语言教学|普渡大学写作教学系列Subject-Specific Writing 24-Writing in the SSCI 2

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Subject-Specific Writing 24 -Writing in the Social Science 2

2、Writing in Psychology 

（2）Rhetorical Considerations and Style in Psychology Writing

Knowing who you are writing for, why you are writing, and in what context is key to writing successfully within your psychology courses.

Audience: Your audience is person or group of people you are writing for. In psychology courses, this is often your professor or teaching assistant, although you might also be asked to write for a "general audience of psychologists" or to your classmates. Your instructor may or may not indicate who your audience is for your paper, so it is always good to ask. In articles, it is more complex—a combination of reviewers, journal editors, and readers in your area of interest.

Your audience's expectations about your writing determine:

• Formatting and style

• Tone of the piece

• The amount of technical language or jargon used

• The amount of information you assume the audience already knows

Audience expectations aren't always straightforward. For example, if you are taking a course in psycholinguistics and you are writing a critical review of research on semantic priming, your primary audience for the course is your instructor. While your instructor knows what semantic priming is, you may still be required to define it in your paper so that your instructor knows that you know what it is. Part of the instructor's expectation in this case is that you can clearly define key vocabulary concepts discussed in class in your term paper.

Purpose: While the overall purpose of your term paper or experimental report may be clear (to pass the course, to convey the results of your research) more specific purposes for writing your report are not always so. When you are prewriting and drafting, as yourself not only what your larger purpose is, but also what additional purposes you may have and want to achieve.

Context: The context is the larger writing situation in which you find yourself. Are you writing for a class? Are you writing an internal report to your advisor? Are you writing an article in preparation for submission to a journal? The context in which you are writing is another important factor that helps you determine style, format, and content of your piece.

For more information on audience, purpose, and context see the Rhetorical Situation PowerPoint resource.

Formatting and style in psychology

Your choice of format and style are dependent on the audience, purpose, and context of your piece. Most writing in psychology follows a strict format, developed by the American Psychological Association (APA). Some instructors or journals may have their own style guidelines that deviate from APA to varying degrees. You should always ask for clarification on the correct formatting and style from your instructor, advisor, journal editor or other primary audience member.

As a social science, the style of writing is scientific. A good rule of thumb when writing in psychology is to be clear with your discussion, be concise in your writing, and minimize your use of first-person pronouns ("I think that…", "I believe that…"). See the Purdue OWL handout on Stylistic concerns in APA format for more information.

Learning style in your field can be tricky and requires time and practice. You can benefit from analyzing examples of other pieces of writing from psychology. Look at published articles or ask the instructor for examples of previous papers written for the course.

Prewriting and information collection

Depending on the type of report you are writing, you will go through various stages of prewriting. The following list provides you with some options finding material to write from and beginning to prewrite.

Prewriting note-taking and class notes: Notes from readings, class lectures, conferences and presentations, and other professional activities can help you formulate ideas. You can keep your thoughts, sources, and notes organized in a journal, text document, or on note cards before you write.

• If you are writing a critical review, keep notes on topics of interest and sources that you encounter during your class (and related coursework) that can contribute to your topic.

• If you are writing an experimental report, notes from your previous coursework can help you find sources of information. As you are planning and conducting your research, keep a notebook handy to record your thoughts and ideas.

Creating an annotated bibliography of articles and books: Annotated bibliographies can be excellent ways to summarize and organize sources you are drawing upon when writing critical reviews or experimental reports. Please see our Annotated Bibliographies handout for more information.

Additional Purdue OWL resources you may find helpful in writing for psychology

Avoiding Plagiarism: Plagiarism is a major concern of any discipline. Be sure you are clear on what constitutes plagiarism.

Writing Concisely: A strategy for eliminating wordiness and redundancy in your writing.

Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Summarizing : Assists you in integrating sources into your paper with different techniques and avoiding plagiarism.

Proofreading your writing: Every writer needs to develop good proofreading skills.

（3） Appendices, Footnotes and Endnotes

Appendices: When appendices might be necessary

Appendices allow you to include detailed information in your paper that would be distracting in the main body of the paper. Examples of items you might have in an appendix include mathematical proofs, lists of words, the questionnaire used in the research, a detailed description of an apparatus used in the research, etc.

Format of appendices

Your paper may have more than one appendix. Usually, each distinct item has its own appendix. If your paper only has one appendix, label it "Appendix" (without quotes.) If there is more than one appendix, label them "Appendix A," "Appendix B," etc. (without quotes) in the order that each item appears in the paper. In the main text, you should refer to the Appendices by their labels.

The actual format of the appendix will vary depending on the content; therefore, there is no single format. In general, the content of an appendix should conform to the appropriate APA style rules for formatting text.

Footnotes and Endnotes: When footnotes/endnotes might be necessary

Because APA style uses parenthetical citations, you do not need to use footnotes or endnotes to cite your sources. The only reasons you need to use footnotes are for explanatory (content) notes or copyright permission. Content footnotes contain information that supplements the text, but would be distracting or inappropriate to include in the body of the paper. In other words, content footnotes provide important information that is a tangent to what you are discussing in your paper.

The footnote should only express one idea. If it is longer than a few sentences, then you should consider putting this information in an appendix. Most authors do not use footnotes because they tend to be distracting to the readers. If the information is important, authors find a way to incorporate it into the text itself or put it in an appendix.

If you are including a quote that is longer than 500 words or a table or figure in your paper that was originally published elsewhere, then you need to include a footnote that acknowledges that you have permission from the owner of the copyright to use the material.

See our APA guidelines on Footnotes and Endnotes for more information.

When to use tables

Tables enable you to show your data in an easy to read format. However, you do not need to present all of your data in tabular form. Tables are only necessary for large amounts of data that would be too complicated in the text. If you only need to present a few numbers, you should do so directly in the text, not in a table.

How to use tables

Each table should be identified by a number, in the order that they appear in the text (e.g., Table 1, Table 2, etc.). When using a table, you need to refer to the table in the text (e.g., "As shown in Table 1,…") and point out to the reader what they should be looking for in the table. Do not discuss every piece of data that is in the table or else there is no point in having the table. Only mention the most important pieces of information from the table.

The table should also make sense on its own. Be sure to explain all abbreviations except standard abbreviations such as M, SD, and df. Don’t forget to identify the unit of measurement.

APA style has a specific format for tables. Tables should appear at the end of your paper, after the reference list and before any appendixes. Every table needs a unique title after its label. The title should be brief but clearly explain what is in the table.

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