Writing in Psychology

Scott A. Miller

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781032159430
• eBook ISBN: 9781000593976
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Research in Education
• Index: Psychology

The second edition of Writing in Psychology by Scott A. Miller is a comprehensive guide to addressing the most challenging issues that students face while writing about psychology, including what to say and how to say it. It offers practical tools to overcome the challenges and create an engaging work.

The book is a valuable resource for helping readers become better writers of psychology with the aid of various helpful learning tools, which provide detailed coverage of how to write empirical reviews, research proposals, literature reviews, term papers, and posters. It examines examples from journal articles that give readers a grasp of the content they will encounter in writing psychological reports. Furthermore, it includes exercises that provide an opportunity to apply the points conveyed in each chapter, examples of ways to avoid the most common mistakes made by students, and a guide to the best practices for improving one's writing. Readers will also develop a thorough understanding of how to write in an engaging yet accurate style, using grammatical and word use rules that govern writing in general, and the rules of seventh edition APA (American Psychological Association) Publication Manual that determine the expression of that content. Throughout, the book emphasizes inclusion, diversity, and fair treatment of those with whom psychologists deal, in research and writing.

The book will benefit anyone looking for guidance on how to write about psychological content. It is ideal for research scholars and psychology students as a primary text for writing in psychology courses and a supplement for graduate or advanced undergraduate courses in research design or research methods.

1 The Importance of Writing

DOI: 10.4324/9781003246435-1

My courses in research methods have always involved a lot of writing. For many students, writing is a new experience, and for many it is not an experience that they look forward to. I like to begin, therefore, with a pep talk about the importance of writing.

Why Write?

The first point I make is the most basic one. Science is a matter of shared information, and a scientific finding is simply not a finding until it has been communicated to others. Some such communication is oral—for example, presentations at professional conferences. By far the most important way in which scientists communicate, however, is through writing—through publication of their work in books or professional journals. Communication is an intrinsic part of science, and writing is an intrinsic part of being a scientist.

One way to think about the importance of writing is to reflect on what you have learned from your study of psychology. Some things you have learned may have come from—or at least been reinforced by—personal experience. Most of what you know, however, you know because someone wrote it down. This is obviously true of learning through textbooks or journal articles, but it is equally true of learning from lectures. A lecture, after all, is simply an oral summary of information gleaned from the written records of the field.

The discussion to this point may suggest that writing is a kind of necessary evil—a service to the field certainly, but of no value to researchers themselves. In fact, as anyone who has done much research knows, such is far from being the case. The need to communicate one's work to others—to explain the reasoning behind a particular methodological decision, to make sense of a puzzling outcome, to suggest needed directions for future research—sharpens one's thinking in a way that solitary contemplation alone could never accomplish. Such is the case when one anticipates the audience for one's work, and it is even more the case when there is an actual audience—for example, when a manuscript is submitted to a journal for publication. The publication process will involve feedback from reviewers and editors that may strengthen not only the current but also future research efforts, and the same is true for the work's reception following publication. Science is a collaborative endeavor, and the benefits from sharing one's work are very much reciprocal and not just unidirectional.

Why Write Well?

The preceding section addressed the question of why write. It did not address the question of why write well.

This is a reasonable question. Certainly the essential element in scientific communication is the content. Assuming that all the important content is included, why should we be concerned with the method of presentation? “Style” is a nicety that can be left to English classes.

There is some truth to this argument. The content is indeed the most important element of any scientific contribution. In addition, many aspects of what we often think of as “style” (e.g., setting up ambiguity, interjection of the unexpected, flashbacks or foreshadowing, use of metaphor, use of humor) are not appropriate in scientific writing. It does not follow, however, that the quality of the writing is unimportant. Indeed, just the reverse is the case. Any new contribution in psychology must compete for attention in a marketplace of publications that is far too large for any reader to come close to reading everything. One determinant of which contributions rise to the top in this survival of the fittest is the quality of the writing. The most successful publications have three attributes.

The first attribute is that they are clear. Inclusion of all the required content is a necessary, starting-point component of a potential contribution to the literature. It is not a sufficient component, however; rather, the content must be there in a form that readers can understand. And it must be in a form that they can readily understand, or the busy reader may turn elsewhere. You undoubtedly respond negatively to material whose method of presentation poses an obstacle to understanding. Researchers, reviewers, and editors have the same reaction.

The second attribute is that the most successful publications are interesting. Conceivably, clarity could be achieved by simply presenting a bulleted list of points for the reader to take away. An author who does so, however, is unlikely to achieve a further goal of scientific writing: namely, to entice the busy reader to read further. The best scientific writings tell a story, setting up the questions of interest in the Introduction, detailing the approach to studying these questions in the Method, and leading the reader gradually through to the answers to the questions in the Results and Discussion.

The final attribute is that the most successful publications are persuasive. Some people think of scientific writing as a dispassionate, facts-only enterprise. It is true that objectivity and honesty are central to scientific writing. It is not true, however, that an author cannot be an advocate for the work being presented. A major element in successful writing is persuasion: persuading the reader that the issues under study are important ones, persuading the reader that the methods used to study these issues are valid and informative, and persuading the reader that the conclusions drawn from the research are novel and trustworthy.

As anyone who has done much reading in psychology knows, there is an imperfect relation between scientific eminence and ability to write. Not all the field's major contributors have been good writers. Most, however, have been—that is one reason that their contributions have had the impact that they have.

An even more pragmatic justification can be offered for writing well. Before an article can be made available to the scientific community, it must be accepted for publication in a professional journal. Most journals are selective in what they publish, and the best journals have rejection rates of up to 80% or 90%. A poorly written article is simply much less likely ever to see the light of day than a well-written one. Busy editors and reviewers may be unwilling to make the effort to penetrate the poor writing to get to underlying content, and may be unable to find the content if they do make the effort. Furthermore, because the purpose of a research report is to communicate, the quality of the writing is a quite legitimate part of the evaluation process.

The points just made are confirmed by many who have served as editors for psychology journals. Eisenberg, for example, writes, “Many an article is rejected due to poor writing rather than to lack of a good idea…or good data” (2019, p. 22). There is also some empirical evidence for a link between quality of writing and publication success. Brewer and colleagues (2001), in a survey of journal editors, reported that 39% had returned a manuscript to the author because of failure to follow APA style (i.e., the rules presented in the APA Publication Manual, a source that I consider at length throughout the book). Onwuegbuzie and colleagues (2009) tabulated the number of errors in APA style in manuscripts submitted to the journal Research in the Schools. Included in the tally were several basic grammatical errors in addition to points specific to APA rules. They reported that articles with nine or more errors were three times as likely to be rejected as articles with fewer errors. The authors go on to acknowledge the familiar truism that correlation does not prove causation—in this case, that poor writing causes manuscript rejection. It is possible, for example, that researchers whose writing is relatively weak also produce research that is relatively weak. Their own belief, however—one that is probably shared by most psychologists who have been involved in the reviewing process—is that quality of writing does contribute.

Why Write Well (Part 2)?

Let me make the argument more personal. Suppose that your long-term goals do not include writing in psychology. Is there then any reason (other than perhaps a course requirement) to strive to learn to do such writing?

As you no doubt can anticipate, my answer is yes. The reason it is yes is that good writing is good writing, and what you learn about writing in psychology will carry over to other forms of writing. This point holds true even for the most psychology-specific things you must learn: namely, the rules of APA style. It is possible that you may not use APA style in whatever writing you do in the future (although also possible that you will—APA style is used in a number of contexts in addition to psychology writing). Still, you will need to use some consistent style in whatever you write, such that you are not handling headings, references, or footnotes in one way at the start of a paper and a different way by the time you reach the end. Working within the constraints of one style is good practice for working with any style that you may eventually need.

Again, pragmatic considerations can be added to whatever intrinsic, need-to-master motives may underlie the attempt to become a better writer. Assuming that you are still a student, then quality of writing is a definite determinant of how well you fare. Instructors may tell you that they grade on content and not on style, but you should be skeptical whenever you hear this. It is difficult (and for some of us impossible) not to be positively impressed by good writing and negatively impressed by bad. At the extreme, one can hardly reward good content if the writing is so bad that the content is impossible to discern.

I will mention just one more incentive for writing well. If you still have graduate school applications looming ahead of you, then the quality of your writing may play an important role in your future development. There are few more certain ways to sink a grad school application than to submit a poorly written essay or personal statement (Appleby & Appleby, 2006).

Organization of the Book

As the Preface indicates, the ordering of material in this book reflects my preferred organization, and some instructors and some students will doubtless have other preferences. Although some cross-chapter checking might sometimes be necessary, it should be possible to read the chapters in any order that is preferred.

I begin in Chapter 2 with some general pieces of advice about how to approach the task of writing in psychology. Included are a variety of suggestions culled from a variety of different sources. You may find some of the suggestions easier to implement or more helpful than others, and that is fine—most are merely suggestions rather than must-follow prescriptions.

A starting point of almost every kind of writing in psychology is knowledge of the relevant research literature. An important skill for an aspiring psychologist, therefore, is the ability to search the literature to find the necessary sources. Chapter 3 discusses how to carry out a literature search.

The remaining chapters of the book are devoted to the two general challenges in writing in psychology. One is what to say. The other is how to say it.

The what-to-say question is addressed in the middle chapters of the book. Chapters 4 and 5 discuss the most common form of writing in psychology: the empirical journal article whose purpose is to report the results of research. Chapter 6 adds material on how to write a research proposal, and Chapter 7 discusses how to write review papers that summarize some aspects of the psychological literature. Because not all course assignments will fit one of these three molds, Chapter 8 offers some suggestions with respect to how to write term papers. The chapter also discusses how to prepare posters, an important format for sharing one's research in a variety of settings.

The how-to-say-it question divides into two general categories. One is specific to psychology: the stylistic conventions, presented in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (American Psychological Association, 2020b), that govern writing in psychology. Chapter 9 discusses various aspects of the APA rule system. I concentrate on points that in my experience are often the source of errors in student papers.

The other part of the how-to-say-it question is both more general and more difficult: how to write good, readable prose whatever the specific style or specific context. This aspect of writing is a good deal less teachable than is mastery of a conventional rule system. (If it were readily teachable, all of us would write well.) Many of the suggestions offered in Chapter 2 are intended to aid in the task of constructing smooth and grammatical prose. In addition, Chapter 10 addresses a number of specific aspects of English grammar and word use. Again, I concentrate on points that often go astray in student papers.

In addition to its 10 chapters, the book includes an Appendix that is new to this edition.

In 2012, APA formed a task force charged with examining the Psychology major across several hundred United States universities and formulating recommendations for future goals and practices (American Psychological Association, 2016). Five goals were addressed: knowledge base in psychology, scientific inquiry and critical thinking, ethical and social responsibility in a diverse world, communication, and professional development. The Appendix shows the goals under the communication heading. Clearly, this is material that can be visited and thought about whenever you like, something that is also true for the goals under the other four headings. My recommendation is to do so on at least three occasions. A first is in a starting-point sense, early in your use of this book and, for most readers, early in the class for which the book is assigned. The second is at the conclusion of the class. Finally, the third, assuming it applies to you, is at the completion of the Psychology major, which is the target date set by the task force for achievement of all of the goals. At any point in the self-examination process, work to maintain the skills that you have already developed and work to acquire those that still remain challenges for the future.

What Are Your Requirements?

My assumption throughout this book is that your goal is to write an APA-style paper, an empirical report (the subject of Chapters 4 and 5), a research proposal (the subject of Chapter 6), or a literature review (the subject of Chapter 7). If you are doing your writing as a course requirement, however, your instructor's requirements may differ in some ways from the guidelines offered here, and if so, it is the instructor's rules that take precedence.

Perhaps the most likely way in which a course requirement might differ from this book's emphases concerns the use of the APA Publication Manual, a topic that I treat most fully in Chapter 9. It may be that you will be required to follow the Manual's prescriptions only in part, adhering to some of its rules but not others. Perhaps, for example, you will be expected to produce a standard term-paper title page (course number, date, etc.) rather than an APA-style title page. Perhaps you will be expected to use numbers to designate citations in the text, rather than the APA author/date style. Or perhaps there will be a specific page limit or a minimum number of references required, neither of which is true when writing a manuscript for publication. For these and any other course-specific requirements, you may wish to note the relevant aspects of APA style for future use, but they will not be anything that you need immediately.

It is also possible that you will not be expected to have and to use the Publication Manual at all. If so, my advice is to try nevertheless to write your papers in APA style—apart, of course, from any aspects that you are explicitly instructed to do differently. You should follow some consistent style in anything you write, and for writing in psychology APA sty...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• Preface
• 1 The Importance of Writing
• 2 Some General Advice About How to Write
• 3 Conducting a Literature Search
• 4 Sections of an Empirical Report: Title Page, Abstract, Introduction, and Method
• 5 Sections of an Empirical Report: Results and Discussion
• 6 Research Proposals
• 7 Literature Reviews
• 8 Term Papers and Posters
• 9 Rules of Writing: APA
• 10 Rules of Writing: General
• Appendix: APA Guidelines for Students’ Communication Skills at the Conclusion of the Psychology Major
• References
• Index