13 Reporting Results Using R
13.1 Overview
Once you have cleaned your data, performed descriptive analysis, tested your hypotheses, and visualized your results, the final step is to report your findings. Clear communication is essential in social science research. Regardless of whether your final product is a journal article, white paper, research brief, or class assignment, your goal is to:
- Accurately report what you found
- Summarize how you found it
- Interpret the results with clarity and context
In this chapter, you will learn how to:
- Create professional summary tables
- Report statistical tests (t-tests, ANOVAs, correlations, regressions)
- Present APA-style figures and tables using tidyverse tools
- Write narrative summaries of findings
- Combine text, tables, and plots in R Markdown or Quarto for a reproducible report
13.2 Creating Summary Tables
Purpose
Tables provide a compact and precise way to present results. In social science, tables are often used to:
- Summarize group means and standard deviations
- Report regression coefficients
- Display p-values and confidence intervals
We will use three packages:
-
gtsummary: For professional summary tables with group comparisons -
kableExtra: For styled tables in R Markdown documents -
flextable: For exporting to Microsoft Word or PowerPoint
Descriptive Summary by Group
library(gtsummary)
# Summarize psychological scores by gender
gaming_data %>%
select(Gender, GAD_T, SWL_T, SPIN_T) %>%
tbl_summary(by = Gender, missing = "no") %>%
add_p() %>%
bold_labels()This produces:
- Group means and standard deviations
- Sample sizes
- p-values from t-tests or ANOVA
To convert to a Word document:
as_flex_table() %>%
flextable::save_as_docx(path = "tables/summary_table.docx")Regression Table
library(broom)
# Fit model
model <- lm(SWL_T ~ Hours + Gender, data = gaming_data)
# Create regression summary
tidy(model, conf.int = TRUE)This output includes:
- Coefficient estimates
- Standard errors
- Confidence intervals
- p-values
You can turn this into a table for publication:
library(kableExtra)
tidy(model, conf.int = TRUE) %>%
kable(digits = 3, caption = "Linear Regression Predicting SWL_T") %>%
kable_styling(full_width = FALSE)13.3 Writing Narrative Results
APA 7-Style Guidelines
In APA format, results are reported in narrative form along with supporting tables or figures. Here are templates for each type of analysis.
13.3.1 T-Test Narrative
A Welch’s t-test indicated that other-identifying participants (M = 7.71, SD = 1.2) reported significantly higher anxiety than male participants (M = 5.19, SD = 1.3), t(99.74) = -3.86, p < .001, 95% CI [-3.81, -1.22].
13.3.2 ANOVA Narrative
A one-way ANOVA revealed a significant effect of gaming platform on SPIN_T scores, F(2, 13475) = 3.52, p = .030. Tukey post-hoc comparisons did not identify significant pairwise differences, but mobile gamers (M = 25.36) reported higher scores than PC gamers (M = 19.79).
13.4 Presenting Visuals
When including figures:
- Always number and caption them (e.g., “Figure 1”)
- Refer to them in your text (e.g., “as shown in Figure 1”)
- Avoid redundant text—use the narrative to interpret, not repeat, the figure
Example R code to save a plot:
plot <- ggplot(gaming_data, aes(x = Hours, y = SWL_T)) +
geom_point(alpha = 0.3) +
geom_smooth(method = "lm", color = "blue") +
labs(
title = "Gaming Hours and Life Satisfaction",
x = "Hours Played per Week",
y = "SWL_T Score"
) +
theme_minimal()
ggsave("figures/swl_vs_hours.png", plot = plot, width = 6, height = 4, dpi = 300)13.5 Building a Full Report in R Markdown or Quarto
R Markdown and Quarto allow you to integrate:
- Your code
- Output (plots, tables)
- Narrative text
This ensures full reproducibility and consistent formatting for publication or submission.
Sample Structure for a White Paper or Manuscript
# Introduction
Describe your research question and context.
# Methods
Explain how the data were collected and analyzed.
# Results
Present tables, plots, and narratives using APA formatting.
# Discussion
Interpret the findings and connect them to prior research.
# Appendix
Include full tables or model outputs if needed.You can export to PDF, Word, or HTML using the Knit button in RStudio or the Render button in Quarto.
13.6 Summary
In this chapter, you learned to:
- Summarize variables and test results in professional tables
- Report findings clearly using APA 7-style narratives
- Combine text, tables, and plots into cohesive reports
- Export visuals and tables for use in external documents
- Create reproducible reports for scientific and professional communication
By the end of this process, you should be prepared to produce a polished, complete, and publication-ready document—whether that is a research manuscript, white paper, policy brief, or data report.