Lab Reports?...help

nikolaitr

Hey,

I'm a JF and I've just been introduced to the fun that is Lab reports. I should probably mention now that I do MEMS, which is very similiar to engineering. At the moment the labs are all Physics, but I'll have Chemistry after Christmas. I am just not sure on what they want from us? So any suggestiond to maximise marks?

Barry Aldwell

The Chemistry ones are easy to write up, just answer all the questions in the lab book and that's it

The physics ones are a bit trickier. Read the instructions in the lab book thing (yes, all of the instructions) and do your best to follow them.

In both cases, do your best to get your head around whatever lab you're doing while you're doing it, it makes the writeup easier.

In the labs, ask the demonstrators what they are looking for. Take it down. That's about it! Some people hand them up handwritten, some type them.

Excel/OO Calc is a good program to use for plotting graphs, by the way.

Barry Aldwell

Yeah, learn to use Excel to do proper graphs (get a demonstrator to show you how to do it, seriously, it's a bit more complicated but you get a much better graph, with an equation for it, which is needed for some writeups)

John

My guide to writing a lab report (augment for different branches of science):

Title (self-explanatory)

Introduction
For JF labs you just need a paragraph or two explaining the background behind the lab. References are a plus as it shows the demonstrator you've done a bit of work. Plus it gives you a better understanding of what you're doing if you've read even a general textbook. State what the aim of the experiment is and briefly how you expect to achieve your goal.

Methods
This should be clearly written and detail all the steps you take. Make sure to mention all the materials you use (but don't write a list, mention them in your procedure as you use them, e.g. "then sodium chloride was added to the flask containing the reaction mixture"). There should be no background info here except for very rare cases. Do not use bullet points or make a numbered list of steps. Write it out in paragraphs and draw diagrams of the apparatus you use (if necessary) at the relevant points of the procedure (i.e. don't leave all the diagrams to the end).

Results
No discussion of results should be included in this section. Use tables, graphs, drawings, etc. as appropriate. Make sure you clearly label everything. Make sure they're arranged neatly in a sensible order.

Discussion
Here you refer to your results and discuss (hence the name ) their relevance. Are they what you expected? If not, why do you think they're different. Again, use references here and you'll look good. So compare what you've done in the lab to a similar experiment from a book or a journal article. Don't forget to relate the theory that the lab is demonstrating (say Beer Lambert's law) to your results.

References
All your references should be listed here in full (in the text you just put the name of the author(s) in brackets along with the year of publication). So say I had the following in my discussion "it was shown that the value of the constant should be 2.123453 (Kealy, 2006)" [For two authors you have (Kealy and Notkealy, 2006). For three or more you have (Kealy et al., 2006) and you'd list all the names out in your references section]. Then you'd have the following in your references:
Kealy J (2006) How to write a lab report. Journal of Waffle, 213:666-671.

Title of article is in plain text, italics for the title of the journal, bold for the volume number and plain text for the page numbers.

If you're referencing a book you'd write it as:
Kealy J (2006) How to write a lab report, 3rd Ed., pp.666-671, Boards Publishing, Dublin.

Title of the book in italics, everything else in plain text. All the publishing information should be listed on the library's website under the entry of the book, sometimes it's hard to find it in the book itself (it might not list the country of publication for example).

Other tips: Don't try and use big words and technical terms unless you're positive you know the meaning. Complete misunderstandings are a common problem in the reports I correct. Also, when drawing, use a sharp pencil and don't be afraid to draw big, a small drawing looks messy and you'll lose marks. When labelling drawings use a ruler to draw a line from the part of the diagram to its label (do not use arrows) and all labels should be in a straight line down the side of the diagram. Oh and don't forget to put titles for your drawings (Figure 1, Figure 2, Table 1, etc.) and make sure to refer to the diagrams in your text, e.g. "see Figure 4 for a description of the apparatus used" or "Table 1 gives the results from the first titration". I don't really use equations much but I think you have to number them too.

ApeXaviour

nikolaitr wrote:

I am just not sure on what they want from us? So any suggestiond to maximise marks?

You're JF, it'll be postgrad demonstrators so I think this:

Myth wrote:

In the labs, ask the demonstrators what they are looking for. Take it down. That's about it!

is the best thing you can do.

w.r.t. physics lab reports in general: the idea is to be clear and concise, writing too much is usually frowned upon, but so is leaving out things. Do they still give out that kind of booklet sheet that's divided into different sections like: abstract, introduction, experimental method etc.? It's divided like that so you can only write so much within each section, try keep within the lines and be concise.
Second piece of advice is significant figures. You never really need to go for more than two. If your calculator gives 6.349231045 then you only should write down 6.35. If you know the experiment is only accurate to +/- 1 then you should only write 6.

Edwardius

Errors!!!!!!