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CHAPTER 13: Communication in Psychology 437group did better than another if the difference between the means for thesegroups was not reliable—at least not without some qualification of what youmean by “better.”If appropriate, conclude the Discussion by proposing additional researchthat should be done on the problem you are investigating. Strive to be specificabout what research should be done and why it needs to be done. That is, besure to explain what the new research should reveal that we do not alreadyknow. The reader will not learn much if you say, “It would be interesting to dothis experiment with younger participants.” The reader can learn much moreif you explain how you would expect the results to differ with younger participantsand what you would conclude if the results of the proposed experimentwere to turn out as expected.Tips on Writing the Discussion Section An outline for the Discussion sectionmight be something like this:• A brief review of the problem and your hypotheses (expectations).• A summary of the major results supporting (or not supporting) yourhypothesis.• Comparison with findings from other researchers in this area.• Comments on the limitations of your study (and there are always some!).• Suggestions for future research (be specific!).• Comments on the importance of the findings and, if appropriate,possible practical implications.ReferencesFour types of references typically are found in the majority of research reports:journal articles, books, chapters in edited books, and Internet sources. Table 13.2illustrates how these references would be cited in the References section of amanuscript. The specific formatting rules when reporting these references andmany other types according to APA style are best reviewed by consulting thePublication Manual. The free tutorial found at www.apastyle.org also can helpyou with formatting references.The rapid spread of electronic publishing has led to the need for electronic“identifiers” for information retrieved from the Internet. For example, anyoneusing the Internet will be familiar with URLs (uniform resource locators). Theytypically begin with “http://” and are followed by a host name (often precededby www.), path, and title of document. For example, the URL for a very helpfulonline source to help you find relevant research on psychological topics (“ LibraryResearch in Psychology”) is: http://www.apa.org/education/undergrad/library-research.aspx. Should you cite information retrieved using the Internet, itis important that you provide specific information required to locate the source.A more recent form of electronic identifier is a digital object identifier (DOI).The DOI is an alphanumeric string that identifies the content and electroniclocation of an article or other information source found on the Internet. TheDOI is usually found on the title page of a published article. APA stylistic

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