USING APA STYLE
Slides 1-8 of following presentation are adapted from The Little, Brown Handbook, Ninth Ed.
Research Report with Survey
The APA manual specifies the following
outline for the text of a research report:
1. Abstract
2. Introduction
3. Method
4. Results
5. Discussion
Research Report with Survey
1. Abstract: a summary (about
100 words) of the subject, the
research method, the findings,
and the conclusions.
2. Introduction: a presentation
of the problem researched, the
research method used, the
background (other studies),
and the hypothesis tested.
Research Report with Survey
3. Methods: a detailed
discussion of how the research
was conducted, including a
description of the research
subjects, any materials or tools
used (such as surveys or
questionnaires), and the
procedure followed.
Research Report with Survey
4. Results: a summary of the
data collected and how they
were statistically analyzed,
along with a detailed
presentation of the data, often
in tables, graphs, or charts.
Research Report with Survey
5. Discussion: an interpretation
of the data and presentation
of conclusions, related to the
original hypothesis. (When the
discussion is brief, it may be
combined with the previous
section under the heading
“Results and Discussion.”)
Research Report with Survey
Conducting a Survey
1. Think about why you are interested
in a topic. Decide what you want to find
out—what your hypothesis is. What
questions will you ask? What’s your
purpose?
2. Define your population. Who is your
hypothesis about? Women who smoke?
Ten-year-old children? Plan to sample
enough of this population so that your
findings will be representative.
Research Report with Survey
Conducting a Survey
3. Write your questions.
a) Closed Questions direct the respondent’s
answers: checklists, multiple-choice,
true/false, or yes/no.
b) Open-ended questions allow brief,
descriptive answers. How will you
interpret these?
AVOID LOADED QUESTIONS that reveal your
own biases or that make assumptions:
Should we stop murdering civilians in war?
How much more money does your father make
than your mother?
Research Report with Survey
Conducting a Survey
4. Test your questions. Use a few
respondents and discuss the clarity, comfortlevel, and answerability of the questions with
them.
5. Tally the results. Count the actual
numbers of answers. Include the nonanswers.
6. Look for patterns that emerge from
the data. Do the patterns confirm your
hypothesis? Contradict it? Revise your
hypothesis or conduct more research if
necessary.
Research Report with Survey: Format
Title page: includes a
running head for
publication, title, and
byline and affiliation.
Page numbers and
running head: in the
upper right-hand
corner of each page,
include a 1-2 word
version of your title.
Follow with five
spaces and then the
page number.
From The OWL at Purdue Website
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/
How Not to Plagiarize
• Can't I avoid problems just by listing every source in the bibliography?
• If I put the ideas into my own words, do I still have to clog up my pages
with all those names and numbers?
• But I didn't know anything about the subject until I started this paper.
Do I have to give an acknowledgement for every point I make?
• How can I tell what's my own idea and what has come from somebody
else?
• So what exactly do I have to document?
Quotations, paraphrases, or summaries:
e.g. As Morris puts it in The Human Zoo (1983), "we can
always be sure
that today's daring innovation will be tomorrow's
respectability" (p. 189).
Specific facts used as evidence for your argument or
interpretation:
e.g. Other recent researchers (Monroe, 2006) confirm the findings
that
drug treatment has little effect in the treatment of pancreatic
pseudocysts.
Distinctive or authoritative ideas, whether you agree with
Research Report with Survey
Writing a Summary
The following materials were prepared and written by Jerry Plotnick, Director, University
College Writing Workshop, University of Toronto.
The cause of autism has also been a matter of dispute. Its incidence
is about one in a thousand, and it occurs throughout the world, its
features remarkably consistent even in extremely different cultures.
It is often not recognized in the first year of life, but tends to become
obvious in the second or third year. Though Asperger regarded it as
a biological defect of affective contact—innate, inborn, analogous to
a physical or intellectual defect—Kanner tended to view it as a
psychogenic disorder, a reflection of bad parenting, and most
especially of a chillingly remote, often professional, "refrigerator
mother." At this time, autism was often regarded as "defensive" in
nature, or confused with childhood schizophrenia. A whole
generation of parents—mothers, particularly—were made to feel
guilty for the autism of their children. Excerpted from Oliver Sacks’
essay “An Anthropologist on Mars”
Research Report with Survey
In-Text Citations for a Summary
In “An Anthropologist on Mars,” Sacks notes
that although there is little disagreement on
the chief characteristics of autism, researches
have differed considerably on its causes. As
he points out, Asperger saw the condition as
an innate defect in the child’s ability to
connect with the external world, whereas
Kanner regarded it as a consequence of
harmful childrearing practices (247-48).