First APA Format Research Reports: Common Problems General Formatting Issues – Double spacing only - no extra lines – Five spaces between short title and page number – Use header to create short title and page number

General Writing Problems – Excessive wordiness – Informal wording - “we wanted to see if” – Meta-comments about the group – Direct quoting when not needed

Abstract – State the conclusion (about the hypothesis) Introduction – Heading is the full title from the title page – Explain the logic for the hypothesis – Avoid statements about causality

Method – Stay in past tense – Focus on important points for replication, not the history of your group

Results – Explain scoring of variables in an understandable way – Refer to tables and/or figures

Discussion – Explain the particular statistical results you are discussing – Use correct terminology when discussing limitations (e.g., confounding vs. extraneous variable) – Think about limitations and describe them specifically – Make specific suggestions

References – Capitalization rules for article titles – Use of italics – Punctuation Tables – Correct formatting for heading – Refer to as Table 1, Table 2, etc

Figures – No short title/page number – Label for y-axis – Nothing extra with the graph