When you have a small number of results to report, it is often most efficient to write them out. There are a few important APA style guidelines here. First, statistical results are always presented in the form of numerals rather than words and are usually rounded to two decimal places (e.g., “2.00” rather than “two” or “2”). They can be presented either in the narrative description of the results or parenthetically—much like reference citations. Here are some examples:
The mean age of the participants was 22.43 years with a standard deviation of 2.34.
Among the low self-esteem participants, those in a negative mood expressed stronger intentions to have unprotected sex (M= 4.05, SD= 2.32) than those in a positive mood (M= 2.15, SD= 2.27).
The treatment group had a mean of 23.40 (SD= 9.33), while the control group had a mean of 20.87 (SD= 8.45).
The test-retest correlation was .96.
There was a moderate negative correlation between the alphabetical position of respondents’ last names and their response time (r = −.27).
Notice that when presented in the narrative, the terms mean and standard deviation are written out, but when presented parenthetically, the symbols M and SD are used instead. Notice also that it is especially important to use parallel construction to express similar or comparable results in similar ways. The third example is much better than the following nonparallel alternative:
The treatment group had a mean of 23.40 (SD= 9.33), while 20.87 was the mean of the control group, which had a standard deviation of 8.45.
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