Since experimental papers in the social sciences are usually written in APA style, you will need to know how to properly talk about statistics in the text of your paper.

General Rules

You should never mention a statistic in the text of your paper that is already evident in a table or figure, and vice versa.

Be sure to italicize statistical variables (e.g., p-value; t-test, F-test).

Clarity

To place the focus on the meaning of your statistical tests and their relevance to your overall argument, you should summarize each statistical relationship in clear, plain English. Also, include the important values in parentheses, and the test information and significance at the end of the sentence. For example, rather than writing this:

• The mean anxiety score for women was 43.5, and the mean anxiety score for men was 47.9. This difference was significant; a t-test found a t-score of 2.34, and the p-value was 0.01.

You should write this:

• In terms of their scores on the Anxiety Scale, women $(M=3.68\text{, }SD=.70)$ were found to be significantly more anxious than men $(M=3.28\text{, }SD=.68)$, $t(61) = 2.34\text{, }p < .05.$

($M$ stands for "mean"—meaning average—and $SD$ stands for "standard deviation.")

Reporting statistics

This figure shows the proper way to report statistics in an APA-style paper.