East Carolina University
Department of Psychology
Common Thesis Errors
Here is a list of errors of grammar and style which I have found to be fairly common in theses. Now that you know they are errors, don't make them. I have provided references to sections of the 5th edition of the APA Publication Manual (PM) where appropriate.
Abstract line spacing
Don't double space the paragraph at the top of the abstract (which has your name, the title, etc.), it is supposed to be single spaced.
"Affect" and "Effect"
Get out your dictionary. Used as a noun "affect" means "emotion." Used as a verb "affect" means "to act upon." Used as a noun "effect" means "a result or consequence." Used as a verb "effect" means "to bring about or cause to happen." Examples: "What is the effect of this drug? Does it affect cognition? Does it alter affect? Could we use it to effect a change in one's personality?"
Alphabetical Order of Citations Within Parentheses
When listing several citations within parentheses, do so alphabetically, not chronologically. For example: "Cannibalism has been studied by several psychologists (Carr, 1981; Maslow, 1936; Wuensch, 1990)."
(PM 3.99)
Ampersands
Use the ampersand to stand for "and" within parentheses, but not outside parentheses. For example, say "Wuensch and Urwalt (1996) reported that estrogen's effects in tropical climates differed from its effects in temperate climates," but say "Several others have reported similar interactions (Mueller, 1995; Wuensch & Urwalt, 1996; Xenos, 1982)."
(PM 3.95)
ANOVA Independent Variables ("Factors")
Don't refer to them as "factors," reserve that term for the weighted linear combinations of variables resulting from a factor analysis (PM 3.18). Do not capitalize the names of variables unless they are connected by "x" -- for example, say "the main effects of sex and dose fell short of
statistical significance, but the Sex x Dose interaction was significant."
Bold Font
In a thesis at ECU, set all headings in bold font (and some of them in bold italic font). See my Thesis Tips page for more details (to which you can link at the bottom of this document).
Case
Read the APA Publication Manual carefully regarding appropriate use of upper case. Students tend to capitalize things they shouldn't, such as the names of variables (but see the comments above about ANOVA independent variables).
(PM 3.12 through 3.18.) The word
"factor" should be capitalized when it is followed by a number -- for example,
"The first factor captured 46% of .... As shown in Table 3, Factor 1 loaded well
on ...." You should also capitalize the names that you give to derived
factors -- for example, "The Chinese participants scored much higher on Temporal
Farsightedness (Factor 5) than did ...."
Citations, Repeated Within Same Paragraph
When citing a source in the body of the manuscript, give
the year upon first citation within a single paragraph but omit the year in
subsequent citations to that same source in the same paragraph.
Exception: Give the date if necessary to distinguish between two different
sources, such as (Wuensch et al., 2002) and (Wuensch et al., 1998). (PM
3.94)
Conjunctions as the First Word in a Sentence
Do not start a sentence with a conjunction. And
don't end one with a preposition.
Commas and Quotation Marks
Put the closing comma (or period or any punctuation mark that was part of the quoted material) within the quotation marks.
(PM 3.36.)"Data"
Treat this word as a plural noun. The singular is "datum." PM Section 2.07.
DF for F
Put a blank space after the comma which separates the numerator df from the denominator df.
(PM 1.10.)Equality and Inequality Signs
Put a blank space on each
side of them. (PM 1.10.)
Et Al.
There is no period after "et" (which is not an abbreviation), there is one after "al." Do not use "et al." the first time you cite an article, unless there are 6 or more authors. If two references with the same year would shorten to the same form using et al., then list as many of the authors as necessary to remove such ambiguity -- for example, if there were in your reference list two or more articles which could reduce to "Wuensch et al., 1996" you might have to say "Wuensch, Poteat, et al., 1996". Note that there is NOT a comma before "et al." unless more than one author's name is given.
(PM 3.95)
Figures and Tables
Refer to every figure and table that you present -- don't just throw in figures or tables without referring to them.
See section 1.10 of the Publication Manual -- "When you use tables or figures,
be certain to mention all of them in the text." In a final manuscript, place them in the body of the manuscript, usually on the first page after that on which the figure or table is first mentioned (unless you can squeeze it in on the page itself, which is likely only to work with a small figure or table), rather than at the end of the manuscript. Put the figure captions on the figures rather than on a captions page. Use the table border lines features of your word processor rather than underlining to produce spanners in your tables. See my Thesis Tips file for more details (link at bottom of this document).
Final Manuscript vs Copy Manuscript
The thesis is a final manuscript, not a copy manuscript. Copy manuscripts are those that are submitted to editors for review and, with luck, publication. The staff of the journal turns them into nice looking, easy to read, final manuscripts. The thesis should already be a final manuscript when it goes to the thesis committee.
(Chapter 6 of the PM)
Headings
Most theses use only two or three levels of headings, in which case the heading must be APA Levels 1 and 3 or 1, 3, and 4. Consult the APA Publication manual and see my examples in the Thesis Tips page (to which you can link at the bottom of this document).
(PM 3.30 through 3.32)
"Independent Variable"
This term should be used only for experimentally
manipulated variables. Categorical variables not manipulated should be
referred to as "predictor variables," "classification variables," "grouping
variables," or another appropriate term that does not imply experimental
manipulation.
Impact
As a noun "impact" means "a striking together," "the force of a collision," or "the power to produce changes." Given that last meaning, it is appropriate to say "Sometimes early experience has a profound impact upon later species identity." As a verb "impact" means "to strike together." It does NOT mean to affect. If you say "he impacted my thinking" you are saying he hit your thinking. Think of an impacted wisdom tooth -- it is striking up against your other teeth. See also Impact This, Buddy!
Italics, not Underlining
The only acceptable reason to use underlining rather than italics is that you are using a typewriter rather than a word processor.
Its vs. It's
I have a
hard time with this one. "Its" is the possessive, as in "the rat licked
its fur." "It's" is a contraction of "it" and "is," as in "it's not a rat,
it's a chinchilla." It was not always so -- see the
Word Detective.
Line Spacing
The usual advice is to "set your word processor to double space and then forget it." If you are using Microsoft Word, see "Double Spacing" in my document Word Tips for the Thesis Typist. Do not put a blank line between one paragraph and the next paragraph. Do single space the abstract.
Numbers
Numbers nine or less that don't represent precise measurements should be spelled out, unless they are grouped for comparison with numbers greater than nine. Spell them out at the beginning of a sentence. See the APA Publication Manual for details, exceptions, and examples.
(PM 3.42 through 3.49)P Values
Why just say "p < .05" or "p > .05" when you can give an exact value such as "p = .032"? See Section 1.10 of the PM. On the other hand, if the p is less than .001, just say "p < .001." It is not very useful to say something like "p = .000000283." Although p is an abbreviation, do not follow it with a period.
Page Breaks
To force a page break, in Word, just hold hold
down the Ctrl key while you hit the Enter key. Do not insert
multiple carriage returns (Enter) to force a new page.
Pagination
Page numbers should not appear on the first page of each chapter. Prefatory pagination is really strange: Consult my Thesis Tips page.
Passive/Active Voice and the First Person
Use of the active voice with the first person is strongly encouraged.
(PM 2.06.) In PM 2.09, note the use of the first person, active voice, to avoid dangling modifiers.
Pronouns for Nonhuman Animals
Use neuter pronouns unless the animals have been named.
(PM 2.08.)Prepositions at the End of a Sentence
Avoid them. "A preposition is a poor word to end a sentence with" can be changed to "A preposition is a poor word with which to end a sentence."
Reference List
- Abbreviations: Do not abbreviate
the titles of journals.
- Body-List Correspondence: Every citation in the body of the manuscript must match up with an entry in the reference list and vice versa.
(PM 4.01)
- Issue Numbers: Most journals are
paginated by volume -- Suppose the first issue runs from 1-126. The
first page in the second issue will then start with page 127. You do not
need the issue number to be able to find the article. A few journals are
paginated by issue. Suppose the first issue runs from 1-126. The
first page in the second issue will be page 1. You do need to know the
issue number to be able to find the article. In reference lists, issue numbers are given only when the journal is paginated by issue rather than by volume. When I see something like "Psychoscatalogical Science,
13(4), 384-391" I know you goofed -- it is a rare journal which would have over 300 pages in a single issue!
(PM 4.16 A1 and A2)
- Hanging indentation (rather than traditional indentation) should be used.
With hanging indentation every line except the first line is indented, as in
this example below. See the examples from the library at
Ithaca College. To
see how this should be done with MS Word, see my document
Word Tips for the Thesis Typist.
(PM 5.18)
Pastafarian, I. M. (2005).
Personality dynamics among those who worship the
Flying
Spaghetti Monster. Paris: Temple of Squack
Press.
- Italics: Use italics rather than underlining.
(PM 3.19 and 4.16) Titles of journals and books and journal volume
numbers are set in italic font. A comma and a space separate the
volume number from the page numbers.
- Case: Don't capitalize every word in a book title or the title of an article in a journal in the reference list (in the body of your manuscript you would capitalize the major words in titles).
(PM 4.10 and 4.12)
- Order: Single entries precede all multiple-author entries beginning with the same surname. References with the same first author and different additional authors are arragned alphabetically by the surname(s) or the additional authors. References with the same authors in the same order are arranged by year of publication, with the earlier items preceding the later. If the authors and dates are identical, use the (1996a), (1996b) convention, arranging the articles alphabetically by the title (excluding "A" the "The").
(PM 4.04)
- Et Al.: If there are seven or
more authors, list the first sixth and then use et al., unless this would lead
to ambiguity. (PM 4.16 A4)
Redneck Plural
An apostrophe should not be used
when forming the plural of a noun unless it is possessive. For example,
you should write "these possums make great stew," not "these possum's make great
stew."
Royal We
When referring to the author of the thesis, use "I" or "my," not "we" or "our."
Secondary Sources
Avoid them, if possible.
Don't tell me that Row and Boat (2004) reported that Stream (1996) found a
quadratic relationship between misanthropy and family income, do go to the
original source (Stream), read it, and then cite the original source. If
you absolutely must use a secondary source (you have tried to get the original
but could not), do it with proper APA style -- for example: "Rodin,
Silberstein, and Striegel-Moore (1985, as cited in Striegel-Moore, Tucker, &
Hsu, 1990) reported that ......."
Sexist or Dehumanizing Language
Avoid sexist or dehumanizing language. Don't use "male" and "female" as nouns when referring to humans, acknowledge their humanity by referring to them as "men" and "women," or "boys" and "girls." Don't, however, use "man" and "woman" as adjectives. It is OK to use "male" and "female" as adjectives.
(Item 3 in Table 2.1 in the PM:
"Use male and
female as adjectives where appropriate and relevant (female experimenter,
male participant). Males and females may be
appropriate when the age range is quite broad or ambiguous. Avoid
unparallel usage such as 10 men and 16 females.") If
your "research units" are humans, refer to them as "participants," "respondents," or some other terms less dehumanizing than "subjects." If your
research units are nonhumans, terms like "participants" may not be appropriate. For example, with research on rats, I'd feel awkward referring to them as "participants." Why not just call them "rats?"
(Table 2.1 in the PM)
Shifts of Tense
Shifting tenses back and forth annoys readers. Avoid it.
(PM 2.02)Singular "They"
While it is appropriate to avoid sexist language by using the plural, do not use the "singular they." For example, "Each participant was instructed to hit the red key on their keyboard...." is agrammatical -- the pronoun "their" is plural but its antecedent ("Each participant") is singular. You could instead say "Participants were instructed to hit the red key on their keyboards......"
(PM 2.07, 2.08, 2.13)Split Infinitives
Call me old fashioned, but, unless needed to avoid ambiguity, I think one should avoid placing an adverb between "to" and the verbal. More than once I have been sent the following quotation as proof that I am a traditionalist:
"The dislike of split infinitives is long-standing but is not well
founded, being based on an analogy with Latin. In Latin, infinitives
consist only one word (e.g. crescere 'to grow'; amare 'to love'),
which makes them impossible to split; therefore, so the argument
goes, they should not be split in English either. But English is not
the same as Latin. In particular, the placing of an adverb in English
is extremely important in giving the appropriate emphasis ... In the
modern context, some traditionalists may continue to hold up the
split infinitive as an error in English. However, in standard English
the principle of allowing split infinitives is broadly accepted as
both normal and useful." (New Oxford Dictionary of English, 1998)
Statistical Symbols
Set in italic font (or underline if you are using a typewriter rather than a word processor) statistical symbols such as t, F, and p. The PM
(3.19) says not to set Greek letters in italics, even when used as statistical symbols, but I happen to think they look better when set in italics, so I do so
in my handouts (I do follow the APA prescription in my manuscripts for journals
that use APA style).
In Microsoft Word 2003, you can get Greek symbols, such as
c
, by clicking Insert, Symbol, selecting the font (use the Symbol font, it
usually looks better than the others for Greek letters), selecting the symbol, and then
clicking on insert, as illustrated here.
Tense
Use the past tense to describe things that have already happened, such as the procedure you used to gather the data and the results you obtained when analyzing the data.
(PM 2.06)
Contact Information for the Webmaster,
Dr. Karl L. Wuensch
This page most recently revised on
9. October 2008.
