Title first word starts with a capital
Your name and (if joint) partner name
Your student number and partner’s number
Department of Physics and Astronomy
The University of Manchester
First/Second/Third Year Laboratory Report
October 2019
(For an individual report:)
This experiment was performed in collaboration with partner name and
number.
Abstract
Insert your abstract here. Remember to delete the original text. The abstract
should be about 50 ‒ 200 words, and give a very brief overview of the
experiment and main results. Abstracts are important [1] because they set the
tone for the rest of the document. If your abstract includes a reference citation
then give the source below the abstract. This ensures that the abstract is selfcontained. Do not change the fonts or format of this Title Page, which is not
numbered. The rest of your report should start on the next page, page 2.
[1] Chicago Manual of Style, https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/home.html, accessed
17/10/2018
1. Introduction
This document serves several purposes.
a) It is a template that defines our House Style.
b) It contains instructions, advice and guidance on writing lab reports.
c) It contains examples on the use of Microsoft Word.
Your lab report should conform to the appearance of the House Style. The
easiest way to do this is to write your report by editing this document, or the
stripped down version which is also available on Blackboard. You may prefer
to use a different document preparation package, such as LaTeX, to produce
your report. In that case, it is your responsibility to ensure that the final version
which you submit is consistent with the House Style defined here.
In first year, the report marking scheme includes marks for various specific
points of House Style. In second and third years, the marking scheme
concentrates more on the overall content and writing style but you are still
expected to follow the House Style, and will not be marked down for
presentation if you follow it. Do not change the style, i.e. the fonts, spacing,
layout etc. It’s a good idea to keep an unchanged copy of this document for
reference.
2. The aim of a scientific report
The basic aim of the report is to communicate your results to the scientific world
and to convince the reader (often a sceptical critical reader) that they should
believe your results. You should include all measured and propagated
uncertainties and also details of any best-fit models you use. Your result may
be a numerical value (for instance the acceleration due to gravity) or it may be
an observation of a physical phenomenon (for instance the form of the
diffraction pattern produced when light passes through a slit).
The key to good communication is to write clearly, concisely and precisely, and
to follow the conventions for a scientific report so that your reader finds the
report easy to read and understand. This document contains a lot of
information and guidance on the required structure, layout and presentation of
your report. Books such as [2;ch13] contain more general advice on good
scientific writing.
2.1. Report length
First year lab reports should be no longer than 9 pages in total. You will lose
marks if your report is longer than this. Typical reports are 7-8 pages long, with
a word count of around 1500. If your does not include sufficient material or
explanation, and is therefore too short, you may also lose marks.
This House Style guide is over 20 pages long so your report should be much
shorter than this document.
3. House style: layout and presentation
This document specifies, by example, the House Style for Department of
Physics and Astronomy first year laboratory reports. The idea is to make the
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report look like an article in a scientific journal. In the real world, when you write
an article for a journal, e.g. Physical Review A, the style is rigidly specified [3],
giving the journal a look that people come to recognise. Using the House Style
saves you work because you do not have to invent your own. It specifies the
format, styles and layout, including margin sizes, line spacing, font types and
sizes for headings and body text, how to make a reference etc. None of these
should be changed. Notice it is (nearly) all in one font. There is no underlining.
Your report should be written in Arial font, 12pt for normal text, with section and
subsection headings in bold. Paragraphs should be justified (aligned) both
sides, with single line spacing. There is an extra 18pt space before a section
heading and 12pt after. The Word Heading 2 style is used for section headings,
and these should be numbered automatically, but you should make and number
subsection headings (Heading 3 style in this document) yourself. Any
variations from the standard format should follow the example set in this
document, for example with mathematics and displayed equations, the front
page, and figure captions.
Appendix A contains a useful checklist of House Style items. Check your
finished report against this list to ensure that the layout and presentation
conform to the House Style.
3.1. Using this document as a template
The easiest way to create your report is to open a copy of this document and
edit it. You can copy and paste features like Greek letters, subscripts,
equations and so on. At the end make sure you delete all the material of the
original document. This should leave your report in the required House Style
and looking very professional.
3.2. Other ways to improve your presentation
Always use two spaces after a full stop so that the inter-sentence space is wider
than inter-word spaces. A hard space between two characters will ensure that
the line does not break at the space. This is very useful to avoid splitting a
value and its units of measurement across a line break if the number appears
at the end of the line. To make a hard space use CTRL+SHIFT and space.
Turn on ‘Show all nonprinting characters’ (the ¶ symbol in the Paragraph
section of the main Home toolbar) to see where all your spaces are.
Make sure your figures are large enough to see the information clearly. Avoid
text wrapping around narrow figures or tables, and make sure that the caption
sits directly below the figure or table, on the same page.
4. Structure of a Lab Report
The first page of your lab report is the Title Page, which contains information
about the author and the report, and also the Abstract.
The main body of the report is sub-divided into sections and if necessary, subsections. The format of the headings is given by the examples in this document.
Section 1 of your report will be the Introduction, and the last numbered section
will be the Summary section. This is followed by the reference list. The main
body of the report will usually include sections on the Experimental method,
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Theory, Data, Analysis, Results, and Discussion. You can choose the order of
the sections in the main body of the report, e.g. Theory then Method, and you
may also want to combine sections, e.g. Data and Analysis or Results and
Discussion, or add other sections.
You are encouraged to use more informative titles for all of these sections.
Appendix B contains more information about the structure and content of each
of the sections in your report.
4.1. Experiments which have more than one part
A common problem is how to report an experiment that consisted of several
parts. For instance you might have used a Michelson interferometer to
measure the wavelength of a spectral line and then measured the splitting of a
line and then studied the bandwidth of a filter. It is really tedious to be presented
with the theory (for each part) then the apparatus (for each part) then the
measurements (for each part) then the results (for each part) then the errors
(for each part) then the summary (for each part). It is far better to consider all
aspects (theory, apparatus, measurements, accuracy, results, etc) of part one,
(the wavelength) then all aspects of part two (the splitting) then part three.
If the method section for part 2 is essentially the same as for part 1, except that
you varied the current rather than the resistance, then your report will be more
concise, and therefore easier to read, if you refer the reader back to the
description in part 1 rather than rewriting (repeating) a large chunk of text.
When your report covers several parts of an experiment in this way you should
still have a single introduction at the start or your report and a final summary
section at the end which pulls together the main results from each part of the
experiment.
5. Scientific Writing Style
Your report should convey to the reader, clearly and concisely, an account of
what you did and what you found out. The key to writing clearly is to keep
things simple; write short sentences and, where there is a choice, use simple
words. Avoid repetition, particularly repetition of ideas and concepts, although
you will need to repeat some pieces of key information such as your final results
several times during the report.
Your lab book should contain a full record, in time order, of what you did during
the experiment. However, your lab report should be an edited version of the
story of the experiment, suitable for publication. This means that you can
rearrange the order in which you present your work to make the story of the
experiment as clear and easy to follow as possible.
You should assume that your reader is another first year student, but one who
has not necessarily completed this experiment. They should have the same
core physics knowledge as you, but may not be familiar with the details of the
physics involved here.
You are telling the story of what you did, so it is normally a good idea to keep
your report in past tense. There are a couple of exceptions to this, the Theory
section is describing work which was and (hopefully) still is true, so is normally
4
written in present tense. Figure and Table captions describe what the figure or
table shows and so again are normally written in present tense.
Historically, scientific papers were written in the passive voice, however, many
journals no longer insist on this style of writing, and you can make use of both
the passive voice (e.g. measurements were made …) and the active voice (we
concluded …). Both are fine and use them as needed, however, remember
that the emphasis in a report is on the scientific result and not the particular
individuals, so avoid excessive use of “I” or “we”.
Of course, every part of the text must be written in grammatically correct English
sentences and there should be no spelling mistakes. You should not give
instructions, and you should avoid lists (unlike this document which gives
instructions and has several lists).
Appendix C contains more advice about writing clearly, concisely and precisely.
6. Some technical details
6.1. Units
All quantities must have their units stated, as in: 9.81 ms‒2. Notice that there is
a space before the units and the units are in the same font style as the main
text (upright or roman type rather than italic). To avoid the number and the
units ending up on separate lines use a hard space (shift-crtl-space). Other
unwanted linebreaks can be avoided in a similar way. Note that using a minus
sign (not a hyphen, see Section 3.2) in ms−2, will stop the units superscript being
broken across a line.
6.2. Uncertainties
It is important to discuss the uncertainties in raw measurements and results.
Uncertainties should be presented alongside the values they qualify. For
instance, state the precision of the equipment when you describe it, give the
uncertainty of the measurements when you describe them and give the
uncertainty of results as they are presented. Points on graphs should always
be plotted with error bars. If these are too small to see clearly then say so in
the caption. There is no need to have a section dedicated to errors.
You have a delicate balance to strike. You can assume that the reader knows
the basics of error propagation so there is no need to spell out the formulae and
arithmetical calculations in detail, yet you need to convince a sceptical reader
that you have done things properly. For instance it is adequate, and indeed
good style, to say “The current and voltage were measured to an accuracy of
1.5% and 2.5% respectively. Combining in quadrature, this gives the power,
𝑃 = 𝐼𝑉, to 2.9%”. Any competent physicist can check that 1.5 and 2.5 do indeed
combine in quadrature to give 2.9. However, leaving out the equation in
examples similar to the one above would not be appropriate, since the reader
might not know that 𝑃 = 𝐼𝑉 is the correct equation. Similarly, if you have not
mentioned that current was measured to 1.5% then the reader can’t verify your
final result.
It is useful to explain what the dominant source of uncertainty is in the final
result.
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6.3. Rounding
Remember to round numerical values and uncertainties to a sensible number
of significant figures. An abstract claiming that your result for the acceleration
due to gravity was 9.8  0.015643 would lose marks (not only because there
are too many significant figures in the uncertainty, but also there are no units).
If you present values in a table, these should also be rounded sensibly.
Refer to the Data Analysis course notes and summary sheet (available on
Blackboard) if you are not sure about how to quote your values and
uncertainties. As a general rule of thumb, round the uncertainty to one, or
possibly two significant figures and round the value to the same placeholder
level.
6.4. Algebraic symbols and equations
Use an italic font for algebraic symbols. This distinguishes them from units of
measurement. Usually equations are displayed on a separate line, even though
they are part of a sentence. Try to avoid using words (or abbreviations) as
algebraic symbols or as subscripts or superscripts. Note that mathematical
functions such as sin, cos or log are written in roman type. Appendix D gives
more information about how to include equations and mathematical symbols in
your report.
6.5. Footnotes and Appendices
The best advice about footnotes and appendices is to avoid them as much as
possible. Put useful information in the text. Put references in the list of
references at the end. Lab reports are too short to justify an appendix at the
end (unlike this template). If some calculation or derivation or detail really is
needed and does not fit comfortably into the main text then a short appendix
might be appropriate. It is not usually necessary to include tables of raw data
in your report, or in an appendix.
7. Figures, Tables and Graphs
Your report should include figures, and may also include tables. These are not
part of the main text, but give the reader useful additional information. Graphs,
plots, diagrams and other types of pictorial output are all labelled as figures.
Each figure or table should have a number and a caption, (e.g. Figure 1), and
should be referred to, from the main text, by its number. See this document for
examples. Captions are not merely a title, they should state clearly what the
figure or table shows, and can also give supplementary information, such as
the parameters of a best fit model. They should be written in sentences. Make
sure that the information in the caption is specific to the figure or table, and
avoid putting detailed descriptions of methods or analysis in the caption. This
should be in the main text. You can also repeat key information from the caption
in the main text.
6
A
B
laser
Figure 1. Schematic diagram of the Michelson interferometer, showing the laser source, beam
splitter, and mirrors A and B. The light path is also indicated. Mirror A is movable using a
micrometer screw gauge and a reduction mechanism. Mirror B has fine adjustments for
alignment.
Use one numbering sequence for figures (Figure 1, Figure 2, Figure 3 etc) and
one sequence for tables (Table 1, Table 2 etc), as in this document. The
caption is in a smaller font that the main text (Arial 10 point) and should be the
same width as the normal text, even if the figure or table is narrower.
7.1. Creating Figures
Figures should be neat and clear. They can be produced on a computer or
hand-drawn and then scanned or photographed. If you create a figure by hand,
make sure that lines are straight, writing is neat and legible, axes are orthogonal
and the quality of the scan or photograph is of publishable standard. If your
figure contains output from a computer program you should check that all of the
annotations are readable, and remove any unnecessary or distracting
information from the computer output. Annotations should be at least 10pt to be
easily readable.
You should avoid using photographs of equipment. A diagram showing the key
features, such as the one shown in Figure 1, is usually much clearer for the
reader.
If you copy a figure or diagram from another source, you must cite the source
in the figure caption, otherwise you could be committing plagiarism. If you use
a figure taken from the labscript or pre-lab you should include an
acknowledgement in the figure caption. An example is shown in Figure 2.
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Figure 2. A diagram showing the parts of the pendulum and the relevant distances between
the knife edges and the centre of mass. Reproduced with permission from the Kater’s
Pendulum pre-lab.
7.2. Tables
Tables are a very useful way of summarising the results from several different
measurements, so make good use of them. It is not usually necessary to give
tables containing lots of raw measurements; in most cases it is much better to
present data as a graph.
To make a table select: Insert, Table…, and specify the number of rows and
columns that you want. Table 1 is a simple example of some artificially
generated data. Notice that the table has a number and an informative caption,
and is referred to specifically by its number from the main text. The uncertainty
on current and magnetic field have been omitted in Table 1, but must be there
in your version, either in the table itself or mentioned in the caption or the main
text, for example: the current was set with a precision of ±2% and the magnetic
field was measured to ±0.02 T.
Current
(Amps)
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
Magnetic Field
(Tesla)
0.23
0.46
0.66
0.87
1.06
1.27
B2
(Tesla2)
0.053
0.212
0.436
0.757
1.124
1.613
Height of meniscus
(mm)
3.24
3.41
3.60
3.97
4.32
4.81
Table 1. Height of the meniscus for different magnetic fields. The heights, measured with a
microscope, are accurate to 0.02 mm. Note that all the numbers have been rounded sensibly
where appropriate. Also notice the way in which the reference is used (see Section 8).
7.3. Graphs
Graphs are worth a thousand words for presenting data to a reader. We are
much better at digesting visual data than a table of numbers or a lot of detail
explained in the text. So it is rare for reports of experimental work to not include
some graphs. Data points should always be shown with their error bars (or a
note in the caption if these are too small to be seen). Your graph must have
numbered and labelled axes. Remove unnecessary material such as plots of
residuals, the fitted parameters, computer instructions etc. Display only the
8
essentials and don’t distract the reader with side issues. If necessary, crop or
edit the plot. For example, if the axes annotations are too small to read
comfortably, copy the plot into Powerpoint or Paint, cover the annotations with
blank boxes and re-type the values in a larger font.
You will almost certainly want to include a plot of your data together with the
best fit model as given by lsfr.py. An example of such a plot is shown in
Figure 3. Remember that you can change the way the plot looks using the
options in the main lsfr window. In particular it is a good idea to make the xaxis slightly wider so that the extreme points are clearly visible.
Many students find it difficult to write a good caption for figures showing the
results of a least-squares fit. Remember that the caption needs to state clearly
what the figure shows, in this case the data points and the best fit line. You
should also give the values of the best-fit parameters (𝑚, 𝑐 and 2 ) rounded
sensibly, and you may well also want to refer back to the equation for the model,
by its number. Finally, you may want to highlight any particular or unusual
features in the plot which you will then discuss further in the main text.
Height (mm)
Height vs square of B-field
4.5
4
3.5
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
1.4
1.6
Square of B-field (T2)
equation:
Linearof(y=mx+c)
Figure 3. Fitted
This is
an example
a graphic produced with lsfr.py. It shows the data from Table
1 and also the least squares best fit straight line which has a 2 of 2.98 for 4 degrees of freedom.
m = 1.0087
0.0151
The line has slope 𝑚 = (33 ± 3) mm T−2 and intercept2𝑐 ==2.984
(4 ± 2) mm.
c = 3.18642
 0.00816
Number
pointsparts:
plotted(a)
= 6 the graph
The graphical output from lsfr.py normally consists
of ofthree
Degrees of freedom
= 4and 2 and (c)
as shown in Figure 3, (b) a table of the fitted parameters,
errors
a graph of the deviations. For your report, it is the main graph which is most
Deviations in the ordinates
important, so you should crop out the other parts of the output when you include
0.05
the image. You can either set lsfr.py only to output the main plot, or when you
copy the0graphic into Word, crop the image. This is done by right-clicking on
the graphic, >Format Picture, Crop and adjusting the Crop position. (If you click
-0.05
on this
graphic in Word you can reset it and see the original.)
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
1.4
1.6
If the residuals plot is of particular interest, for example the residuals show a
non-random structure which you discuss in the main text, you may also want to
show that plot as a separate figure, although often such a pattern will already
be visible in the main plot.
9
7.4. Combining Plots
You may have several similar plots of data and fits. It is usually better to
combine these into a single plot for your report. This will help your presentation
to be clearer and more concise.
You can do this in python: first, plot each dataset using plt.errplot, then create
a set of y-values for each best fit straight line and plot these against the x-values
using plt.plot. Finally do a plt.show() to display all the plots together.
An alternative is to show one or two example plots and then summarise the
results from all your experiments in one table.
8. Plagiarism and References
It is very important in your professional life that you distinguish clearly between
your own work and that of other people. In lab reports, and published academic
papers, we do this by citing references where we use ideas, results or other
work which is not our own. If you do not cite your sources properly then you
are at risk of committing plagiarism or other related academic malpractices and
the consequences can be very severe. A plagiarism check is run on each
submitted report.
The Lab Report talk in Study Week contains a lot of information about
plagiarism and how to avoid it. You can find the slides from the talk on the First
Year Blackboard web pages under the Lab Reports Folder. You will also find
links to further resources there.
All reports should have some references. References consist of two related
parts, a citation in the text and the details of the source at the end of the report.
You can use one of two reference styles: either author-date, where the citation
in the text reads, e.g. “(Einstein 1905)”, or the IEEE numerical system (as used
in this template) where the citation is a number in square brackets, in line with
the text (not superscripted). In the text, for example, you may refer to a book
as in [2] or [4]. You can also refer to a specific page in a book using [4;p23]
and later [4;p45].
Each source is then listed in the References section (which is not numbered),
at the end of your report. Your reference list should contain the full details of
each source, so that the reader can easily look up the relevant material. For
each source, you should give the author name(s), date of publication, page or
section number, the title of the book or journal and for books, the name of the
publisher. For Author-date style, the references should be listed alphabetically
by the first author’s last name; for IEEE they should be in numerical order. You
should use the style given in this document to make sure that you include all of
the necessary information. You can find more examples of referencing in any
published papers, such as the one by Lyne and Lorimer [5].
8.1 Appropriate reference sources
A good reference source should be trustworthy, academically rigorous and
publically available for anyone to look up.
The lab script and pre-lab are not usually good reference sources to use,
because these are not published and freely available documents, however, if
you are giving the value of an instrumental parameter or similar information
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which cannot be found elsewhere, then you should acknowledge the lab script.
Similarly, if you received a relevant piece of information from a person you can
reference and acknowledge them like this: “A good technique [6] for
measuring……”.
Be careful if you are using references to sources on the web. You should give
the full web address (not a search engine link) in the reference list and also the
date you accessed the page. Web pages can be updated or removed, so your
source may change after you accessed it. For this reason you should usually
try to use books and journal papers rather than web sources where possible. If
you do use a web source you should take care that the website is reliable.
Usually a national scientific institution such as the National Physical Laboratory
(NPL) [7] or a respected higher education establishment would be a better
choice than a site like ScienceKids [8], which is aimed at a lower level.
Wikipedia can be a good starting point for researching and understanding a
topic or concept, however, it is not necessarily reliable and it changes
frequently. Therefore for a document such as a lab report, Wikipedia and other
similar encyclopaedia sources such as Britannica are not considered to be as
reliable and appropriate a source as, for example, a textbook or published
research paper would be. If you choose to use or reproduce a figure from a
Wikipedia page you should include a citation to that page in the caption.
When marking your lab report, your marker will be looking for appropriate
reference sources with full citations in the appropriate format.
It is not appropriate to have a Bibliography in your lab report. The term
Bibliography is used for a list of books and papers which are of general interest
and which are not referenced individually. Bibliographies are used in more
general articles such as a vacation essay, or in much longer works which draw
generally on a wide variety of sources.
9. Proof-reading and editing your report
Writing a report or other document in a specified format is an important
professional skill. You should always make time to proof-read and edit your
report. It is a good idea to save a completed draft version and come back to it
a day (or more) later so that you can read the entire report with fresh eyes. This
will help you to spot any typos or errors in the layout and presentation of your
report. Try reading your report out loud to yourself. You can often identify
sentences or sections where the report does not flow clearly or logically, or
where your explanations are becoming vague or repetitive in this way.
Here is a short checklist that’s worth going through when you’re adding the final
touches to your report.
 Delete all the original text of this document.
 Read your report.
 Get a friend to read it. Read someone else’s.
 Does the report conform with the House Style for layout and
presentation? (See checklist in Appendix A.)
 All values and uncertainties have been rounded sensibly.
 All figures and tables been referred to, by their numbers, from the main
text.
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 Correct spelling mistakes and other typos.
 No repetition. No unnecessary words. No ambiguities.
 Have you dealt with errors adequately?
 Run a Spell Checker.
When you are happy with your report, make a pdf version and submit the pdf
copy, following the instructions under Lab Reports on the Blackboard lab pages.
10. Feedback and assessment
Your report will be marked according to the marking scheme available on
Blackboard. More important than the mark is the personal feedback you will
get from the marker. Consider all of your feedback carefully. Some of it will
relate to things which are obviously right or wrong, and some will be more
subjective, relating to your particular technical writing style. You may or may
not agree with the marker about the subjective feedback but by considering it
carefully you will develop your own writing style.
In first year, the marking scheme is very prescriptive. The emphasis is on
following the House Style, as defined in this document. The marker will try to
ignore how well you actually did the experiment because this was previously
assessed in the interview. As well as your numerical mark, your marker will
also give you feedback based on their opinion of your report as a whole:
considering how well it stands up as a scientific document, and how well it
communicates the results of your experiment to a reader. In second year and
beyond, the report marking scheme is less prescriptive and puts more
emphasis on the overall quality of your technical writing.
You might like to bear in mind that by far the most common comment made by
markers is that students seem to have not read the guidance and instructions.
So read this document carefully and take note.
10.1. Report Length
Your report must be no longer than 9 pages, including the front page and all
report content such as figures and references. You may also have a Personal
Comments page at the end of your report but this is not included in the page
count.
Typically a lab report should have around 1500 words, and usually anything
between 1200 and 2000 words is reasonable. You can estimate the word count
in Word by copying the word count line below, and updating the number of
words, by putting the cursor on the number (it becomes highlighted in grey),
and pressing F9.
The number of words in this document is 8885.
If your report is longer than 9 pages then you will lose marks. Note that for a
first year lab report, it is not necessary to include everything that you did.
However, the report should tell a complete story to a reader who has not done
the experiment themselves. Your report must contain sufficient material;
usually this means a description of at least one experiment (not just a
preliminary measurement), including relevant theory, the method and
measurements made, a discussion of your analysis and results and any
conclusions you can draw.
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10.2. Late Reports
Working to a deadline is an important transferable skill. The University has
strict penalties for late submissions of coursework and these will apply to late
lab reports. Any report handed in after the deadline will be marked as usual but
then a late penalty mark will be deducted. The late penalty will be equivalent
to 10% of the total possible mark for each day late, but if the report is more than
5 days late a mark of 0 will be recorded.
10.3. Work and Attendance requirement
It is a work and attendance requirement that each student submit an individually
written lab report and you will not pass first year lab unless you do this. For
most students, the final report you submit in first year will be an individual report,
so you will satisfy this requirement as part of your normal lab work. If you do
not submit an individual report during the year, whether due to illness or any
other reason, you will be asked to submit a report at the end of the year (after
the exams), in order to satisfy this requirement.
Acknowledgments
There is usually no need for acknowledgements in your report, but if you want
to, you can include an (un-numbered) acknowledgments section at the end,
before the references. I’d like to thank all those students whose reports I have
read in recent years and thus obtained some knowledge, albeit limited, of the
difficulties of writing laboratory reports. I’d also like to thank the many
demonstrators I have had discussions with about lab report writing and marking,
some for agreeing with me and some for opening my eyes to different
approaches.
References
[1] Chicago Manual of Style, https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/home.html,
accessed 17/10/2018
[2] Squires, G. L. 2001. Practical Physics, 4th Ed, Cambridge University Press.
[3] Style and Notation Guide for Physical Review/Physical Review Letters
https://cdn.journals.aps.org/files/styleguide-pr.pdf, accessed 27/10/2018.
[4] Kaye, G. W. C. and Laby, T. H. 1995. Tables of Physical and Chemical
Constants, 16th ed., Longman.
[5] Lyne, A. & Lorimer, D. 1994. Nature, 369, 127.
[6] Cunane, P. Private communication.
[7] The National Physical Laboratory, http://www.npl.co.uk/, accessed
28/10/2015.
[8] ScienceKids, http://www.sciencekids.co.nz/ , accessed 28/10/2015.
The number of words in this document is 8967 .
13
Personal Comments
Comments such as “I enjoyed the experiment”, “I think this is a good experiment
because…”, and any such personal opinions are not part of a scientific report
and must not be included in your report.
However, you may, if you wish, place at the end of your report a separate page
entitled “Personal Comments”, which will not be marked. Relevant information
might be that you have been working without a partner which meant you found
some aspect of your work more difficult to do as you were working on your own.
You can also ask the marker for feedback on specific points such as “I was
unsure about Section 3; is it too long?”, “I didn’t know whether or not to include
xxx”, etc or make any comment you like. We hope that this will help to provide
useful feedback for you.
Dr Myfanwy Lloyd
24/10/2019.
Based on the original Lab Report Template by Dr Ian Duerdoth.
Please send comments and corrections to:
Dr Myfanwy Lloyd First Year Lab Tutor
email: Myfanwy.Lloyd@manchester.ac.uk
14
Appendix A: Layout, presentation and house style
Before you submit your report, check that the layout and presentation conforms
with the House Style. The following list, which is not necessarily complete, can
be used as a handy checklist. Your report should have the same general
appearance as this document.
 Front Page: title and author details as specified
 Front Page: abstract title is not numbered
 Abstract is justified (aligned) both sides
 Each page is numbered, except for the Front Page
 Correct font and numbering style used for all section and subsection
titles
 Main text is justified (aligned) both sides throughout
 Section or subsection titles are not left hanging at the bottom of a page
 Roman type used for main text and units of measurement
 Maths (equation editor) font used for algebraic symbols and equations
 Roman type used for mathematical functions such as ln, sin
 Units of measurement are always given, separated by a space from the
value (with its uncertainty) and on the same line. Use a hard space if
necessary to enforce this
 All values and uncertainties are rounded sensibly
 Figure and Table numbering style follows House Style
 Captions in the correct font and specified numbering style
 Captions are directly below figures or tables and on the same page
 No text wrapping around figures or tables
 Equation numbering follows House Style
 Referencing style is consistent and follows one of the two allowed styles
 Reference section is not numbered
Appendix B: Content of each section
There are some aspects of the content and organisation of your report which
should follow standard conventions for a scientific paper. In other areas,
particularly the structure of the main body of the report, you have more freedom
to organise and section the material in the way you think best to tell your story
clearly and concisely.
B.1. The title page
The layout of the Title Page is fixed by the House Style. It consists of the Title,
Author(s), Institution, Function, Date, (partner, if appropriate) and the Abstract.
The spacing and font sizes are specified by the first page of this template. Note
that the title page does not have a page number, but the other pages should be
numbered. The second page is page number 2.
The title should be short and informative. Capitalise the first letter of the first
word only and avoid abbreviations and jargon. The title information should all
be centred but the Abstract should be justified (aligned) on both sides.
15
B.2. About abstracts
Every report must have an abstract, which for a lab report should be about 50
to 200 words long. It should consist of a clear, concise and precise description
of the experiment and the key findings. If there are a few key numerical results
then these should be stated with their uncertainties. Try to avoid symbols or
equations as these take time to define and are rarely beneficial. Do not use
tables or graphics. Avoid material requiring referencing; if it is essential, then
the reference should appear on a new line at the end of the abstract rather than
in the reference section at the end of the report. If the same reference is used
in the report proper, then it should also be listed in the reference section.
The purpose of the abstract is to allow someone to decide whether to read the
complete report, and as such an abstract should always be independent of the
report; nothing should be in the abstract that is not in the report, and all major
elements of the report should be represented in the abstract.
B.2.1. Example of a good abstract
The acceleration due to gravity (at Manchester) was determined using a Kater’s
pendulum. The pendulum used was a rigid pendulum with two parallel knifeedges that defined the axes of rotation and its length. The final result was
9.814  0.002 ms-2. The accuracy was limited by the measurement of the
length of the pendulum.
B.3. The main body of the report
The main body of your report should begin with an Introduction section, and
end with a Summary section (sometimes called a Conclusions section). In
between you can choose how to order your material, but typically you will
include the experimental layout and method, the underlying theory, your
measurements and data analysis, leading to your final results, and a discussion
of these results. You can choose your own section and subsection titles and
you should try to make these as informative as possible.
Every section and subsection must contain normal text and may also contain
figures and/or tables. Each figure or table must be referred to, by its number,
from the main text and the text should highlight or discuss the main points which
the reader should take from the figure or table. See Section 6 for examples.
B.3.1. The introduction
The introduction should introduce the reader to the report and the experiment.
To do this it should provide any necessary background or context to the
experiment; this may include brief historical information or notable previous
work. As in all sections you should cite references to support factual claims
other than your own results. We will be more impressed by citations of the
original historic papers than by citations of textbooks, and more impressed by
textbooks than by web pages.
It is usually a good idea to conclude the Introduction with a description of the
main desired outcomes of the experiment, any practical applications, and any
other notable elements of the experiment not sufficiently technical for the main
body of the report. It should not be a summary of the experiment. The
introduction is likely to contain most of your references.
16
B.3.2. Theory section
Most reports will contain a section which describes the theory relevant to the
experiment. You do not need to give detailed derivations, but you should give
sufficient references so that the reader can follow any derivations in full if they
are interested.
It is a good idea to number key equations so that you can refer back to them
later in the report. Follow the advice in Appendix D on including mathematics in
your report.
B.3.3. Description of experimental layout and procedure
You will need to describe the equipment you used, and the measurements you
took. Don’t give instructions about how to do the experiment. Do explain what
you did. You should give enough information that the reader could reconstruct
the experiment for themselves, and you should remember that your reader is
another first year student, so will have some experience of using lab equipment.
This means that you do not need to give a detailed explanation of how to take
each reading etc.
It is usually a good idea to include a diagram of your equipment and layout. Use
a diagram, not a photograph, because this allows you, and the reader, to
concentrate on what is important.
Remember that the diagram (and caption) are not an explanation in themselves
of the experiment. You need to describe the equipment in the main text, and
you will refer to the diagram to help the reader to understand what you mean.
You need to introduce the reader to the experimental equipment, so the first
time you mention your oscilloscope or voltmeter say ‘A voltmeter was used…’
and then you can refer to it as ‘the voltmeter’.
This section is a good place to give any instrumental parameters, with
uncertainties, such as the value of a resistance, or the length or mass of a key
piece of equipment.
Explain briefly which quantities you are measuring, and try to give the standard
error you would expect on one measurement, so that the reader has a good
idea of the precision of your equipment.
B.3.4. Data and analysis
This is where you present your measurements and analysis, leading to your
final result. This section will probably contain most of your figures (graphs of
your data) and tables if you have them, however, it also must contain sufficient
text to explain to the reader what the figures and tables show, and why. Again,
remember that figures and tables are not an explanation in themselves, but a
helpful addition to the main text.
Try not to split the error analysis from your data analysis. Each value you
calculate only has physical meaning if it comes with an uncertainty so each time
you calculate a value you should also give the uncertainty.
You will probably have a plot showing your data and a least-squares best fit.
Refer back to Section 6 which describes how to write a sensible caption for
such a plot. Before you use the results of the fit you should consider the quality
of the fit.
17
B.3.5. Discussion
The aim of this part of the report is to communicate to the reader what you
learned about physics from performing the experiment. How does your result
compare with what's already known? Do the results support the theory which
you may have described earlier in the theory section? What is the main
contributer to the final uncertainty? How might the results be improved or
extended? Remember how to judge significance with your uncertainties, see
PHYS10181B.
The discussion does not need to be a separate section of your report, and
indeed for a short report like a lab report, it often makes sense to include it in
the section where you present your results.
B.3.6. Summary/Conclusions
The final section of your main report will be the Summary (or Conclusions)
section, where you collect together your most important results and the main
points arising from your discussion. It should contain nothing new! It is similar
to the abstract but rather more detailed.
It is usually a good idea to begin this section by re-stating your key results.
Don’t end your report with excuses such as the results would be better if only
more time or better equipment were available. That’s nearly always true, but it
doesn’t give the reader any useful information. However, if you can quantify by
how much you will improve your final answer if you took more readings, or used
a more precise measuring device, then this is useful for the reader. The
emphasis in a report is to draw valid conclusions from the data actually
available.
Appendix C: Technical writing style
Aim to write clearly, concisely and precisely. You should avoid repetition,
particularly in descriptions of method and analysis. You can reference previous
sections of your report, by number, to help avoid unnecessary repetition.
However, there are some pieces of information which can be repeated. In
particular the main results should appear in the abstract, in the main report and
also in the final Summary section.
The scientific style of writing research papers is quite formal, so avoid colloquial
language and contractions. Writing in the passive voice will help you to
maintain the required style. Sometimes it is clearer and simpler to use ‘we’ in
an impersonal sense, but try not to over-use ‘I’ or ‘we’ as it can make the report
seem too informal.
Avoid giving instructions (that is the role of a lab script) or over-using conditional
language. The reader is not very interested in what you could do or might have
done, they want to read about what you actually did do.
You should also avoid giving lists of equipment, steps in the method, results or
anything else. All your writing should be in sentences and paragraphs.
Remember that if you have several results, it can be neater and clearer to
present them in a table rather than in a paragraph of text.
18
The following list summarises many of the points of writing style to avoid, and
some which you should try to conform to. Check your report against this list
before you submit it.
 Avoid repeating material from the lab script and do not include the Aims
and Objectives of the experiment as listed on the script. These relate to
teaching outcomes and are not relevant for the report.
 Avoid repetition of ideas, explanations, or discussion.
 Do not give instructions. The last sentence is an instruction. You are
not telling the reader how to do the experiment (that would be a lab
script). You are reporting on the work you did.
 Avoid detailed algebraic derivations. It is better to give the starting point
and the equation you will be using, along with a reference (Young &
Freedman is usually sufficient) so that your reader can go and look up
the details if they are interested. For long or unfamiliar derivations you
may also want to give key intermediate equations.
 Avoid detailed arithmetical calculations. Just give the final result, with
its uncertainty, making sure that the reader already knows the values
which go into the calculation.
 Avoid jargon and abbreviations. If you do use an abbreviation, give the
full version the first time you use it in the main body of the report, e.g.
the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and then just use the abbreviation.
 Do not lapse into notes. Do avoid lists. Your report should all be written
in good English and in sentences, throughout.
 It is not usual to ask questions, as it is attention seeking.
 Consider when words should begin with a capital letter. Sentences
begin with a capital, as do proper names such as “Compton scattering”
and “Young’s modulus”. This also includes reference to figures,
equations and other sections of the report. So you would use “see
Figure 1”, “as can be seen from Equation 2” or “discussed in the
Introduction” for example. However, elements, for instance iron and
argon, are not so honoured.
 Avoid the concepts of “can”, “could”, “possible”. Be specific and say
what you did.
 Introduce the reader to the experiment. You can’t talk about the mirror
until you’ve told the reader that there is a mirror. Referring to a figure
showing the apparatus is often useful. Remember that the diagram in
the figure is not an explanation in itself, your explanation should refer to
the figure to help the reader see what you mean.
 Check that each reference cited in the text is listed in the Reference
section, and that all listed references are also cited in the main text.
 Read your report critically. Does it make sense?
 Delete all words that are not actually needed. For instance, delete the
word “very” in the phrase “a very strong magnetic field”.
 Do not include subjective comments, for instance that the results could
have been better or that you didn’t enjoy the experiment. These can be
put in the section on Personal Comments at the end of your report and
on the Feedback Survey for each experiment.
19
Appendix D: Mathematics
You will need to include some mathematics in your report, and this may well
involve using Greek letters and other symbols. Take care to use symbols
consistently, to avoid confusion. Each symbol or variable name should be
defined the first time it is used. Note that equations should be treated as part
of the sentence, even if they are displayed on a separate line. Follow the
examples in this section to ensure that you follow the correct style for including
mathematics in your report.
D.1. Characters and symbols
Greek letters and other special characters can be found by using Insert, Symbol.
For convenience several commonly required symbols are listed here so that
you can simply Copy and Paste them as needed.
Some Greek characters:
x2x
r
Some useful symbols:

Superscripts and subscripts can be made by typing the character, highlighting
it, selecting Font, then tick superscript or subscript. When choosing subscripts
for symbols, try to use only one or two letters or numbers (Fg or R1rather than
whole words or long abreviations (Fgrav or first-right). This makes the layout
cleaner and easier to read.
Some useful expressions you can copy and edit:
4.2 × 106 and (12.1 ± 1.5) × 108 and Tn .
Note that a minus sign “” is not the same as a hyphen “-”. For a minus sign,
use Insert Symbol and the minus sign symbol (Unicode 2212). For a hyphen,
use the hyphen key on your keyboard (en dash or Unicode 2013), which is
usually together with the dash symbol (Unicode 2012).
D.2. Equations
All equations must be part of a grammatically correct English sentence. Each
symbol you use should be defined the first time you use it. Note that you can
number your equations so that you can refer back to them later, but you do not
need to number every equation.
Simple equations can be included in-line but usually it is neater and clearer to
display the equation on a separate line, even though it is still part of the
sentence. Displayed equations should be centred, and equation numbers
should be at the right hand side.
To avoid possible confusion, algebraic symbols are written in italic type but
mathematical functions are in roman type. Don’t use the same symbol to mean
two different things and don’t use different symbols to mean the same thing.
The following examples show how to include equations in your text:
20

The amplitude as a function of time is given by 𝐴 = 𝐴 sin 𝜔𝑡, where 𝜔 is
the angular frequency.

The period, 𝑇, of a simple pendulum depends on its length, 𝑙, and is
given by:
𝑙
𝑇 = 2𝜋√𝑔 ,
(1)
where 𝑔 is the acceleration due to gravity.

The gravitational force 𝐹, between two point objects, of mass 𝑀1 and 𝑀2 ,
is given by
𝐹=
𝐺𝑀1 𝑀2
𝑅2
,
(2)
where 𝑅 is the distance between them.
Word’s equation editor uses the Cambria Maths font. Use Equation Editor for
all equations rather than typing directly from the keyboard. (Click Insert
Equation) This will ensure that the correct fonts are always used. For example,
an italic capital F, using arial font (the standard report font), gives a different
symbol to 𝐹 (equation editor). So F and 𝐹 should not be used to mean the
same thing.
The default in Word is that a new line following an object (e.g. an equation) is
the beginning of a sentence and is automatically given a capital letter. Often
you will not want a capital letter here, because you are in the middle of a
sentence, as in Equation (1), so you need to replace the capital with a small
letter.
Equation Editor includes all sorts of goodies, including fractions, powers,
subscripts and integral signs:
𝑎
∫−𝑎 𝑥 2 𝑑𝑥 =
2
3
𝑎3 .
You can stretch the height of the integral sign by highlighting one of the limits
and right clicking, then Stretch N-ary Operator:
𝑎
∫ 𝑥 2 𝑑𝑥 =
−𝑎
2
3
𝑎3 .
Note that there is a full stop after the equation, because the sentence ends
there.
If you want to include a reference to an equation, this should appear with the
main text, not on the displayed line. This avoids any confusion between
reference numbers and equation numbers. For example, the displacement 𝑥(𝑡)
of a mass on a spring undergoing simple harmonic motion is given by [15]
𝑥(𝑡) = 𝐴 sin(𝜔𝑡 + 𝜑)
(3)
where 𝐴 and 𝜔 are the amplitude and angular frequency of the oscillations and
𝜑 is a phase factor. This makes it clear that Equation (3) is taken from reference
source [15].
21