The following tips will help you organize your research and improve your writing. While a research paper can initially be very intimidating, it is not quite as scary if you break it down into more manageable steps.
Original Research or Lab Report
The first type is a report or empirical paper that details your own research that you conducted. This is the type of paper you would write if your instructor had you perform your own psychology experiment. This type of paper would follow the basic format similar to an APA format lab report and would include a title page, abstract, introduction, method section, results section, discussion section, and references.
Literature Review
The second type of paper is a literature review that summarizes the research conducted by other people on a particular topic. If you are writing a psychology research paper in this form, your instructor might specify the number of studies that you need to cite as well as the length. Student literature reviews are often required to cite between 5 and 20 studies and are usually between 8 and 20 pages in length. The format and sections of a literature review usually include an introduction, body, and discussion/implications/conclusions. Literature reviews often begin by introducing the research question before narrowing the focus down to the specific studies of interest in the paper. You should then described each study in considerable detail. You should also evaluate and compare the studies that you cite and then offer your discussion of the implications of the findings. As you are selecting your topic, try to avoid general or overly broad issues. For example, instead of writing a research paper on the general subject of attachment, you might instead focus your research on how insecure attachment styles in early childhood impact romantic attachments later in life. Narrowing your topic down allows you to focus your research, develop your thesis, and fully explore the pertinent findings. So as you do your research, make careful notes about each reference including the article title, authors, journal source, and what the article was about. By lining out what you are going to write about right off the bat, you will be better able to see how one idea flows into the next and how your research supports your overall hypothesis. Start by noting the three most fundamental sections: the introduction, the body, and the conclusion. Then, start creating subsections based on your literature review. The more detailed your outline, the easier it will be to write your paper.
A Word From Verywell
Writing a psychology research paper can be intimidating at first, but breaking the process up into a series of smaller steps makes it much more manageable. Just be sure to start early by deciding on a substantial topic, doing your research, and creating a good outline. Doing these supporting steps will make it much easier to write your paper when the time comes.
