. So you should pay particular attention to these facets of your writing. If you write a paper in APA style that does not involve empirical research and data analysis, APA style can still apply. The structure of your paper is likely to have elements in common with the Introduction, Discussion, and Reference sections of a research paper, which we discuss in later chapters. Once you learn the basics of APA style, writing an effective paper might be easier than you anticipated because you will have a good sense of what belongs in a paper and where it goes.

As you write for a professional audience, keep in mind that readers are willing to be convinced with persuasive arguments, but you have to convince them. Scientific writing entails presenting a series of logical arguments that follow from one another. At the end, your good logic is going to make a believer out of your reader. If we are going to accept the process of science, it means that when a writer offers a logical argument that is supported by good data, we should be willing to accept that argument.

Making a Credible Argument

The difference between scientific writing and other writing has to do with the nature of how psychologists attempt to persuade readers. In everyday life, if you want to change somebody’s mind about something, there are several ways of doing it. One is to appeal to authority. That is, by quoting an expert (i.e., an authority), you can often convince people to believe you. After all, experts know more than others in their field of expertise. Unfortunately, experts can be wrong.

You can also appeal to what “everybody” knows is true; some things are so obvious, they must be true. Unfortunately (again), there are some things that everybody knows to be true that simply aren’t true.

You can also appeal to others’ emotions. Politicians and advertisers do this all the time. Unfortunately (again), conclusions based on emotional appeals can make a person feel good about a decision that, ultimately, proves to be troublesome. Furthermore, such conclusions are often not very stable (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986).

We should not simply believe the experts (even though they are probably right more than they are wrong in their areas of expertise); they should have to convince us with logical arguments. We should not simply trust our senses (even though a lot of what we feel to be true has some validity). We should not simply believe in what makes us feel good or reject what makes us feel bad; it should have logical validity.

When trying to convince your reader of your arguments, you should engage the reader in critical evaluation of your ideas. Research has revealed that persuasion based on logic and on attention to important details leads to greater and longer-­term acceptance of an argument. This is the type of persuasion that you should strive for in your writing.

Different Types of Communication

If you want to communicate with your audience, you need to know what your audience expects. Depending on whether you are writing, speaking, or presenting visually, your approach will differ somewhat, even if the underlying message is the same.

Written Communication

If you are writing a formal, APA-­style research report, as you would for publication in a journal, your reader will expect a structured presentation with considerable detail. The advantage of such a written presentation is that your reader can go back and review the background you cite, review your methodology to make sure it is sound, evaluate your results to judge if they ...