How to Write Your Capstone Research Report in APA Style:
Give It A Title, and Change the Title as Often as Daily in Order to Refine It
Your Name(s) Goes Here
LaGuardia Community College
Abstract
Since it is a summary of the whole paper, the Abstract is the last part of the paper that you write. The abstract begins with the title Abstract, centered. The abstract is the only paragraph in a research report that is not indented. It is a whole summary of your paper, even though it is short. It includes an overall summary of your paper, project methods in brief, results in brief, and a statement of conclusion. Use Times New Roman 12 pt. Font, with 1 inch margins all around for your whole paper. Notice, too that the Running head appears on all pages because it is in the header with the page number. Double click the header to change the word CAPSTONE to be a FULLY CAPITALIZED ABBREVIATION of your title, about three words.
How to Write Your Capstone Research Report in APA Style:
Give It A Title, and Change the Title as Often as Daily in Order to Refine It
This is the introduction. It starts on page 3. Notice that the introduction is not titled with the word Introduction, but rather with the title of the paper again, exactly as it appears on the title page. And since you may change your title many times in writing the paper, you can really save this format detail for last— to make sure the title is the same in both places. Notice there is no bold or italics, just centering involved in the title page and the title as it appears here. The introduction begins with an introductory paragraph where you state the overall topic and project. Often the first paragraph includes a “hook” or anecdote to capture your readers’ interest. Many times this is a paragraph that emerges later in the writing process, so listen for it in your own voice.
Be sure when using this as a template to remove my words and references, and apply your own. This sample is based on the APA jigsaw exercise we did, where we folded a piece of paper in four quadrants and wrote in clockwork (clockwise) around it, the pieces: 1, 2, 3, ad 4: Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion. If you scroll quickly through this paper, you will see these subtitles always centered, with no added bold or italics. Do that now. Really. Why not? Are you afraid to lose your place. Notice that you are almost to page 4. You are at the end of page 3. Just remember that and come back after you scroll down the paper and take in the whole. See the forest before we go further into the trees of it.
The introduction of a research report is like a research paper in that it may include a literature review of secondary sources, reviewing relevant ideas. This means that each paragraph following the first explains how a researcher or theorist or secondary source speaks to the issues you are presenting. For example, you might say: According to Lastname (2012), and so on. Every source in your paper must be included on your References page at the end of the paper as well, where all the sources used are listed in alphabetical order by last name of the first author.
You can paraphrase other authors, in which case the in text citation includes the author’s name and the date of publication. You can also quote a source directly, using quotation marks, in which case the in text citation includes the author’s name, the date of publication, and the page number. If you want to make a block quote, which is more than three lines long, then you can do this. You can say according to Lastname (2012),
This is my quote, which is a block quote. This means I do not use quotation marks. Instead, I block the whole text and indent it as a rectangle. The way you do it is you select it and then hit the Increase Indent icon at the top. Also, you make the block quote single spaced, without any paragraph indentation. Also, you need to provide the page number as well as the in text citation information (p. 23).
Whenever you quote, be sure to add your own words before and after the quote to explain why you are using the quote or what it means. Do not let a quote speak for you or instead of you.
You will have a few paragraphs summarizing your sources’ perspectives on the topics you are raising. You can also break your literature review into sections focused on different issues, by using italicized subheadings, if you find that easier than making textual transitions. This gives you a mechanism by which to jump across a few different topics.
You can include chapters from the NOBA text, other theorists you have learned about from each other, other ideas, other chapters, news articles… You could make subheadings for different sections or weave it all together as one. For instance, you might discuss Cultural Norms and how they are challenged and reformed in times of change (like mask-wearing), referring to the NOBA chapter on Culture (Biswas-Diener & Thin, 2020) and also the one on Conformity and Obedience (Burger, 2020). You might discuss the challenges to relationships and well being the Biochemistry of Love chapter (Carter & Porges, 2020) and chapters about Social Relationships..
You might be talking about identity and role-taking, and how social roles (like student) and aspects of the self are changing with the move to quarantine and the NOBA chapter on Self and Identity (McAdams, 2020). You get the idea. Document your thoughts and relate them to the thoughts of others.
The last paragraph of your introduction describes the observational approach you are taking in your method section. You might say: In order to explore these ideas from a first-hand perspective, I reflected on some examples from my own experience. You summarize the method very briefly, explaining what you did in order to learn more about your research question.
Method/Process
In your method section, you describe the process and approach of your empirical project or observation. Document the process here, making it as clear and explicit as you can. You can describe any instructions you were given, any decisions you made, and any actions you took. You can decide to take a social psychology test on line corresponding to a topic (https://www.socialpsychology.org/expts.htm).
There are lots of tests developed to test social psychology. Take a few and describe that. That can be your method; that can comprise your data. By the way, I know that I did not do the right APA in text citation for that source, but I wanted to embed this link. The point is, incorporate an empirical approach. And explain that right here. You can think of your Methods section as answering the questions: What human subjects were involved in your approach (it can be just you, that’s fine), which is referred to as Participants. Then how the empirical process was conducted, known as Materials and Procedure.
Results
In the Results section, you report the results of your empirical approach and analysis process. What do your observations demonstrate or reveal?
Refer to Table 1 and 2 and so on for tables or Figure 1 and 2 and so on for graphs or charts or images of your data.
The results section is for direct and concrete outcomes and observations, which can be explored further and discussed in your discussion section, next.
Discussion
The discussion is the conclusion. You restate your results here in light of the larger question of how things are changing in our time. You discuss and interpret your ideas and your results.
The discussion can also include reflection and integration of how the secondary sources from your literature review relate to the results of your research.
The Discussion section also includes critiques of method and procedures applied. How did you experience this process of the capstone project? What did you learn from it? What would you do differently if you could start all over again?
The Discussion summarizes what you learned from doing the project and what you would do next if you could, pointing to ideas for further research.
Any reflections you have about the situation we are in regarding quarantine and the virus can go here too. Do you think we will ever see the inside of a classroom again? Do you miss it? How do you see the changes in terms of their permanence or temporary nature? How has it changed the way you see yourself, your contexts, your goals, your world?
The next page is your References page, on which the word References appears centered at the top. Each reference should be formatted in APA style.
The set of all references should be listed alphabetically by the first authors’ last names. Hanging indent format is used, and is already set up here in this template for you. Sources are listed alphabetically, not listed in the order in which they appear in the paper and not numbered or bulleted. Generic samples are provided for you, to follow format and be sure to capture all of the reference information for a source. Also, all the sources referred to in this sample are provided in APA style, so you can keep them, if you refer to them, or eliminate them if you do not.
References
In order to make the indentation, go to Paragraph, Special Indentation, and choose Hanging Indent.
Last name, first initial. (Year). Title of article: Subtitle of my article. Title of Journal Italicized and Capitalized, 1(1): 230-240. (Retrieved at http://websiteaddress on 12/12/12).
Last name, first initial. (Year). Title of book italicized but not capitalized. City, NY: Publishing Company. (Retrieved at http://websiteaddress on 12/12/12).
Institution. (Date). Website Title. (Retrieved at http://websiteaddress on 12/12/12).
