Writing A Psychology Paper

The articles may provide information that supports, expands, or refutes the ideas you are developing for your paper.Some journals specify the abstract follow a modified "IMRD" format, with subheadings similar to "objective" -- "method" -- "results" -- "conclusion".Some even go so far to have a second abstract-like text that provides a genuine overview of article.Start with the Ideas in Your Proposal In the proposal you wrote for the project should be (1) the main question or issue that you are exploring in your project, (2) two or three sub-questions or sub-issues related to the main one.These questions/issues can serve as a the beginnings of a very simple outline for your paper.Instead, the best titles solve the reader's problem of deciding whether to read the abstract/article by including the most important information up front. For the most part, it is the OUTCOME of the research -- that is, the most important result.The most successful titles from the reader's point of view make explicit assertions about the outcome -- acceptable titles often signal only the topic and leave the reader wondering what happened and whether it is worth reading further.The three titles below are ranked from least to most successful.The first is merely topical -- this was particularly disappointing given the very interesting outcome of the study!Like the spec sheet on a new piece of technology, the reader expects the abstract to provide enough information for intelligent decision-making.To this end, journals now allow (or even demand) longer abstracts -- though a few still adhere to the 120 words or less rule.