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HOW TO WRITE
PSYCHOLOGY
RESEARCH REPORTS AND ESSAYS
7
Bruce Findlay
Copyright © Pearson Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) 2015 – 9781486010257 - Findlay/How to Write Psychology Research Reports and Essays 7e
CVR_FIND0257_07_SE_CVR.indd 1 23/06/14 2:00 PM

HOW TO WRITE
PSYCHOLOGY
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HOW TO WRITE
PSYCHOLOGY
BRUCE FINDLAY
7
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Copyright © Pearson Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) 2015
Pearson Australia
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Melbourne VIC 3008
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The Copyright Act 1968 of Australia allows a maximum of one chapter or 10% of this book,
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Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
Author: Findlay, Bruce, author.
Title: How to write psychology research reports and essays / Bruce

Findlay.
Edition: 7th edition.
ISBN: 9781486010257 (paperback)

ISBN: 9781486021994 (Vital Souce)
Notes: Includes index.
Subjects: Psychology—Authorship—Style manuals.

Psychology—Research.
Report writing.
Dewey Number: 808.06615
Every effort has been made to trace and acknowledge copyright. However, should any
infringement have occurred, the publishers tender their apologies and invite copyright
owners to contact them. Due to copyright restrictions, we may have been unable to include
material from the print edition of the book in this digital edition, although every effort has
been made to minimise instances of missing content.
Contents
Preface viii
Introduction ix
How to Use this Book xii
Acknowledgments xiv
1 Reasons for Writing Research Reports and Essays 1

1.1 Why Write Them? 2
1.2 What Is a Research Report? 3
1.3 Writing Essays at University 4
2 Writing Research Reports and Essays – Common Elements 7

2.1 The Collaboration/Copying Distinction 8
2.2 Information Gathering 9
2.3 Evaluating Internet Resources 14
2.4 Critical Thinking 16
2.5 Writing Style 20
2.6 Using the Correct Tense 25
2.7 Inclusive Language 25
2.8 In-text Referencing (or How to Avoid Plagiarism) 27
2.9 Proofreading and Redrafting 32
2.10 The Physical Presentation of Your Assignment 34
3 Research Reports – How Do You Start? 37

Flowchart: The Process of Writing a Research Report 38
3.1 How to Approach a Research Report 39
3.2 How to Begin 40
3.2.1 Studies Designed by the Psychology Department 40
3.2.2 Studies You Design 43
3.2.3 All Studies 43
3.2.4 Research Ethics 45
3.3 Where to Go From Here 46
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Contents
4 Sections of a Research Report 51

4.1 Title Page and Abstract 52
4.2 Introduction 56
4.3 Method 62
4.3.1 Participants 64
4.3.2 Design 66
4.3.3 Materials 66
4.3.4 Procedure 68
4.4 Results 69
4.4.1 Your Very First Report 69
4.4.2 All Reports 70
4.4.3 Numbers and Words 74
4.4.4 Decimals 74
4.4.5 Tables 75
4.4.6 Figures 78
4.5 Discussion 81
4.6 References 86
4.6.1 Books 87
4.6.2 Journal Articles 88
4.6.3 Internet Sources 90
4.6.4 Other Sources 92
4.7 Appendices 93
4.8 Further Reading 94
4.9 Feedback 95
4.10 Summary 96
4.11 Checklist 96
5 Essays in Psychology 99
Flowchart: The Process of Writing an Essay 100
5.1 How Are Essays Different from Research Reports? 101
5.2 Choosing an Essay Topic 101
5.3 Deciding What the Essay Topic Asks 102
5.4 Preparation – Reading, Note-taking, and Planning 104
5.5 Structure of an Essay 105
5.5.1 The Title Page and Abstract 106
5.5.2 The Introduction 106
5.5.3 The Body (Discussion) 108
5.5.4 The Conclusion 109
5.5.5 The References 111
5.6 Redrafting and Presentation 111
5.7 Further Reading 112
5.8 Checklist 113
vi
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Contents
Appendix A Sample of a Good Research Report 115

Appendix B Sample of a Poor Research Report 125
Appendix C Sample of a Good Research Report 137
Appendix D Sample of a Poor Research Report 151
Glossary 161
References 167
Index 171
vii
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Preface
The Australian Psychological Society (APS) is pleased to continue its association with
the publication of Bruce Findlay’s How to Write Psychology Research Reports and Essays,
now in its 7th edition.
Undergraduate psychology education aims to develop students’ knowledge, skills,
and attitudes in six major areas. These graduate attributes include research methods,
critical thinking skills, and communication skills. Undergraduate research projects and
assignments are designed to help students master these skills; yet first- and second-year
students may find writing research reports and essays quite daunting.
Findlay’s book is designed to make these learning tasks less challenging for students.
It uses easy-to-read and student-friendly language. The book is intended to comple-
ment undergraduate textbooks and the current edition of the Publication Manual of the
American Psychology Association (APA). It will help students to plan and organise their
research report, to express their ideas clearly, and to follow APA style. The book also
alerts students to key issues such as referencing sources correctly and avoiding plagia-
rism. Flowcharts, checklists, and sample reports provide further guidance on psycho-
logical writing.
I am pleased to recommend the new edition of this book as a valuable resource to stu-
dents throughout their undergraduate career. Students who are interested in psychology
as a profession are invited to explore Psych Student Headquarters via www.psychology.
org.au. The APS website also shows the diversity of careers in psychology, opportunities to
meet and network, and professional resources provided by the APS to students and student
subscribers. You can subscribe to the APS by visiting https://join.psychology.org.au.
Sabine Wingenfeld Hammond, PhD, FAPS

Executive Manager, Science, Education, and Membership
Australian Psychological Society
viii
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Introduction
Introduction to Students
If you’ve picked this up to see what it’s like – buy it! It’ll save you a lot of hassles in your
undergraduate psychology career.
Most psychology students do not go on to become the sort of psychologists who pub-
lish journal articles. Most psychology departments treat you as if you will! The research
reports you will write as an undergraduate are different from those an academic would
write, although they are designed to lead you towards that level. This book will give you
all the information you need about how to prepare and write psychology research reports
and essays in psychology at the undergraduate level, without overburdening you with all
those extra touches that are needed for publication.
There is a glossary of those words that are on the tip of your tongue but whose
meaning just escapes you at the moment. There is an index that will lead you to the
help you need for any particular feature of a research report or essay that is bothering
you. There are flowcharts of the processes involved in writing a research report and an
essay. There are a couple of good examples of research reports that you can use as a sort
of graphical index, and a couple of examples of badly written reports to show you what
to avoid.
If you want some global advice for undergraduate writing in psychology, it is – learn to
plan ahead! It will save you a lot of anxiety of the sort that occurs when your computer
fails at midnight and the assignment is due at 9 o’clock the next morning. This book will
show you how to learn this valuable skill.
Good writing! It’s not nearly as difficult as you might think.
ix
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Introduction
Introduction to Staff Members

Purpose of the book. This book is intended to address the need for a set of guidelines
for writing undergraduate-level psychology research reports and essays. It is aimed at
first- and second-year students. It is not a guide to writing for publication. It does, how-
ever, observe the conventions required by the 6th edition of the Publication Manual of the
American Psychological Association (APA) and it includes the rationale for those conven-
tions, as well as the steps to be taken in producing and presenting psychological research
reports and essays. A student who grasps these concepts and learns the conventions
will have a sound basis for presenting research in a professional manner, and writing
well-argued essays, so that the later step of writing for publication should be an easier
one to take.
Why such a book is desirable. Increasing student numbers and proportionally dwin-
dling resources in Australian universities often result in students spending less time in
classes that teach how to write research reports and in getting less feedback on what they
have written. This is particularly true at first-year level. In the past, most psychology
departments produced handouts on writing research reports and essays, but they were
often quite brief. They were also frequently produced by staff members who had been
writing for publication for some time and who took for granted a good deal of informa-
tion that first-year students, in particular, do not know. It has been my experience that
many students find the conventions of psychological report writing especially difficult,
since the requirements differ both from those of their other tertiary subjects and from
their own previous experience. When students ask questions of staff members, they are
often given ad hoc answers, and this leads to complaints from students about lack of con-
sistency between staff members regarding what is expected in research reports.
Students will find this book useful because it is considerably more detailed than the
typical departmental handout, but not as overwhelming as books advising on writing
for publication, such as the Publication Manual of the APA. Some of the more advanced
books are mentioned towards the end of Chapters 4 and 5.
Difference from the previous edition. Since the 6th edition of the Publication Manual
of the APA was published in 2010, publishing in general has continued to change, espe-
cially in the accessibility and presentation of electronic resources. While the 6th edition
of the Publication Manual updated some conventions to meet the changes in publishing,
especially the use of the doi, the APA has also published, electronically, a more detailed
style guide to electronic references. The latest edition of the current book includes some
of this material.
The examples I use of opening sentences, summaries of prior research, and referenc-
ing examples contain fairly recent material from Australian and New Zealand academics.
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Introduction
I hope your students are tickled to see the names of academics they may know used as
glowing examples. I updated the occasional urls I use as examples to ensure they are still
active and relevant. Finally, I have added an extra good and bad example of a research
report. The new ones are a bit less extensive than the already existing one, which, though
I’ve retained it, is probably more than would normally be expected of a first research
report. As ever, they are not there as templates but for students to use as a graphical
index when they can’t think of the word that would allow them to use the usual index.
In response to requests from third- and fourth-year students, who say they are find-
ing the book useful in their higher years, I have also included some examples of more
sophisticated tables and figures and how they should be reported in text.
You can save yourself some teaching time by recommending that students buy and
frequently refer to this book. If you are using this book as an aid to your teaching and have
any constructive criticisms to offer, especially about the newer sections, I would appreci-
ate hearing from you.
Bruce Findlay
Senior Lecturer in Psychology
Swinburne University of Technology
PO Box 218, Hawthorn, Vic 3122
email: bfindlay@swin.edu.au
xi
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How to Use this Book
This book has a number of design features which I hope will make it easier to understand
the information I want you to know. There are often good and poor examples cited. They
will be in tables, because one of the conventions I want you to learn is that illustrative
material belongs in tables. The format of the tables throughout this book is the format
that you are expected to learn, but in addition there will be icons to remind you which
are good and which are poor examples. They will look like this:
Good examples for you to follow will have this “tick” beside them.
Poor examples or formats that I want you to avoid using in your work will have
this “cross” beside them.
Notes, which will often accompany tables, will have this little “notepad” icon
beside them. Please read them carefully!
Finally, this icon will accompany comments or instructions that require even
closer attention than usual. It will refer to things that are absolutely essential for
you to be aware of.
Please be aware that the examples throughout the book illustrating the conventions
you need to know about are not exhaustive. I would not like you to get the idea that these
examples are the only way to express those particular conventions, but they are certainly
acceptable ways. As you become more comfortable with writing in this style, you will be
able to be more creative within the existing conventions.
At the start of Chapters 3 and 5 there are flowcharts that indicate the sequence of
activities for the successful writing of research reports and essays, respectively. Those
of you who are more visual in your learning styles may find them a useful summary of
the process. There are also checklists for research reports and essays, at the ends of
Chapters 4 and 5 respectively, that will help you to plan and mark off your achievements
in your first few assignments. Feel free to photocopy them and use them to measure your
progress.
There are good and bad examples of two research reports, starting on page 115. The
first is a fairly straightforward one, such as you might expect in your first one or two
xii
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How to Use this Book
assignments. The second is rather more complex, but you might encounter one like it
late in first or early in second year. They are not meant to be the only way you can write
a research report, but they are acceptable ways; they can also be used as a sort of index,
if you are looking for something but can’t think of the word that would allow you to use
the normal index. You can look at the part of the report where you expect to find advice,
then be referred to the sections or page where that advice can be found. The bad exam-
ples include many of the errors that students make. Have a look at them, see if you can
spot the errors, and check the answers on pages 133 and 158.
At the beginning of Chapters 2 to 5 there is a list of keywords. Before reading each chap-
ter, look up these words in the Glossary at the back of the book. This will ensure that when
you first encounter them in the context of the chapter they will already be a little familiar.
Their meaning should become even clearer as you read through the chapter.
xiii
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Acknowledgments
Thanks to the many academics who adopted earlier versions of this book for their intro-
ductory psychology classes. Thanks also to the reviewers who made comments on the
6th edition. I have incorporated most of the changes they have suggested. I am also
very grateful to the many students who have expressed their appreciation for the earlier
editions of this book, and whose comments and experiences have led me to clarify or
expand some points. They more than offset the feeling I get that, although students are
persuaded to buy the book, many seem not to pay attention to it. It’s many years ago
now, but one first-year convenor set as a research report the topic I used in previous
editions as an example in the back of the book. The distribution of students’ marks, and
the errors they made, suggested that a large number of students didn’t realise this!
It may not be apparent to the casual reader, but the publications I refer to as examples
in reference lists, and from which I draw good examples of opening sentences, hypoth-
eses, and summaries of prior research, are most frequently the work of Australasian
psychologists. I am impressed by the number of publications produced by my academic
colleagues, and the ease with which I can find good examples without looking beyond
Australia and New Zealand. I like to think that I am reinforcing the inspiration they are
to their students.
At my university, a high proportion of tutorial teaching, and therefore responsibility
for instructions about, and marking of, research reports, is done by sessional staff, pri-
marily our higher degree students. I am continually impressed by, and grateful for, their
dedication and professionalism. Similarly, I am blessed with congenial associates who
offer advice in constructive ways. As ever, the responsibility for any remaining errors
must be mine. In particular I am grateful to Ben Williams for his statistical and graphical
advice, and to Kelly, Ian, and Elisa, whose excellent reports allowed me to amalgamate
them into the new good report.
xiv
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Reasons
Composing
for Writing
Reasons for Writing
Research Reports and
Essays
CHAPTER
1
IN THIS CHAPTER
1.1 Why Write Them? 2
1.2 What Is a Research Report? 3
1.3 Writing Essays at University 4
Findlay Tabs.indd 1 7/07/14 11:50 AM

Reasons for Writing
2 How to Write Psychology Research Reports and Essays
1.1 Why Write Them?
I
N ANY SCIENTIFIC DISCIPLINE the structure of established knowledge is rarely
shaken up by people of the stature of Einstein or Freud. It is more usually added to,
brick by brick, by well-reported studies, each on some relatively specific area. When
taken together, these all add to what we know – in the case of psychology – about how
people think and behave. Hopefully, some of you will go on to contribute to this increase
in knowledge. To do so, you will need to know the conventions of reporting your studies.
You may have begun psychology with an interest in the aspects of the discipline that
will allow you to learn how to help other people, or perhaps to understand yourself better,
and so may not anticipate that you will publish research articles in your professional life.
However, even if you don’t publish studies you will almost certainly have to read many
published reports. Knowing the conventions and being able to critically evaluate other
people’s work is very important, because you will need to decide whether the material
you read is useful and can be applied to your own area of work. To understand how
authors reached their conclusions, and to decide how sound or applicable those conclu-
sions are, requires a familiarity with the conventions of psychological reporting.
The majority of students who study an introductory psychology subject, or even
complete a three-year degree with a major in psychology, do not go on to become
psychologists. To become a psychologist you will need postgraduate training; that is, at
least a fourth year, called an Honours year or a Postgraduate Diploma, and probably a
Master’s degree. Most students with an undergraduate degree in psychology find them-
selves working in management, human resources, or human services departments,
market research, journalism, the travel industry, or similar areas. A degree with a major
in psychology is well considered in the commercial and industrial world, partly because
of the experience of quantitative analysis that goes with writing research reports, but
mainly because psychology graduates have had very good training in the timely, disci-
plined, and concise reporting of the work they do.
There are therefore three good reasons why you need to learn to write good research
reports:
• The pragmatic reason is that you are expected to do so as part of an under-

graduate degree in psychology, and will be assessed on your ability to do so.
It is something you need to know to complete your course successfully.
• A better reason is that as a potential psychologist you need to appraise what
other people have written and to report your own research in order to commu-
nicate to the community of scientists/practitioners and academics what you
have learned from your study of human, or perhaps animal, behaviour.
• The third reason is that, even if you do not intend to become a psycholo-
gist, any occupation will have its own conventions for preparing and writing
reports of the work you do. Learning the conventions of psychology research

Chapter 1 – Reasons for Writing Research Reports and Essays 3
reports demonstrates your ability to master the conventions of a discipline to

potential employers. In addition, the generic skills of synthesising material
requiring high levels of theoretical and conceptual understanding, as well as
reporting your conclusions concisely and on time, are skills that will stand
you in good stead in any professional career.
Many undergraduate psychology students are also asked to write essays. In contrast to a
research report, which expects you to describe a piece of empirical research, essays usually
expect you to make a sustained case for a point of view in some area of psychological interest.
Essay writing is also a valued skill, since it also gives you an opportunity to demonstrate
the generic skills of assembling and summarising relevant information, critically evaluating
it and coming to a considered conclusion about it in a succinct way.
1.2 What Is a Research Report?

A research report (sometimes called a laboratory report, or lab report for short) is a
summary of: (a) why you undertook this particular research; (b) what you expected
to find; (c) how you actually did it; (d) what you did find; (e) how you interpreted the
results; and (f) the theoretical and practical implications of the conclusions you drew
from those results.
Like most disciplines, psychology has conventions for the reporting of research
findings. The amount of material published is so great that readers need to know where
in a report to look to find the information they need. From there they can decide whether
they want to read the report in more detail. A more or less standard format of psycho-
logical reporting is therefore useful.
The reason that psychology has a “more or less” standard format is that if you look
through some of the major psychology periodicals in your library or browse through
them on the web (and I encourage you to do so in the very near future), such as the
Australian Journal of Psychology, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology or Child
Development, you will find many articles in a format somewhat different to what is usually
taught in first- or second-year psychology. The main reason for this difference is that, at
the practical level of reporting ongoing research, there are many more complex designs
than you usually encounter in your first couple of undergraduate years. Another reason
is that a journal article expects a greater familiarity with existing research in the area
than that expected of an undergraduate report. However, by your third year you should
be approaching a professional understanding of prior research, and your understanding
of the conventions of presentation should conform to journal article standard.
The qualitative difference between journal articles and undergraduate research
reports is that the research report is primarily an exercise in communication and only
secondarily, if at all, a contribution to research. It is important that the messages your
marker receives are the ones you, the writer, want to send. Sometimes the fixed format
M01_FIND0257_07_SE_C01.indd 3 23/06/14 10:26 AM

is at odds with this. Nevertheless, it is important that as an undergraduate you become

expert at producing the standard format, and once you are completely in control of it
then you can decide whether it is appropriate to “bend the rules” in particular cases.
The basic rules are that a research report consists of the following sections in the
sequence indicated:
• Title Page
• Abstract
• Introduction
• Method
• Results
• Discussion
• References
• Appendices
The Title Page announces what the report is about, and contains information about you.
The Abstract is an overview or précis of the report. The rest of the report may be consid-
ered as being like an hourglass in shape (Kidder & Judd, 1986). Your Introduction
should begin broadly, indicating the area of thought or behaviour under study and why
it is being studied, then begin to narrow down as you describe the work of previous
researchers whose results have led to your own study. The end of the Introduction is
like the approach to the waist of the hourglass, where you should state the aims of your
study and the specific hypotheses, which are predictions of what results you expected
from your study. The Method and Results sections are the most specific, since they
state precisely what was done and what results were obtained. The Discussion is where
the hourglass begins to spread out again. It starts with an interpretation of the results,
broadens to say how those results relate to previous work, describes the implications of
your own study and finally becomes broadest, ending with a general conclusion. The
References allow others to check the accuracy of your assertions, and the Appendices
contain additional material that doesn’t need to be included in the body of the report.
1.3 Writing Essays at University

An essay in psychology is no different in basic structure from the essays you will encounter
in other tertiary humanities subjects, such as literature or social sciences like sociol-
ogy. Unlike research reports, they are not usually divided into sections. They follow the
standard essay pattern of having an introduction, a body or discussion, which is the bulk
of the essay, and a conclusion. Psychology essays also need a Title Page, Abstract, and
References. However, essays at tertiary level are somewhat different from those many of
you will have experienced at school. The basic difference is that at university you will be
expected to be more evaluative of the material you use in your essays. Psychology essays
M01_FIND0257_07_SE_C01.indd 4 23/06/14 10:26 AM

Chapter 1 – Reasons for Writing Research Reports and Essays 5
typically ask you to discuss some research, or to compare and contrast particular theo-
retical perspectives on some area of behaviour, or even specifically to critically evaluate
some area of research.
In Chapter 5 I describe what is required of each of these sorts of instructions, but
in essence they expect you to read people’s work with a critical eye. What is needed of
you as a student with a major in psychology is that you demand particular standards of
evidence for the assertions that researchers make before you give any weight to those
assertions. This requires critical thinking on your part, and I describe some ways in
which you can apply critical thinking to psychological articles in Chapter 2.
The following chapters will deal with: (a) where to look for appropriate references,
information on critical evaluation of earlier research, conventions of presentation, and
the process of producing an assignment which are common to both research reports
and essays (Chapter 2); (b) what you do to get started when assigned to write a research
report (Chapter 3); (c) detailed instructions on what sort of material goes in which
sections of a research report, and the conventions for presenting it (Chapter 4); and
advice about essay writing for psychology (Chapter 5).
M01_FIND0257_07_SE_C01.indd 5 23/06/14 10:26 AM

M01_FIND0257_07_SE_C01.indd 6 23/06/14 10:26 AM

Writing Research
Reports and Essays –
Reports and Essays

Writing Research
Common Elements
CHAPTER
2
KEYWORDS
argument, assumptions, collaboration, copying, evidence, generic,
hypothesis, methodology, operationalisation, participant, placebo,
plagiarism, reference, replication, study, theory
IN THIS CHAPTER
2.1 The Collaboration/Copying Distinction 8
2.2 Information Gathering 9
2.3 Evaluating Internet Resources 14
2.4 Critical Thinking 16
2.5 Writing Style 20
2.6 Using the Correct Tense 25
2.7 Inclusive Language 25
2.8 In-text Referencing (or How to Avoid Plagiarism) 27
2.9 Proofreading and Redrafting 32
2.10 The Physical Presentation of Your Assignment 34

T
HE ASSIGNMENTS THAT GET the best marks are those that not only follow
the conventional format but are also written clearly and concisely. I would also
like to emphasise that assignments that get the best marks also meet the require-
ments of the instructions given, including word limits, and are submitted on time.
Writing Research
This chapter addresses: (a) the thorny problem of the distinction between collabora-
tion and copying; (b) the question of the sort of material you should gather to support
your research report or essay; (c) how to evaluate internet resources; (d) critical thinking
and how to apply it to the material you read; (e) writing style, including the appropri-
ateness of personal pronouns, fluency of expression, and punctuation; (f) the use of the
correct tense; (g) inclusive language; (h) in-text referencing and the need to acknowl-
edge the sources of the material you use in order to avoid plagiarism; (i) the need for
proofreading and redrafting; and finally (j) the physical presentation of your assignment.
2.1 The Collaboration/Copying Distinction

I would like to encourage collaborative study. I believe that it is good practice for
your professional life, and it will make your university life more enjoyable and fruitful.
However, the subject of collaboration in the production of assessable assignments is very
controversial. You should always check what the expectations of your lecturer or tutor
are regarding collaboration in the preparation of assessable work.
I think it is desirable for first- and second-year undergraduate students faced with
writing an assessable research report to collaborate in study groups to decide on hypo-
theses, if not already given in the instructions, and to discuss which references logically
lead to them and do or do not support the hypotheses. I think that it is acceptable to
decide, in groups, which statistical tests to use, again, if they are not already determined
by the instructions. In reports requiring many statistical calculations, even if computer
calculated, it may be acceptable to share the calculations. However, this view is not
universal among academics, and again you should always check with your tutor or
lecturer about what is acceptable and what is not acceptable at your institution.
The above preparations for writing a research report, when shared, ensure that you
are not misunderstanding the assignment requirements. Collaborating on the prepara-
tions for a research report also allows a sharing of ideas and opinions that hopefully will
give you a taste of the intellectual excitement to be experienced in academic research and
which makes much of the grind worthwhile.
If your assignment is an essay, the possibilities for collaboration are much more
limited. Most lecturers would probably be happy for you to share resources, such as
getting hold of references. However, the essay as a literary form is a structured argument
for your point of view and your marker will expect that such an argument is your
argument. If you want advice about whether you are on the right track with your essay
plan, it is wisest to have a consultation with the lecturer who set the essay topic.

Chapter 2 – Writing Research Reports and Essays – Common Elements 9
When it comes to writing, your marker needs to be confident that what is written is
your own expression, except where explicitly acknowledged. Do not treat this lightly,
as plagiarism will be seriously dealt with. At the very least, plagiarism in an assignment
will mean a loss of marks, perhaps zero, for that report. At worst, it can and has led
to expulsion from Australian universities. Please read carefully the handbook, or web
page, of your institution and any course guides produced by individual departments for
subjects you are studying. Such guides usually contain statements about the seriousness
with which plagiarism is considered. Ignorance of their contents is not an acceptable
excuse if you are caught submitting material identical to that submitted by another
student (copying is plagiarism, and so is allowing someone to copy from you), or
containing large slabs of unacknowledged material from books, journal articles, or the
internet. I elaborate on plagiarism from books, journals, and the internet later in this
chapter (Section 2.8).
Check with your lecturer or tutor to find out what they consider acceptable in the way of
collaboration. My belief is that collaboration should be encouraged at the planning stage
of a research report, or for practical things like sharing references for an essay. However,
when it comes to writing the report or essay it is essential that it is your own work. For
this reason, although I will repeatedly stress the need to get assignments proofread, your
proofreader should not be a fellow psychology student. You should be writing for an
intelligent layperson, and such a person is ideal as a proofreader.
2.2 Information Gathering

All undergraduate essays and research reports in psychology will require you to read
some material on the chosen topic. You need to decide what to read, and how much.
There is an enormous amount of information available within the discipline of psychol-
ogy and related areas. In deciding what to pay attention to, it is worth reflecting on
what “psychology” as a discipline means for a student in Australia or New Zealand.
Undergraduate psychology majors and graduate psychology training in Australasian
universities is based on a scientist/practitioner model of psychology. Undergraduate
training is the theoretical basis for producing professionals who understand the scien-
tific method, and base their practice on knowledge that has been gained using accepted
methods of scientific inquiry. However, these professionals may practise in one of a wide
variety of specialities, such as counselling or clinical, educational, community, health,
sport, organisational, or forensic psychology.
Although the majority of psychologists in New Zealand and Australia are practitioners
– providing advice in one of the areas mentioned above – the diagnoses they make, the
advice they give, and the treatments they provide are based on sound scientific evidence.
They should also have sufficient scientific training so that if they want to integrate the
experience they gain in their professional practice in order to publish and so contribute
to our knowledge of how people think and behave, they can do so.
M02_FIND0257_07_SE_C02.indd 9 23/06/14 10:27 AM

The scientific method. You should learn more about the scientific method in your
Research Design classes. Ideally it consists of (a) controlled observation; (b) the testing
of theoretical predictions as objectively as possible; (c) those predictions phrased in such
a way that if they turn out to be false this can be discovered; (d) reported in such a way as
to be able to be replicated; and (e) within a generally accepted paradigm (Eysenck, 2004).
There are many ways of conducting research, and they fit this ideal to varying degrees. In
undergraduate psychology you are likely to come across experiments, quasi-experiments,
various correlational methods, observational studies, case studies, and perhaps others.
There is a fair amount of more extensive qualitative research in psychology in recent
literature, but you are less likely to encounter it at undergraduate level.
A typical sort of true experiment is to randomly assign participants to one of two
or more groups, and to manipulate only a single variable (for example, the amount of
alcohol drunk) across those groups. The groups are then compared on some variable
that is predicted to be dependent on amount of alcohol drunk (perhaps number of times
you run off the road in a driving simulator). If there are consistent differences between
the groups, you can be confident that the amount of alcohol drunk caused the differ-
ences in driving performance. You can be confident because the random allocation to the
groups should mean that all other possible causes of driving performance, such as time of
day, personality, or skill levels, are equally distributed across the groups, and so should
not contribute to the differences.
Since it is not always possible to conduct formal experiments in psychology (we
can’t randomly assign you to marry people similar or dissimilar to you and later test
how satisfied you are), psychologists often use quasi-experimental studies. The groups
they compare are naturally occurring ones, such as males and females, young and older,
depressed and not depressed. We cannot be so confident about what causes what in
such studies, because there may well be factors involved in those groups that affect our
outcome measures other than the ones we manipulate.
In yet other studies, we measure particular variables, say self-esteem and satisfaction
with life, and we can find out whether the variables are associated with each other. That
is, it may turn out that people with high self-esteem are generally more satisfied with
their lives, but we cannot be at all confident that one of those things causes the other.
They might both be caused by something else entirely, like holding down a good job,
which is known to improve self-esteem and lead to greater life satisfaction.
All of these sorts of studies, and more, are legitimate applications of the scientific
method. You will learn about their strengths and limitations as you go through your
undergraduate psychology major. Each of the studies contributes to our knowledge of
particular areas of psychology. That knowledge is recorded in various ways, in journal
articles, edited collections of research, textbooks, web pages, and the popular press.
The difficulty is to know where to look, and what weight to place on different sorts of
information when you are asked to write a research report or an essay.
M02_FIND0257_07_SE_C02.indd 10 23/06/14 10:27 AM

Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
to risk the loss of it on a mere policy of drift. Something clearly had to
be done, large, spectacular, idealistic in aim, to cover up from view a
record of failure which never ought to have seen the light. Not only
must it be done; it must be done at once, and he was the man to do
it.
The Administrative Council was wise in its generation. Without quite
believing in Mr. Trimblerigg’s proposals it gave him a free hand; for
as one of them said: ‘This is a matter over which he cannot afford to
fail. If he does, he is done for. Give him rope enough, he may hang
others, but he won’t hang himself; of that you may be quite sure.’
Without being quite sure, they made the experiment, and Mr.
Trimblerigg, with full powers, went out as High Commissioner of the
Chartered Company to sow the seed, plant the roots, or lay the
foundations of the Puto-Congo Free State Limited. His mission was
twofold—to save the Puto-Congo natives from themselves, and the
shares of the Chartered Company from further depreciation.
Incidentally he had also to save himself.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Kill and Cure
I CAN understand people liking Mr. Trimblerigg, I can understand
them disliking him; I can understand them finding him incalculable
and many of his actions puzzling (I used to do so myself); but I do
not understand why they should ever have been puzzled as to his
main motive, since his main motive was always himself.
Like everything else in life, character is a product, the inevitable
outcome of its constituent parts. When I invented him, I gave Mr.
Trimblerigg brains and a good head for business; I also gave him
imagination and an emotional temperament. Why, then, should it be
wondered at if he made a calculating use of his imaginative powers,
or indulged his emotions with a good eye to business?
Could you find me any occasion on which the fervours of his oratory
got in the way of his worldly advancement, or did anything but add
size to his following, I would admit that his character puzzled me. But
more and more I found this to be the rule—that the fervour of his
prayers, public or private, meant the same thing; and whenever the
encounter was a private one, and the fervour more than ordinary,
then I knew that Mr. Trimblerigg was in a tight place, and that he had
come to me not to admit that it was the place in which he deserved
to be and to stay, but to ask me to get him out of it.
Crocodiles cry: it is their nature. But they do other things as well:
they eat—not only people, but practically everything else in the world
that lives and breathes and is at all eatable. I gave them a good
digestion for that purpose. They are scavengers; and when they
scavenge, they do not always wait till the about-to-become-
nuisances die. They make, however, one exception: they do not eat
their dentist. And so you may see a crocodile squatting patiently in
the mud of the Nile or the Ganges, with jaws wide; while in that place
of death a small and tasty bird—whose name I forget—picks his
teeth for him.
Sentimentalists look on and say, ‘How beautiful! how wonderful!’ So
it is; but not in the way they see it. There is no sentiment about it: it is
merely the economy of life intelligently applied. The crocodile
depends for his good digestion, and his ability to satisfy it, on the
efficiency of his teeth; and as he cannot clean them himself he gets
a small clean bird to do it for him.
Similarly when Mr. Trimblerigg opened his mouth to me, he was
doing so for a genuine reason, as do most people: and why should I
complain?
I get a meal—something that adds to my interest in life. Far more
prayers mount up from the world below for selfish than for unselfish
reasons (I have experience, and I know); and they are not the less
sincere, or the less eloquent, or the less emotional, because they
have a mundane and a self-centred object.
Now when I compare Mr. Trimblerigg to a crocodile, I hope nobody
will suppose that I am taking the ordinary sentimental view of
crocodiles, as of creatures more cruel than other creatures. A
crocodile when it eats a human being is no more cruel than a thrush
when it eats a worm; and if people could only get that well into their
heads theology would have a better basis than it has at present. A
crocodile only appears more cruel than nature’s average because it
is peculiarly efficient to its end, and makes a wider sweep. Being big,
it requires a larger meal than others of the predatory species; also it
happens to carry on its countenance an almost unchangeable
expression of self-satisfaction, and so by appearing pleased it
appears more callous. And the fact that it does not always wait for its
offal to die is another point which the sentimentalists have against it.
In all these characteristic features—not to mention the tears, which
are merely accidental—there was between Mr. Trimblerigg and the
crocodile a resemblance. He was in his own line—the line of getting
on at the expense of others—preternaturally efficient; and as his
efficiency took a wider sweep, and required for the fulfilment of its
plans a larger contribution of sacrifice from assistants and opponents
alike, he appears in retrospect, even on the ministerial side of his
career, more rapacious, more predatory, and more callous than
others. This arose partly from the size, the necessary size of his
meal, and partly from the satisfaction it gave him; and if, when all
was done, that satisfaction did not break out in smiles, he would
have been a hypocrite. Being surface-honest, he smiled, quite aware
that his success was for ever being built up on the failure of others—
failure which he sometimes forced on them, or more often into which
he tricked them, when they themselves were reluctant to stand
aside.
But was that a reason why his smile should diminish? His smile only
diminished when his meal did not agree with him. There have been
occasions when he did not devour soon enough, when the nuisance
which was obstructing his path had time to turn and give him one in
return before the happy despatch could be effected. Then and only
then did Mr. Trimblerigg ever appear sore. He much preferred to
swallow a nuisance before it could retaliate.
The Puto-Congo nuisance, which had now come to so large a head,
had done so while his attention and energy had been turned
elsewhere. The fight for Relative Truth in one direction is apt to give
Relative Untruth its opportunity in another; for the good that man
does, or intends to do, is never absolute and all-embracing; and if
Relative Truth is only relatively successful,—the untruths incidental
to its propagation come into undue prominence and take the shine
out of it.
So it was now with Mr. Trimblerigg’s evangelical war record; the
recrudescence of the Puto-Congo trouble had begun to take the
shine out of it; the nuisance had become monstrous and must be
stopped.
For obviously what had happened was not fair to Mr. Trimblerigg.
Years ago he had planned beneficently a working compact for the
development of native races between Free Evangelicalism and
Capital. By a lightning stroke of genius he had brought a business
organization of vast proportions virtually, if not actually, under the
control of the most active missionizing body in the whole world. It
almost seemed as if the stainless record of the Quakers, whose
peaceful but profitable contact with Red Indian scalp-hunters had
extended over seventy-five years of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, might now repeat itself on a larger scale; and if Mr.
Trimblerigg on the flush of that generous prospect, saw in vision his
name pass down to posterity as the great Liberator,—saviour of an
oppressed race, is he to be blamed for anything but a too sanguine
temperament? Hitherto it was that very temperament which had
brought to pass things almost impossible; but now here, just once,
because his attention had been diverted, the scheme had gone
wrong, so wrong as to become unrecognizable; and since he could
not recognize its distorted features, he denied himself with a clear
conscience either the parentage or the responsibility of it. A thing so
remote from his intentions was necessarily the doing of others; and
when crossing the sea for the first time he set out on the adventure,
he had no other aim but to put it right and re-establish, on a sound
basis, the concordat between Christianity and Capitalism which he
had originally planned.
But when he got there he found things very much worse than even
his enemies and traducers had either discovered or declared; for in
the restoration of order the missionaries of Free Evangelicalism had
become implicated; very much as in former time they had become
implicated on the commercial and profit-making side; and the
natives, to whom sequences were the same as consequences, had
begun to turn on the missionaries.
And they also were hardly to blame; for wherever the missionaries
went before, order—or attempted order—had come after.
Submission had been preached till the natives would no longer
submit; civilization had been painted in all the colours of the rainbow,
till civilization had come and bruised them black and blue, and
tanned their hides for them; or did so when it caught them. For to
begin with the natives had only rebelled by ceasing to hew wood and
draw water, or collect the rubber and other commodities which the
Chartered Company was out to collect; and running away into the
woods had hidden themselves; only defensively setting traps and
laying ambushes, when the emissaries of the Chartered Company
came to fetch them back again. And because, in many cases, the
missionaries were sent as fore-runners, they started to make
examples of the missionaries; and when the missionaries came and
opened deceiving mouths at them, they devised a sure method for
keeping their mouths shut by burying them head-downwards in the
ground. And when the missionaries showed them those rainbows of
promise, in which they no longer believed, they painted the
missionaries in the truer colours of black and tan. And so it had
come about that, when Mr. Trimblerigg got to the country, the
mortality among the missionaries and their lay-followers was very
nearly as high and very nearly as painful as the mortality had been
among the natives of the Puto-Congo and Ray River Territory, till
they had taken to the woods to save themselves.
I have little doubt that had Mr. Trimblerigg’s diverted attention—
diverted to the saving of democracy, the skinning of the scapegoat
and the hewing of Agag,—had it been recalled a little earlier in the
direction where it would have done more good, and had he
promulgated his idea of a Free State Limited five years sooner, when
the call first came for Puto-Congo to assist in the saving of
civilization, I have very little doubt that he could have done what he
now failed to do, by methods which would have left his reputation
very much as they found it. But when he arrived upon the scene the
natives had got to a state of mind in which they could see nothing
with any appetite except blood, and hear nothing except the cries of
their victims; and in spite of Mr. Trimblerigg’s proclamations of peace
and goodwill (under certain governing conditions) the burying habit,
with its painted accompaniments, went on: got worse, in fact, instead
of better.
No doubt had Mr. Trimblerigg been able to announce to the natives,
that the white race with its civilizing mission, its religious principles,
its rubber interests, and its shares, was prepared to clear out of the
country, lock, stock, and barrel, and restore them the crude
independence they had never willingly let go,—no doubt had he
begun withdrawing his missions to the coast, and made the interior
prohibited territory to his rubber-collectors, he would have found
fewer of his missionaries entered head-downwards into future life as
he advanced his armed guards, his rescue-work, and his reforms.
But so long as the white missions and the traders remained active
the natives could not be convinced. Nor was Mr. Trimblerigg entirely
a free agent, he still had the shareholders behind him—albeit
shareholders professing Christianity; and these were people who
believed in the civilizing mission not only of race but of organized
capital. And because native ways of shedding blood were a
savagery which must be put down, while civilized ways of restoring
order were a ‘military necessity’ and a ‘moral obligation’ combined;
and because if they did not get the rubber somebody else would,
and their civilizing trade would suffer,—therefore they hung on, and
would not let go. And though Mr. Trimblerigg had full power given
him, it was power that must be used to a certain end; and the end,
put briefly, was that Christianity and Capital must continue their
civilizing mission in company, and win back Puto-Congo to the ways
of the world.
Having stated the moral obligation I draw as much of a veil over it as
I can, making history brief; for Mr. Trimblerigg, much against his will,
was obliged to fulfil it in terms of Relative Truth, such as the natives
could understand. In a crisis the Mosaic law is so much easier and
quicker to explain to primitive races than the other law which came
later. For these races stand at a stage of the world’s history; and
what the higher races went through, by way of judicial experiment,
they must go through also. Even by Christians, when it comes to the
point, Christianity has never been regarded as a short cut—not even
among themselves. For them and for all the rest of the civilized
world, Moses is still the law-giver, and there is no transfiguration yet
for the thunders of Mount Sinai; its lightnings continue to strike under
the New Dispensation as of old.
So it had to be now. The natives of Puto-Congo themselves
indicated what form of instruction best suited them; and under Mr.
Trimblerigg’s dispensation it was no longer only the missionaries
who were buried head-downwards and painted black-and-tan, to
match the landscape with its foregrounds of burnt-out villages and
long tracks of charred jungle wherein nothing lived or moved.
For this painful necessity Mr. Trimblerigg had good material provided
him. Civilization had trained for war far more men than it could now
employ in peace; and what, at the call to her children of a country in
danger, had been an act of heroic sacrifice had degenerated in
course of time into a confirmed habit, wherein fierce craving and dull
routine were curiously mixed. And when peace supervened and
became in the hands of diplomats a feverish and restless thing,
almost as nerve-racking as war, then by many hundreds of warriors
unwanted by the State and without employ, the dull routine was
forgotten while the fierce craving remained. Thus, here and there, as
luck would have it, in a still unsettled world, use was found for them,
and governments to which they owed no allegiance and for which
they had no affection, and as to whose rights and wrongs they knew
nothing and cared less, sent and hired them as experts for the
shedding of blood in quarrels not their own. And because
governments, good or bad, are organized things, and because men
are accustomed to have a government over them justifying them in
what they do, therefore, without trouble of conscience, to these
foreign governments they gave themselves, and shedding blood to
order, on a contract which promised them good pay, were not
regarded as murderers at all, but as men still honourably employed
in the service of civilization.
And some of these having returned home in the nick of time from
building castles in Spain, cheated of their pay, and very much
disgusted with the camps and the food and the sanitary arrangement
which had been provided for them, hearing that there was more
employment of a similar kind to be had in Puto-Congo and Ray River
Territory, went and offered themselves to the Chartered Company
and found grateful acceptance. And when a thousand of them had
been collected, they were sent out to the help of Mr. Trimblerigg, well
supplied with arms and ammunition, also with spades and tar-
brushes. And when they arrived Mr. Trimblerigg gave them their
welcome instructions, plenty of work at blacking and tanning, one
pound a day, and their keep.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Civilized and Simple
IT was unfortunate that Mr. Trimblerigg, at this crucial stage of his
career, not having Davidina to worry him, had no need to worry
about Davidina. Some six months earlier she had started upon a
career of her own on rather a big scale—a research expedition,
which, though merely an extension of that taste for travel in strange
places which she had already indulged, was now organized upon
such novel lines and to cover so far-stretched a route that it had
attracted public notice, and had won for her at the moment of
departure many send-off paragraphs in journals of science and in the
daily press. It was still something of a novelty for a lone woman to
head an expedition into tropical wilds south of the equator, for no
other apparent object than to collect botanical specimens, and
incidentally study the habits of the native tribes encountered on the
way. In addition, Davidina admitted that she had a theory which she
wished to put to the test; for though not a Christian Scientist, she
was one of those curious people who are without fear; and being
without fear she believed herself safe; and as she did not mind dying
she did not intend to carry fire-arms. The whole gist of the
experiment lay in the fact that, disappearing from the eye of
civilization to the south-east of trails which no white woman had ever
yet penetrated, she intended to re-emerge 2,500 miles to the north-
west, an unharmed specimen of that superior race-product which
she believed herself to be.
She and Jonathan had not been pleased with each other during the
War; and for the first time in his grown-up life Mr. Trimblerigg had
adopted toward his sister the superior moral tone which
circumstances seemed to justify; for in this contention he had not
only the world with him but all the Churches. He told Davidina that
she was wrong. Davidina’s reply was: ‘Seeing is believing; and at
present I don’t see much except mess, nor do you. In war nobody
can.’ And having waited till travel by land and sea had once more
become possible, Davidina sent him word of the object-lesson she
was going to give him. ‘And if,’ she concluded, ‘you don’t see me
again, you needn’t believe in my method any more than I believe in
yours. In any case, I shan’t haunt you; and I’ve left you my love in my
will.’ And with that cryptic remark she took herself off, leaving no
address.
It would be hard to say what exactly Mr. Trimblerigg wished, hoped,
or expected to be the outcome of her attempt to give him the
promised lesson. Probably he thought she would come back the way
she had gone, with a good record of adventure to her credit, a safe
failure; for he had great faith in Davidina’s powers of survival. What
he did not expect in the least was what actually happened. Mr.
Trimblerigg was inattentive to maps and unattracted to geography;
and when Davidina started on her adventure she was more than
2,000 miles away from any part of the world in which Mr. Trimblerigg
had interests.
Miss Trimblerigg’s travels have since been published in two large
volumes, with photographs taken by herself of things never seen
before, and of some, towards the end, which Mr. Trimblerigg would
rather she had not seen. For the scientific side of her work, two rival
societies awarded her their gold medal for the year—the first time
these had ever been won by a woman; for the other and more
adventurously experimental side, she received an address of
commendation from certain philanthropical and humanitarian
societies and other bodies with crank notions, whose zealous leaflets
and public meetings give them an appearance of life, but whose
influence in the world is negligible.
Davidina had as her companions two other whites, husband and
wife, whom she chose for the curious reason that they were both
deaf and dumb,—very insensitive therefore to shock, very
uninterfering and very observant of the natural phenomena that lay
around them. By this means she secured undisputed control of the
expedition, and as much insulation for her moral experiment as was
practically possible. The deaf-mutes were a great success with the
natives whom she employed as carriers: they regarded them as holy
mysteries, and held them in as much awe as they did Davidina
herself. Another curious choice she made was to have in her
following no native Christians. For this particular experiment she
regarded the unspoiled pagan as the better material; and there was
plain horse-sense in it, seeing that before long her following not only
looked upon her as a goddess, but worshipped her as well. This
great sin (though by some it might be regarded merely as an
example of Relative Truth) Davidina committed for more than a year
and over a space of 2,000 miles with great apparent success, and
was not punished for it. It was not my affair: those who read this
record will have discovered before now that I do not hold myself
responsible for Davidina: she belonged, and belongs still, elsewhere;
and what were her inner beliefs or her guiding authority I have never
been able to discover. She never applied to me. And yet between us
we shared, or divided the conscience of Mr. Trimblerigg. The
phenomena of the spiritual world are strange, and many of them, to
gods and mortals alike, still unexplained.
Davidina, then, went upon her travels unarmed—unarmed, that is to
say, with civilized weapons of war, or even of the chase—but by no
means unprovided for. Weapons of a certain kind she had, weapons
of precision, very subtle and calculated in their effect. But these were
aimed not at the bodies but at the minds of those denizens of the
forest and swamp and high table-land whom she encountered in her
march. Every member of the expedition carried a toy air-balloon: and
they had mouth-organs and bird-warblers; and the two deaf-mutes
carried concertinas on which they played with great effect tunes by
no means in unison. Natives, chiefs and warriors, coaxed to the
encounter—often with difficulty—wept and bowed down to their feet
as they performed; also they blew soap-bubbles which had an even
greater effect, so that word of them went far ahead and on all sides,
and the route they followed became populous.
Upon Davidina’s shoulder, for mascot, sat a small pet monkey in
scarlet cap and coat; and he too, when the occasion fitted, carried a
toy air-balloon. And as it went by land or by water, the expedition,
instead of going secretively and silently, made music and song, and
bird-warbled; and waving its toy air-balloons, and blowing its soap-
bubbles—with nods, and wreathed smiles, and laughter, and hand-
clappings—was safe by ways that never varied but never became
dull.
Again and again, in the dense forest jungle, ambushers who had
hung in wait for them, fled howling at their approach—first to report
the heavenly wonder to the heads of their tribe, then returning as
watchers from a distance to be won by the beauty of their sound and
the delicacy of their going—the decorativeness, the ritual, the blithe
atmosphere of it all. And at the next settlement to which they came,
the natives in holiday attire would turn out to greet them with
propitiatory offerings, and songs which had no tune in them, but
which meant that all was for the best in this best of all possible
worlds.
Month after month, sometimes camping for weeks, sometimes
marching in the track of rivers or skirting swamps, the expedition
wore its way steadily on, making for the point of the compass to
which it had set its face, north-north-by-west. And still word went
ahead, through a thousand miles of virgin forest; and Davidina
coming after, continued—however bad her theology might be—to
prove the thesis she had set out to demonstrate; always triumphal in
her progress, successfully collecting botanical specimens, her
course unpunctuated by gunfire and unstained by blood. For when,
in the languages of the native tribes they became variously known as
the Music-makers, the Ball-bearers: the Breathers of the breath of
life, their way was not made merely safe but prepared before them,
and a choice of many roads was offered them. Runners from a
hundred miles distance to right and left of their route would come
entreating them to turn aside and do honour to communities waiting
to welcome them.
For food they depended entirely on the skill of the native bow-men,
slingers, trappers, and blowers of darts who formed their company;
for Davidina had quite correctly calculated that if by this means the
natives could support themselves in life, they could also support an
expedition in which the whites were only as one to ten. Had these
followers deserted, she and her two companions would speedily
have starved. It was a risk—not greater, she maintained, than the
carrying of fire-arms; and since some risk must be taken, that was
the one she preferred.
In the end she had actually to face it and come through on her own;
but the goal of her itinerary was then not far.
It happened one night, after a heavy march that, without knowing it,
she had pitched her camp upon the confines of the Ray River
Company’s sphere of operations,—at the point, therefore, where
civilization might be said to begin. When she turned in for the night
all appeared to be well. Outside her tent the native guards sat
motionless upon their haunches looking out into the black bush; the
toy air-balloons floated dreamily on their pole in the centre of the
camp, and about its base all the impedimenta of the expedition stood
neatly piled: there was then neither sign of danger, nor prospect of
alarm, for up to that time nobody knew that they had touched
civilization.
But during the dead hours, some sense—sight, or sound—of peril
lurking ahead: native runners, perhaps, from a distance, or hidden
dwellers in the surrounding forest, had struck the hearts of her
followers a blow. In the morning the camp was empty. The cases of
botanical specimens lay undisturbed, but the toy air-balloons had
vanished. The pipes, the soap, the bird-warblers, the monkey, and
the two concertinas remained, also a small amount of food—rice,
flour, extracts of meat, and other medicaments which white men
think that they require when travelling. It was panic not the loot-
instinct which had cleared the camp of its carriers.
But the cause of the trouble—the propinquity of civilized man—was
also the way out of it. Shouldering what they could of the things most
necessary to life, and striking the downward course of the Ray River
—here a baby stream, shallow and fordable,—they headed toward
civilization.
Toward the end of the second day they came upon the sun-dried
bodies of six natives planted head-downwards in the soil: their
withered limbs trained upright on stakes, their dark leathery trunks
still showing the scores of stripes borne by the flesh.
Davidina had been, for over a year, so far removed from civilization,
that she did not know the latest things that civilization in its military
necessities had been doing; nor had she at that time any clue for
connecting this unsightly object-lesson with the pacific and
missionary efforts of her brother Jonathan. But that night, coming
into a white camp, well fenced and armed—offshoot of the larger
expedition now actively out to impose peace by reprisals—she got
the situation fully explained.
On the same spot where she had seen the impaled natives, a lay-
missioner a few weeks earlier had been found dead from the same
causes.
‘This time we only managed to catch six,’ explained the
commandant; ‘our regulation number is twenty.’
‘Regulation number is good,’ was her tart comment. ‘It suggests
order and discipline. Do you reduce the number as you go on; or do
you increase it?’
‘Increasing isn’t much good,’ replied her informant. ‘These beggars
can only count up to ten. We chose twenty as a good working
average: it’s the number we can generally manage to bag if we butt
in quick enough.’
‘But a higher scale,’ said Davidina, ‘would give you a better
clearance: rid you of more dangerous characters.’
‘Not necessarily. The dangerous ones can run. We only get what’s
left.’
‘You are acting strictly to order, I suppose? Whose?’
‘Trimblerigg’s,’ said the man.
‘I’m Trimblerigg’s sister.’
After that he treated her as though she were royalty—a little puzzled,
however, not quite understanding her. Her dry ironic commendations
were thrown away on him; he was the plain blunt man, doing his job
honestly according to the light or darkness with which others
provided him.
The information she got from him decided Davidina not to stay the
night. The natives, it appeared, had a wonderful faculty for moving
invisibly and without sound in the darkness; so in that camp throats
were sometimes found cut in the morning; and Davidina wished
rather particularly not to come to that end before she had seen
Jonathan.
She spent the rest of that night and the whole day following in a
canoe rowed by picked Christian natives; the two other members of
the expedition going back under an escort to recover what could be
saved of the impedimenta and botanical specimens which they had
been forced to abandon.
Late the next evening she arrived ahead of rumour at the armed
camp of the central mission. Off the river’s landing-stage she met
some one she knew who directed her to Mr. Trimblerigg’s quarters. ‘I
think he has turned in. Shall I call him?’ he asked.
‘I’ll call him myself,’ she replied, ‘if you don’t mind. It will be a nice
little surprise for him.’
He gave her the necessary password through the lines, for the camp
was well guarded, double sentries everywhere.
The coming of a white woman seemed to startle them, being so
much less explainable than a ghost; but she and her monkey got
through. Coming to a window covered by a chick-blind and showing
no light, she lifted the blind and looked in.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
A Night’s Repose
MR. TRIMBLERIGG, lying on his well-earned bed, was looking out
through the dark canes of the chick at the large-eyed tropical night,
when an opaque and curiously crested form entered his square of
vision. The chick lifted, to the flash of a torchlight the crest detached
itself, and a small scarlet-coated monkey leapt down on to the bed.
This incongruous combination scared his calculating wits out of him;
snatching his revolver he fired without aim.
The monkey, chattering in alarm, skipped back to the shoulder it had
sprung from. ‘Missed again!’ said a familiar voice. ‘How do you do,
Jonathan? May I come in?’
She clambered in as she spoke, and sat upon the bed, while Mr.
Trimblerigg, exclamatory with anger and apology, lighted the lamp
and stared at the unwelcome apparition. Met under such nightmare
conditions, they did not stop to embrace.
‘So that was your object-lesson, was it?’ said Davidina. ‘Bad shot.
What made you do it?’
‘You made me do it!’ retorted Mr. Trimblerigg sharply. ‘A fool’s trick,
coming like that! How could I tell it was you?’
‘You couldn’t. But what are your sentries for? Haven’t you enough of
them to feel safe?’
Mr. Trimblerigg, defending himself, gave away more of the situation
than he intended. ‘Why, it might have been a sentry himself!’ he
exclaimed. ‘You can’t trust one of them.’
‘Not even your converted Christians?’
‘Not as things are now. Christians?—scratch the surface, and you
find they go pagan again.’
‘So you’ve been scratching them?’
‘No need. They scratch themselves; it’s reversion to type; the
commonest disease missions have to contend with.’
‘And catching to civilization,’ remarked Davidina; ‘A scratch lot, all of
you.’ Then, as Mr. Trimblerigg looked at her with furtive suspicion,
‘I’ve been interviewing a specimen,’ she said; ‘one of yours.’
She named her man. ‘He seemed honest enough,’ she went on, ‘but
he’s been scratched badly, acting (he says) under your orders.’
Mr. Trimblerigg bristled to the implied criticism. ‘He has only done
what was absolutely necessary.’
‘Necessary, of course,’ she returned. ‘You can always make a thing
necessary if you want to. If a man sets fire to the tail of his shirt, he
has got to get out of it. But that doesn’t make him look less of a fool,
Jonathan. Necessary? It’s necessary, I suppose, that you should
shoot people at sight before you know who they are. But if you mean
that for an object-lesson, I don’t find it attractive.’
‘Object-lesson of what?’ demanded Mr. Trimblerigg.
‘Yes, of what?’ she retorted. ‘It’s not Free Evangelicalism, it’s not
common sense, and I don’t suppose you think it comic either.’
Her accent on the word enraged him, as she had expected. ‘I was
only asking,’ she said. ‘You’ve your sense of humour, and I’ve mine,
and they don’t always agree. A man who can never see a joke is a
poor creature; but when he makes a joke of himself and can’t see
that—he’s past praying for. Did you say your prayers to-night,
Jonathan? You did? Then better say ’em again backwards, and see
if you can’t get more sense out of them.’
‘Thank you,’ said Mr. Trimblerigg. ‘You mean well; but I don’t need to
be told how to pray: I pray as I feel.’
‘You do,’ she said comfortingly. ‘D’you ever look at your tongue first
to see your symptoms? No? Well, you should then. There’s nothing
in this world so dangerous as prayer if you’ve fixed up the answer
before you begin. Forty years ago, Jonathan, you set that trap for
yourself, now it’s a habit you can’t get rid of. Let’s look at your
tongue. It’s my belief you’ve got an attack of it now, worse than
usual. Either pray backwards from the way you’ve been doing—
which means don’t begin by giving yourself the answer—or leave
off.’
Mr. Trimblerigg, who during the past six months had been through
deep waters and in his own eyes had done valiantly, sat up quivering
with indignation.
‘If I hadn’t prayed,’ he cried, ‘prayed all I knew, prayed without
ceasing—and if I had not depended every instant on my prayer
being answered in ways beyond human power to devise, before this
I should have been dead.’
‘Yes,’ said Davidina, ‘and if you had aimed your last prayer a little
straighter, so should I. It missed—like some of the others, I’m
thinking. Two days ago I met six of your prayers, as you call ’em,
striped like a barber’s pole, dead as door-nails, standing on their
heads in native earth. They weren’t exactly addressed to me; but I’ve
come in answer to them; and if you don’t think it’s the word of the
Lord I’m telling you now, Jonathan, put up another and have done
with me!’
Mr. Trimblerigg’s sense of lifelong grievances came to a head, and
he spoke plainly: ‘I shall never have done with you, Davidina, never,
never! All my life you’ve hated me, persecuted me, wished me ill.
Yes; you’ve been sorry whenever I succeeded, glad when I’ve failed;
and if I were to fail now, you’d only say—“Serve him right! Serve him
right!”’
‘That’s true,’ said Davidina; ‘the rest isn’t. Hated you? Don’t flatter
yourself! You wouldn’t so much mind me hating you; it’s my seeing
through you that you don’t like. “O Lord, so look upon me from on
high that You don’t see me clear as Davidina sees me!” That has
been your life-prayer, Jonathan, though you never put it into words.
Yes, to you it may sound like blasphemy, but if you’d prayed a little
less to yourself, and a little more to me, maybe, you might not have
cut so famous a figure in the world—been such a firework, setting a
spark to your own tail and running round after it (which is what you
are doing here) but there’d have been more meat on you for one to
cut and come again than there is now. It’s my belief, Jonathan, you
don’t truly know where you begin and where you leave off. You’ve
been standing in your own light so long, and walking in it, that you
see yourself a child of light every time you look in the glass. I’ve only
to switch this torch on’—she played it upon him as she spoke—‘and
you look like a saint in a halo, waiting for the Kingdom of Heaven to
come. Yes, that’s what you are always giving yourself—a halo;
you’ve only to pray and it comes—like hiccoughs, or housemaid’s
knee. You touch a button, you switch on the light, and you see
yourself in a glory. Some day you’ll get one in real earnest; and when
you do, I wonder what you’ll make of it, and what people will say? I
think they’ll laugh.’
Mr. Trimblerigg looked at her with that same sort of uneasy awe
which weak saints have for the Devil. Under her penetrating gaze he
sealed himself to secrecy. This, that she was saying—so nearly true,
yet treating it as a joke—was not a thing about which even relatively
the truth could be told. Davidina had no sense of the mysterious, and
very little of the divine; she lacked reverence; but her uncanny way
of touching the spot did rather scare him. He changed the subject
hastily. ‘Where have you been all this time?’ he inquired. ‘You’ve
come a long way. How did you get on?’
Davidina, accepting the diversion, gave him a sketch of her travels.
He heard of the toy air-balloons, the bird-warblers, and the soap-
bubbles; the singing, and the playing, and the worshipping
deputations of natives. Nor did Davidina disguise from him the fact
that she had allowed godlike honours to be paid to her.
Mr. Trimblerigg, though he had used Relative Truth for his own ends,
could not, as a Free Evangelical, think that was right.
‘I dare say it isn’t,’ said Davidina, ‘not as we think it. But if you start
applying your own sense of what’s right to natives, they don’t think
you a god, they think you a devil. That’s what you’ve been doing,
Jonathan; and devil’s the result. And for my part, I don’t see that it’s
any more against true religion to let yourself be worshipped as a god
than to make yourself feared as a devil. Devil or god, it’s one or the
other—you can’t get out of it; and to be thought a god and to act
accordingly does less harm, comes cheaper, and makes things
easier for all concerned.
‘Anyway here’s your object-lesson and there’s mine. I could have
soon enough made them think me a devil if I’d taken your line,
Jonathan. So now, unless it’s against your religion, you’d better try
mine for a change. Be a god, Jonathan, be a god! It won’t be true;
but believe me—sing, glory hallelujah! it’s the better hole to fall into.
And now I’m going.’ So saying, she started to climb out the way she
had come.
‘Where to?’ inquired Mr. Trimblerigg, astounded at so abrupt a leave-
taking.
‘Anywhere, so long as it’s away from civilization—and you!’ she
declared. ‘I’ll send my specimens down to the coast, then go back
the way I’ve come. And, Jonathan, if you get beautifully burnt out by
a bush-fire in the next day or two, don’t think it’s them; it’ll be me.’
‘What for?’
‘For fun, or for a moral object-lesson, just as you like to take it:
Davidina’s dose—or jumps for Jonathan. Good-bye!’
She had escaped—had already gone a few paces, when Mr.
Trimblerigg bethought him and called after her.
‘Daffy!’ It was the old abbreviated usage from days of childhood. She
returned, and stood outside the chick without lifting it.
‘Well, what?’ she queried.
And Mr. Trimblerigg’s voice came cooingly from within: ‘You haven’t
kissed me, Daffy.’
‘I have not,’ she replied starkly.
‘But we haven’t quarrelled, have we?’
‘Quarrelled? Have I ever quarrelled with you yet, Jonathan? No fear!
I’ve been saying your prayers for you—right way up. Now you say
“Amen”; kiss yourself your own way, and go to sleep!’

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Psychology Research Reports and

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Senior Learning Architect: Lucy Elliott

National Library of Australia

Author: Findlay, Bruce, author.

Title: How to write psychology research reports and essays / Bruce

Edition: 7th edition.

ISBN: 9781486010257 (paperback)

Notes: Includes index.

Subjects: Psychology—Authorship—Style manuals.

Dewey Number: 808.06615

1 Reasons for Writing Research Reports and Essays 1

2 Writing Research Reports and Essays – Common Elements 7

3 Research Reports – How Do You Start? 37

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4 Sections of a Research Report 51

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Appendix A Sample of a Good Research Report 115

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Sabine Wingenfeld Hammond, PhD, FAPS

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Introduction to Staff Members

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2 How to Write Psychology Research Reports and Essays

1.1 Why Write Them?

• The pragmatic reason is that you are expected to do so as part of an under-

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reports demonstrates your ability to master the conventions of a discipline to

1.2 What Is a Research Report?

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is at odds with this. Nevertheless, it is important that as an undergraduate you become

1.3 Writing Essays at University

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Reports and Essays

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2.1 The Collaboration/Copying Distinction

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2.2 Information Gathering

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