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How to Write Your Research Report

Glen R. J. Mules

Adjunct Professor, Iona College, New Rochelle, NY Lecturer, San José State University, San Jose, CA

Author Note

This Report is written in APA 7th ed. Style and is intended to illustrate to my students how to write the actual Research Report. It does not, however, at this time get into heavy detail on how to do the actual research (searching / finding appropriate documents, reading, evaluating, and deciding on what to write.

Version 1, Last updated on Thursday, April 2, 2020

Abstract

[The abstract should be one paragraph of between 150 and 250 words. It is not indented. Section titles, such as the word Abstract above, are not considered headings so they don’t use bold heading format. Instead, use the Section Title style. This style automatically starts your section on a new page, so you don’t have to add page breaks. Note that all of the styles for this template are available on the Home tab of the ribbon, in the Styles gallery.]

Keywords: APA 7th ed., APA 6th ed., APA Style, Citations, References.

How to Write Your Research Report

Why Do I Need to Write in a Formal Style?

Overview

This course as part of the better prepare students for writing skills that will transfer readily to their advanced professional needs, both academic and corporate. We examine different technical writing demands and research techniques, learning to always focus on purpose, scope, and audience. Research methodologies that are needed for your Research Paper / Project / Thesis writing and academic problem solving are generally part of any course, including this. Plagiarism and copyright issues are addressed in detail, with practice in proper documentation, using the format for citations and references required in both undergraduate and graduate work. The research and writing for this class does not have to be directly applied to your project/thesis, but you will want to discuss the long-term plan of your project/thesis with your graduate advisor.

You should note that some of the references in the text of this paper are intended to illustrate requirements and are not

Plagiarism

What is Plagiarism? Plagiarism is using others’ ideas and words without clearly acknowledging the source of that information. Sometimes it is tempting to copy other people’s ideas from the Internet, textbooks, magazines, lectures, or even from other student papers, incorporating them into our own writing. As a result, it is very important that we give credit. If we don’t give credit, we are taking these words and passing them off as our own. This is plagiarism, which comes from a Latin word meaning a kidnapper or thief.

How Can You Avoid Plagiarism? To avoid plagiarism, you must always give credit whenever you:

Use someone else’s direct words (use quotation marks around exact words that you are quoting—and give source at end of quotation marks): “For SJSU students to thrive in the highly competitive global economy, it is critical to develop international perspectives and knowledge” (Wei, 2009). The full reference will be in the back of the report, using APA format.

Use someone else’s ideas, in your words, that are not common knowledge: Calypto Design Systems Inc. recently announced PowerPro that automatically adds clock-gating logic to RTL code (San Jose Mercury News, 2009). [Note this is not the exact words, so there are no quotation marks.] The full reference woud be in the back of the report, using APA 6 format.

Use specific statistics, graphs, drawings, that are not yours: “SJSU’s engineering program is ranked among the top 20 engineering programs for master’s-level institutions in the most recent edition of America’s Best Colleges 2008” (U.S. News & World Report, 2008).

Self-work: One should cite his or her own (or co-authored) work. If your company has copyrighted work that you or your team have written as part of your job, or you share a patent, or have previously published material that you have written, credit must be still given. There are times permission from the company must also be given. Please check with both your company and your instructor.

Policies of Academic Integrity

Statements of the need for Academic Integrity are including in University/College Syllabus for all courses, both undergraduate and graduate. Academic integrity is an essential attribute of all University/College work and all Scientific Study no matter where undertaken. Your own commitment to learning, as evidenced by your enrollment and your institution’s Academic Integrity Policy requires you to be honest in all your academic course work. Faculty members are required to report all infractions.

Why Use APA?

Aside from simplifying the work of editors by having everyone use the same format for a given publication, using APA Style makes it easier for readers to understand a text by providing a familiar structure they can follow. Abiding by APA's standards as a writer will allow you to:

Provide readers with cues they can use to follow your ideas more efficiently and to locate information of interest to them

Allow readers to focus more on your ideas by not distracting them with unfamiliar formatting

Establish your credibility or ethos in the field by demonstrating an awareness of your audience and their needs as fellow researchers

APA Style provides a foundation for effective scholarly communication because it helps writers present their ideas in a clear, precise, and inclusive manner.

The following paragraphs are taken from a section on the APA website titled APA Style.

Where Did APA Style Come From?

APA Style originated in 1929, when a group of psychologists, anthropologists, and business managers convened and sought to establish a simple set of procedures, or style guidelines, that would codify the many components of scientific writing to increase the ease of reading comprehension. They published their guidelines as a seven-page article in Psychological Bulletin describing a “standard of procedure, to which exceptions would doubtless be necessary, but to which reference might be made in cases of doubt” (Bentley et al., 1929, p. 57).

Since then, the scope and length of the Publication Manual have grown in response to the needs of researchers, students, and educators across the social and behavioral sciences, health care, natural sciences, humanities, and more; however, the spirit of the original authors’ intentions remains.

Why Is APA Style Needed?

Uniformity and consistency enable readers to (a) focus on the ideas being presented rather than formatting and (b) scan works quickly for key points, findings, and sources.

Style guidelines encourage authors to fully disclose essential information and allow readers to dispense with minor distractions, such as inconsistencies or omissions in punctuation, capitalization, reference citations, and presentation of statistics.

When style works best, ideas flow logically, sources are credited appropriately, and papers are organized predictably and consistently. People are described using language that affirms their worth and dignity. Authors plan for ethical compliance and report critical details of their research protocol to allow readers to evaluate findings and other researchers to potentially replicate the studies. Tables and figures present data in an engaging, consistent manner.

Whether you use APA Style for a single class or throughout your career, we encourage you to recognize the benefits of a conscientious approach to writing.

Although the guidelines span many areas and take time and practice to learn, we hope that they provide a balance of directiveness and flexibility and will eventually become second nature.

Does APA Style Cover Everything About Writing?

APA Style covers the aspects of scholarly writing most pertinent to writing in psychology, nursing, business, communications, engineering, and related fields. It specifically addresses the preparation of draft manuscripts being submitted for publication in a journal and the preparation of student paper being submitted for a course assignment.

The Publication Manual does not cover general rules explained in widely available style books and examples of usage with little relevance to the behavioral and social sciences. Among the most helpful general guides to editorial style are Words Into Type (Skillin & Gay, 1974) and the Chicago Manual of Style (17th ed.; University of Chicago Press, 2017).

Style manuals agree more often than they disagree. Where they disagree, the Publication Manual, because it is based on the special requirements of psychology, takes precedence for APA publications.

APA 6th Edition Citation Style

The American Psychological Association (APA) provides the official style manual of choice for writers, researchers, editors, students, and educators in the social and behavioral sciences, natural sciences, nursing, communications, education, business, engineering, and other fields. A new edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association was released in October 2019. The APA 6th edition will continue until February 2020, when the new APA 7th edition Guide and Resources will be available, but it is expected that for most writers the differences will be minimal.

The APA 7th edition (2019) provides citation guidelines and sample references for more than 140 sample references, including traditional sources (e.g., journal articles, books, dissertations, and reports) plus many others (e.g., social media, webpages and websites, legal) – an increase from the 96 sample reference styles in the APA 6th edition (2009). The 7th edition has been expanded to include general guidelines for reducing bias and specific guidelines for writing about age, disability, gender, participation in research, racial and ethnic identity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and intersectionality, as well as guidelines that support accessibility for all users, including simplified reference, in-text citation, and heading formats as well as additional font options. A chapter on journal article reporting standards includes updates to reporting standards for quantitative research and the first-ever qualitative and mixed methods reporting standards in APA Style. Guidelines are presented in detailed tables that were previously relegated to tables in an Appendix.

Examples of Citation Types (APA 6th & 7th editions)

There are many examples available for referencing publications of the various types available and supported. The following are some of the locations that provide the correct manner for references and in-text citation and worked-out examples that can be imitated for style:

Purdue Online Writing Lab, College of Liberal Arts, Purdue University at https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_style_introduction.html

APA 6th Edition Citation Style (American University of Sharjah) at https://aus.libguides.com/apa as part of the LibGuides Community at https://community.libguides.com

Santa Fe College, Lawrence W. Tyree Library, APA (7th edition) Citation Guide, at https://sfcollege.libguides.com/apa7/components

APA Citation Style (WordPress) at https://librarypolipd.files.wordpress.com/2019/07/apa-citation_pdf.pdf

For each type of publication (book, journal article, web page, …) there is a specific APA citation style. Thus, for example, a basic reference list entry for a book (print version) in APA must include:

Author or authors. ...

Year of publication of the book (in round brackets).

Book title (in italics).

Edition (in round brackets), if other than first edition.

Place of publication.

Publisher.

The first line of each citation is left adjusted.

And, naturally, different styles for references and for in-line citation for the other types of publication (140+ types for APA 7th ed. and about 96 types for APA 6th ed.).

A good starting spot for someone not already familiar with APA style is the Library Guides: APA Referencing: Getting started in APA Referencing on the website of Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia, but based on APA 6th ed., at http://libraryguides.vu.edu.au/apa-referencing/getting-started-in-apa-referencing. The major changes occasioned by going from APA 6th ed. to APA 7th edition styling are noted in a webpage by Streefker (2019) and the changes are outlined with an online video and examples.

Missing Reference Information

Sometimes some of the information needed to create a reference list entry is missing or unknown. When this is the case, there are various strategies to adapt the reference.

The APA website, in a section entitled APA Style. Missing Reference Information, provides a simplified, tabular list of the common occasions where you might reference a published work where information is missing and it shows how to adapt for the missing information, along with the corresponding in-text citations. This webpage also refers the read to a number of reference examples and Chapters 9 and 10 of the APA Publication Manual 7th ed (2019) for specific details for the type of work being cited.

Punctuation Used in Written Reports

Where does sentence punctuation go in regular paragraphs in your report. This is a typographic issue:  when you have a quote that ends a sentence, the American practice is to include the period inside the quote. Thus, instead of writing,

Godsey (2017) makes note of two dangerous pitfalls in which one can expect from the capabilities of data, these being “expecting the data to be able to answer a question it can’t”, and “asking questions of the data that don’t solve the original problem”.

The APA style wants you to place your punctuation like this:

Godsey (2017) makes note of two dangerous pitfalls in which one can expect from the capabilities of data, these being “expecting the data to be able to answer a question it can’t,” and “asking questions of the data that don’t solve the original problem.”

This show that lower and small punctuation goes inside the quotes themselves. Yes, this does not make logic sense, but it is visually more pleasing.  The British and Australian way of writing does it the way that you did,  In America, the visual rule is applied: small punctuation (“.”, “,”) goes inside the quote, but large punctuation (“:”, “;”, “!”, “?”. Etc.) goes outside. This will save you some corrections when you are writing professionally in America.  Have a look the rules in the APA style provided at: 

· Punctuation Around Quotation Marks https://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2011/08/punctuating-around-quotation-marks.html

· Punctuation Junction: Periods and Parentheses https://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2013/03/punctuation-junction-periods-and-parentheses.html

These blog entries take a brief look at the two punctuation systems that may have encountered — called American style (or North American Style) and British style (also used in Australia and other parts of the former British Empire). The first of these blog entries adds the following comments:

As a final note, we’d like to say that we realize APA Style is used in many places across the world that may not usually follow American style punctuation rules and that not all fields or publishers in the United States and Canada use American style punctuation. Does this mean that you should change to American style punctuation when you’re writing an APA Style paper? If you’re writing for publication with APA or you’ve been told to “follow the APA Publication Manual,” then the answer is yes. However, if you typically use British style punctuation (or some other style) and you have doubts about what to do, check with your publisher or professor to find out their preference.

And, incidentally, block quotes, such as the one immediately above, also have rules:

· Indent the block quote five spaces or half an inch.

· Do not use quotation marks.

· Double space the quote unless your school has a rule about single spacing block quotes.

· Do not include any additional lines or spaces before or after the block quote.

· Notice that in block quotes, the period goes before the parentheses, not after.

Sample Papers

The APA provides several sample papers formatted in Seventh Edition APA style. They are included here for your convenience from the APA Style section of the APA website at https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/paper-format/sample-papers

The following two sample papers were published in annotated format in the Publication Manual and are provided here for your ease of reference. The annotations draw attention to relevant content and formatting and provide users with the relevant sections of the Publication Manual (7th ed.) to consult for more information.

Annotated Student Sample Paper (PDF, 2MB)

Annotated Professional Sample Paper (PDF, 3MB)

The same APA website location also offer these sample papers in Microsoft Word (.docx) file format without the annotations.

Student Sample Paper (DOCX, 38KB )

Professional Sample Paper (DOCX, 96KB)

Sample Papers in Real Life

Although published articles differ in format from manuscripts submitted for publication or student papers (e.g., different line spacing, font, margins, and column format), articles published in APA journals provide excellent demonstrations of APA Style in action.

APA journals will begin publishing papers in seventh edition APA Style in 2020. The transition to seventh edition style will occur over time and on a journal-by-journal basis until all APA journals use the new style. Professional authors should check the author submission guidelines for the journal to which they want to submit their paper to determine the appropriate style to follow.

More Sample Papers Coming Soon

More sample papers will be available on the APA Style website in the spring of 2020. We have plans for sample quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research papers; literature reviews; and more!

References American Psychological Association. (2009). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). American Psychological Association. Cf: VandenBos (2010). American Psychological Association. (2019). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. American Psychological Association (2019). APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/about-apa-style American Psychological Association (2019). APA Style. Missing Reference Information. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/missing-information American Psychological Association (2019). Style and Grammar Guidelines. Retrieved from APA website: https://apastyle.apa.org/about-apa-style Bentley, M., Peerenboom, C. A., Hodge, F. W., Passano, E. B., Warren, H. C., & Washburn, M. F. (1929). Instructions in regard to preparation of manuscript. Psychological Bulletin, 26(2), 57–63. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0071487 Godsey, B. (2017). Think like a Data Scientist: Tackle the data science process step-by-step. Manning. Perdue University Online Writing Lab (n.d.). Retrieved from https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_style_introduction.html San José State University (n.d.), “Citing and Writing Help,” retrieved from https://libguides.sjsu.edu/writeandcite Skillin, M. E., & Gay, R. M. (1974). Words into type (3rd ed. rev.). Prentice Hall. Streefkerk, R. (2019). APA Manual 7th edition: The most notable changes. Scribbr. https://www.scribbr.com/apa-style/apa-seventh-edition-changes/ University of Chicago Press. (2017). Chicago manual of style (17th ed.). VandenBos, G. R. (Ed). (2010). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Victoria University (n.d.). Library Guides: APA Referencing: Getting started in APA Referencing on the website of Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia. Retrieved from the Victoria University website: http://libraryguides.vu.edu.au/apa-referencing/getting-started-in-apa-referencing

Appendix A: Common Errors in Formatting Research Papers

This appendix is intended to list the most common formatting errors found in Research Papers turned in to this Instructor. This list is expected to grow over time as new ways for misformatting are discovered (students are inventive, but badly). Please use the following numbered checklist to see if you have made any of these formatting errors:

1. Not using MS Word Style Capabilities. Microsoft Word has very sophisticated style capabilities. In any document that you are working on, use the little marker that you find on the Home tab in the section Styles to open up the Styles Window. You can change the style of a paragraph by first clicking on the paragraph, then selecting the appropriate style in this Styles Window.

The marker looks like this and you can find it here:

Headings that appear on the very bottom of a page. Headings, by definition, should head up the paragraph that follows. If you use the provided APA template, you will not have this problem as Heading 1 & Heading 2 have the “keep with next” option set.

Solution #1: Search for Extra MS Word Templates by doing a Google Search (microsoft word apa 6th template download) to find the page https://templates.office.com/en-us/apa-style-report-6th-edition-tm03982351 Download the .dotx (MS Word Document Template) file and use it. When you save the file, give it a name and note that the saved file will have a .docx suffix Not that at the bottom of the page you will find a number of other useful templates.

Solution #2 (manual): Right-click on the heading paragraph, select Paragraph, then Line and Page Breaks and check the boxes Keep with next and Keep lines together.

Paragraphs are too long and contain a variety of different thoughts. The purpose of a paragraph is to express a speaker's thoughts on a particular point in a clear way that is unique and specific to that paragraph. In other words, paragraphs shouldn't be mixing thoughts or ideas. When a new idea is introduced, generally, a writer will introduce a new paragraph.

To help you, read https://writingexplained.org/grammar-dictionary/paragraph

Not following APA styles. If you use the provided MS Word APA Template (.dotx) file properly you will have no problems and need read this item no furter. If you do manual formatting (please learn to use MS Word styles!), the common mistakes when formatting APA documents are:

All spacing is double – and no additional blank lines anywhere

Normal paragraphs are indented one half-inch (tab, not spaces)

References are outdented (aka hanging) and the body of the paragraph is indented one half-inch.

Distinguish between a hyphen and an em-dash.

This is a hyphen (used to hyphenate words): -

This is an em-dash (used for parenthetical comments): — (Insert > Symbol > More Symbols > Special Characters > em-dash), but if you can’t find that, use dash-dash (a pair of dashes).

TBD

Appendix B: Notes for Students Whose Primary Language is Other-Than-English