Students and inexperienced writers often have misconceptions about the writing process and characteristics of good papers that effectively prevent them from writing as good a paper as they possibly could. Here are eight common misconceptions you should be aware of before you even begin writing:

1. Writing the psychology paper is the most routine, least creative aspect of the scientifific enterprise, requiring much time but little imagination.

2. The important thing is what you say, not how you say it.

3. Longer papers are better papers, and more papers are better yet.

4. The main purpose of a psychology paper is the presentation of facts, whether newly established (as in reports of experiments) or well established (as in literature reviews).

5. The distinction between scientifific writing, on the one hand, and advertising or propaganda, on the other hand, is that the purpose of scientifific writing is to inform, whereas the purpose of advertising or propaganda is to persuade.

6. A good way to gain acceptance of your theory is by refuting someone else's theory.

7. Negative results that fail to support the researcher's hypothesis are every bit as valuable as positive results that do support the researcher's hypothesis.

8. The logical development of ideas in a psychology paper reflflects the historical development of ideas in the psychologist's head.

Misconception 1. Writing the psychology paper is the most routine, least creative aspect of the scientific enterprise, requiring much time but little imagination.