APA results formatter

An APA results section reports what you found, in numbers and plain sentences, without interpreting why it happened, which is the job of the discussion. It opens with descriptive statistics, the means, standard deviations, and sample sizes that describe your variables, often gathered into a table. It then reports the inferential test for each research question or hypothesis: the test statistic, its degrees of freedom, the exact p-value, and an effect size. Any assumption checks, such as tests of normality, and the handling of missing data belong here too.

What does not belong is just as important. Keep out raw data, opinions about what the findings mean, and references to other studies; those move to the discussion. Report every pre-registered hypothesis, whether it was supported or not, rather than only the significant results, and present each statistic once in the cleanest place, prose or a table, not both. The structure follows the logic of your dissertation results chapter, and the foundational split between summary statistics and inferential tests sets the order in which you present them.

A short worked passage shows how the pieces fit. You might begin with the descriptives: “Participants in the treatment group scored higher (M = 24.6, SD = 4.1) than those in the control group (M = 21.2, SD = 3.8).” Here the mean and standard deviation are italicised and abbreviated, and the groups are described before any test is mentioned, so the reader meets the data before the inference.

The inferential sentence follows and carries the full statistical line: “The difference was statistically significant, t(98) = 3.42, p = .001, d = 0.69.” Notice the pattern, a one-clause statement of the finding, then the test statistic with its degrees of freedom, the exact p-value, and the effect size, all in a single sentence. The numbers never stand alone; they are always embedded in a sentence that says what they show. Understanding what the p-value reports keeps that sentence accurate rather than overstated.

Each test has a fixed reporting template. A t-test is written with its degrees of freedom in parentheses, the t value, the exact p-value, and Cohen's d, as in

t(48) = 2.34, p = .02, d = 0.68

F(2, 87) = 6.51, p = .002, η² = .13

A Pearson correlation reports r with its degrees of freedom, which is the sample size minus two, and the p-value, dropping the leading zero because r cannot exceed one:

r(58) = .42, p < .001

In every case the statistic symbol is italicised while the numbers are not, and the effect size sits in the same sentence rather than a footnote. Use the t-test tool or the ANOVA calculator to produce the figures, then format them with the tool above. The complete rule set lives in our guide to reporting statistics in APA style.

A chi-square test has its own bracket convention: both the degrees of freedom and the total sample size go inside the parentheses, separated by a comma, before the statistic and p-value:

χ²(1, N = 90) = 4.52, p = .033

Forgetting the N inside the brackets is one of the most common reasons a chi-square line gets flagged in review. Run the figures through the chi-square calculator first, then format the line so the sample size is not lost.

Cohen's d and other effect sizes are reported to two decimals immediately after the test that produced them, never on their own. A t-test reads “… p = .02, d = 0.68,” and an effect size from analysis of variance is typically eta-squared rather than d. Pair the number with a word so the reader knows whether it counts as small, medium, or large, a judgement our guide to effect sizes frames, with the values themselves available from the Cohen's d and eta-squared calculator.

Tables and figures earn their place when they show more than a sentence could. A table suits a correlation matrix, a set of group descriptives, or a regression model with several predictors, where a column layout is far clearer than prose. In APA style each table is numbered in the order it is mentioned, given a brief italicised title above it, and cited by number in the text (“as shown in Table 1”) rather than by position on the page. The golden rule is no duplication: a value reported in a table is not repeated in the running text.

Figures, such as bar charts of group means or scatterplots of a relationship, follow the same numbering logic, with the label and caption placed below the image, and axes labelled in full. Keep every table and figure able to stand alone: a reader should grasp it without hunting through the prose, which means defining abbreviations in a note and stating the sample size. When the results chapter contains several analyses, consistent table formatting is what makes it read as finished, and our help with your thesis statistics can build those tables to match the manual exactly.