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CHAPTER 13: Communication in Psychology 433TABLE 13.1STRUCTURE OF A TYPICAL PARAGRAPH IN THE RESULTS SECTION1. State the purpose of the analysis.2. Identify the descriptive statistic to be used to summarize results.3. Present a summary of this descriptive statistic across conditions in the text itself, in a table, orin a figure.4. If a table or figure is used, point out the major findings on which the reader should focus.5. Present the reasons for, and the results of, confidence intervals, effect sizes, and inferentialstatistical tests.6. State the conclusion that follows from each test, but do not discuss implications. These belongin the Discussion section.Sample paragraphTo examine retention as a function of instructions given at the time of study, the number ofwords recalled by each participant in each instruction condition was determined. Words werescored as correct only if they matched a word that had appeared on the target list. Misspelledwords were accepted if the spelling was similar to a target item. Mean numbers of words recalled(with the corresponding standard deviations) were: 15.6 (1.44), 15.2 (1.15), and 10.1 (1.00)in the bizarre imagery condition, the standard imagery condition, and the control condition,respectively. The 95% CIs were: bizarre imagery [13.18, 18.02], standard imagery [12.78, 17.62],control [7.68, 12.52]. Overall, the mean differences were statistically significant, F(2, 72) 162.84,p .001, MSE 1.47, 2 .82. Comparisons of the confidence intervals revealed that both ofthe imagery conditions differed from the control condition, but that the two imagery conditionsdid not differ. In conclusion, retention by participants instructed to use imagery was higher thanthat by participants given no specific study instructions, but retention did not differ for the twotypes of imagery instructions.Tips on Writing a Good Results Section We suggest you follow these stepswhen writing your Results section.• Step 1. A Results section paragraph begins by stating the purpose of theanalysis. The reason(s) for doing an analysis should be stated succinctly;often, no more than a phrase is necessary. In the sample paragraph,for example, the purpose of the analysis is “to examine retention as afunction of the instructions given at the time of study.”• Step 2. The second step in writing a Results section paragraph is to identifythe descriptive statistic (e.g., mean, median, total frequency) that willbe used to summarize the results for a given dependent variable. Forexample, in the sample paragraph the researchers used mean numbers ofwords recalled when summarizing results.• Step 3. The third step is to present a summary of this descriptive statisticacross conditions. Measures of central tendency should be accompaniedby corresponding measures of variability such as reporting a standarddeviation along with each mean. A measure of effect size is also stronglyrecommended. If there are only two or three conditions in your experiment,this summary can be presented in the text itself. If you have moredata to summarize, you will need to present your findings in either atable or a figure (graph). We will describe the procedures for constructingtables and figures later in this section.