Whether you like it or not, Psychology and writing are also related in some common way. As a social science, psychology uses empirical inquiry to derive conclusions about behavior. This means relying on experiments and observation to arrive at results, making much of the literature on the subject open to interpretation.
While it’s restricted largely to describing, explaining and understanding empirical concepts, writing in psychology embraces many of the same principles used in other writing endeavors. In fact, your all-purpose writing software should handily serve you here just as well. However, the field does have its own guidelines about what works and what doesn’t when producing written documents.
As with any professional field, it pays to follow them if you want to gain the best results:
1. Use plain language. Psychology writing is based on formal scientific writing, so keep everything straightforward and on to the point. Forget literary devices – they’re not only inappropriate, they’re downright useless.
2. Rely on evidence. Since psychology is an empirical science, your arguments and claims will need to follow logical thought that stems directly from evidence drawn from experiments and observation.
3. Describe clear connections among your evidence, theories and eventual conclusions. The reasoning that follows your evidence should be completely sound and written with utmost clarity, lest risk having your ideas fall by the wayside.
4. Follow APA style standards. The American Psychological Association (APA) publishes standards on proper format for psychology material. Unless otherwise instructed by your teacher, editor or publication, always use it as your guideline.
