Reporting Results

Besides your own good sense, there are three resources that you should consult in reporting results of your analyses...and they should be consulted in this order

1. Top-tier published articles in your own field.
The goal in a write-up is to communicate your findings to other social scientists. Examining the norms used in your field is critical to communication on a "common ground." There likely are norms with respect to prefered post-hoc tests, use of figures versus tables, descriptions of procedures. If you discover that the procedure you are using is not commonly used in your field (e.g., analysis of variance for dichotomous variables; repeated measures multiple regression), you may need to provide a reference and a bit more detail about what you did.

2. The APA publication manual.
The publication manual provides rules for the presentation of figures, statistics, and tables. It also contains a nice sample paper.

3. Your advisor (or other senior colleagues)
Once you have drafted a results section along the norms of your field and per APA guidelines, you should turn to your advisor for additional advice. Chances are, she or he will be much more enthusiastic and able to help when there is a working document.

An example of presenting results of a factorial ANOVA and the post-tests appears here.