Most students of psychology receive little or no formal training in how to write psychology papers. Nor do they learn how to write grant and contract proposals, book proposals, or talks and lectures. Many people believe that students receive sufficient training in writing through informal channels and thus will acquire the necessary skills on their own. The conventional psychology curriculum provides evidence that this belief is widespread. Whereas almost all psychology departments offer courses in how to design experiments and analyze experimental results, or in how to write proposals or lectures, very few departments offer courses in how to report experiments. Although some departments may include these topics as parts of other courses, even this modest amount of training appears to be rare.

Do students learn the writing techniques for psychology on their own? My experience reading psychology papers suggests that they do not. Moreover, this experience is shared by other psychology professors, and by professors in other disciplines as well. Indeed, many professors themselves have never learned to write as well as they would have liked.

The purpose of this book is to provide the basic information that students and professionals alike need to write in psychology. This information is contained in 16 chapters. Although the intent is that you read the chapters in the order in which they are presented, they are for the most part self-contained and hence can be read in almost any sequence.