Guidelines for Authors of Research Proposals, Prospectuses, Theses, and Research Reports

Beginning writers encounter similar problems and make similar errors when preparing manuscripts. Some of these errors are formatting errors. The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (2001) provides detailed answers to formatting questions. Only the most frequent problems with APA style will be addressed here. These guidelines will primarily focus on the conceptual problems beginning writers frequently encounter when they begin to organize and write a technical research-based paper. The simplest structure for an introduction will have three major parts, although these parts are not labeled. The first part frequently consists of a single paragraph in which the general problem to be studied is introduced. The goal in writing this paragraph is to introduce the problem in an interesting and engaging way. This is the paragraph that provides the reader with a reason to continue reading. Som