A Heuristic for Writing in Psychology
Writing in psychology is characterized by a scientific style of technicality similar to writing in the “hard” or physical sciences. This means that writing is formalized, distant from engaging the audience in a persuasive, captivating way and more aligned with a collective, standardized way of presenting scientific information. Psychology however, is unique in that it is both a “hard” and a “soft” science, because of the breadth of topics covered under this discipline, technical writing can range from being an easily apprehended read to hyper-specific academic jargon filled writing only science heads are likely to understand. For example, the effect of tau protein bundles in the brains of patients who have …show more content…
One of the most major writing forms in psychology is the experimental report, consisting of a title, abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion and references section. Another form of popular writing in psychology is through trade publications, this writing is still characterized by conciseness and clarity in language however, it lacks the elements which make up a lab report. For the purposes of this paper, the scientific journal article written by Pfeifer et al titled “The Culture Of Mentoring: Ethnocultural Empathy And Ethnic Identity In Mentoring For Minority Girls” from the Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology journal and an APA website featured article by Greer titled “New Mentoring-Intensive Program Fosters Minority-Focused Research” will be the objects of an analysis into the nuances of writing in the discipline. The journal article has a relatively high impact factor for its subfield (5-year, 2.562) and the trade publication is from the leading and largest publisher in psychological science (APA). These two types of writing will be examined to support the noted purposes of psychology and to further provide reasoning for how psychology writing is …show more content…
As a result of drawing from multiple sources of credible evidence, authors by effect stay steadfast to a systematic style of writing, clearly, concisely and in plain language so as to not derange important amounts of scientific knowledge to their audience. That being said, use of generating and citing evidence is at the core of shaping writing style in this discipline. Different from writing in the humanities, psychologists do not use personal examples, narratives or opinions in any major form of contributive writing. In the experimental report written by Pfeir et al, one would expect an introduction to include explanation of personal motive answering why the researcher/s have interest in contributing to psychological research on young adolescent minorities, however, this is not the case. The closest rationale the reader receives is “Experts have underscored a need for more research investigation if and how mentoring relationships impact young people's sense of themselves as cultural beings (Spencer & Rhodes, 2005)" (Pfeifer et al, 2016). By reading this line, the reader can assume this void in the research matters to the authors significantly, in a way that drove them to conduct a study in this realm, moreover their personal opinion is in effect