Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 Eight Common Misconceptions About Psychology Papers
- 2 How to Generate, Evaluate, and Sell Your Ideas for Research and Papers
- 3 Literature Research
- 4 Writing a Literature Review
- 5 Planning and Writing the Experimental Research Paper
- 6 A Word About Content, Language, and Style
- 7 Commonly Misused Words
- 8 American Psychological Association Guidelines for Psychology Papers
- 9 Guidelines for Data Presentation
- 10 What Makes a Good Paper Great? Standards for Evaluating Psychology Papers
- 11 Ethics in Research and Writing
- 12 Submitting a Paper to a Journal
- 13 How to Make Your Paper Even Better: Proofreading, Revising, and Editing
- 14 Writing a Grant or Contract Proposal
- 15 How to Find a Book Publisher
- 16 Writing a Lecture
- 17 Article Writing 101
- References
- Appendix: Sample Psychology Paper
- Index
9 - Guidelines for Data Presentation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 Eight Common Misconceptions About Psychology Papers
- 2 How to Generate, Evaluate, and Sell Your Ideas for Research and Papers
- 3 Literature Research
- 4 Writing a Literature Review
- 5 Planning and Writing the Experimental Research Paper
- 6 A Word About Content, Language, and Style
- 7 Commonly Misused Words
- 8 American Psychological Association Guidelines for Psychology Papers
- 9 Guidelines for Data Presentation
- 10 What Makes a Good Paper Great? Standards for Evaluating Psychology Papers
- 11 Ethics in Research and Writing
- 12 Submitting a Paper to a Journal
- 13 How to Make Your Paper Even Better: Proofreading, Revising, and Editing
- 14 Writing a Grant or Contract Proposal
- 15 How to Find a Book Publisher
- 16 Writing a Lecture
- 17 Article Writing 101
- References
- Appendix: Sample Psychology Paper
- Index
Summary
The goal of this chapter is to help you understand how optimally to present data. The chapter draws heavily on three sources to which we refer readers for more details. For the presentation of data in the form of tables, Andrew Ehrenberg's Data Reduction and A Primer in Data Reduction (1978, 1982) contain much good sound advice. For the use of figures, William Cleveland's The Elements of Graphing Data (1994) is a style guide that is required reading for anyone considering using a graph, from the most junior undergraduate to the most experienced researcher. Good advice is also available in the works of Tufte (2001) and Wainer (1984) as well as in the sixth edition of the APA Manual (American Psychological Association, 2009).
Tables and figures allow large amounts of material to be presented concisely. Well presented, they often enable readers to understand at a glance patterns of data and exceptions that would be obscured if presented in the text. Tables and figures are more expensive for journals to produce than text, however, so if you plan to submit a paper for publication, you should present in this form only your most important sets of data. Do not duplicate data from one table or figure to another unless it is essential for comprehension. Extensive sets of data should be reported in appendices rather than in the body of the paper, or should be made available online with an appropriate note in the paper indicating the Web address at which the data can be obtained.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Psychologist's CompanionA Guide to Writing Scientific Papers for Students and Researchers, pp. 193 - 216Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010