LAB REPORT GUIDELINES

Writing a good lab report is an important goal of your science education, and gives you the opportunity to enhance your writing skills and to communicate your understanding of the scientific process to others.

Your lab report for this semester will be a write up of your independent research project. This will follow the standard format for a lab report and should include the following sections: Title
Introduction
Materials and Methods
Results
Discussion
Conclusion
References

For this course we are giving extra emphasis to the materials and methods section. This section should include sufficient detail to allow others to reproduce your experiments, without being overly descriptive.

A guide to writing each section is as follows:

TITLE
Name the experiment.
The title should be descriptive of what you did or what your data showed. A reader should be able to obtain some understanding of the content of your report from the title. In the research world, scientists scan the table of contents of journals to determine if there are any papers relevant to their research that they should read. Therefore the title is important for getting your work recognized.

INTRODUCTION
Explain why you choose this project, and what you hoped to learn from it. You will be required to research the background information for your project, and present the current state of knowledge for the topic of your research. In addition, you must explain your rationale for choosing this project, clearly state the objective or hypothesis, and predict the outcome of the experiments if the hypothesis holds true.

Example: if an independent research project investigated the effect of hand sanitizers on the growth of E. coli, then the introduction should include background information on...

1 4 abl account accur actual add addit address advantag adverb agaros allow almost alphabet also alway and/or apa appropri articl attent author auxiliari avoid awar away axe back background bacteria bar behind belong best bold break care caus chart choos citat cite clear coli column combin come common communic complet comput concept conclus conduct confirm conflict connect consid contain content contribut convinc could cours current data demonstr depend describ descript design detail determin diagram direct discours discuss distinct distinguish done draw drawn e e.g educ effect electrophoresi els emphas emphasi end enhanc enough enzym error especi etc even everi evid exact exampl excel excess experi experiment explain explan extend extra far far-reach field figur figure2 find first flaw follow foremost form format formula futur gel general get give go goal goe good graph growth guid guidelin hand handout help histogram hold hope human hypothesesar hypothesi i.e illustr implic import improv includ independ indic inform ingredi inher instruct interpret introduc introduct investig issu journal keep kill kind know knowledg lab label languag last learn leav like limit line list logic look major make mani manual materi mathemat may mean method might mix must name neat need negat next notebook number object obtain occur omit one opportun order organ other outcom over page paper particular past pattern pertain photo photograph phrase pictur pie place plan point portion possibl predict present presum probabl problem procedur process program project provid purif puriti qualifi quantifi question ran rational reach read reader reason recogn refer relat relev rememb repeat repetit report repres reproduc requir research respons result row sampl sanit save say scan scheme scienc scientif scientist section semest sentenc sequenti show simpli skill soap someon sound sourc specif specifi speculate.in spent standard start state step step-by-step style subhead suffici suggest summar support sure tabl table2 take tens text therefor think three time titl told topic track trend true two unansw understand unexpect unit unnecessari use valid vari verb volum want warrant way whatev whenev without work world would write year