Guidelines for Lab Report # 10 (Lab 7.1,7.2)
Your lab report needs to have a title and needs to be organized into the following sections:
Title
Introduction
Material and Methods
Results
Discussion
References
N.B. An Abstract is not required for this particular Lab Report.
General Comments:
 Keep your writing impersonal; use third person past tense. Avoid using I and We
 Pay attention to grammar and punctuation and divide paragraphs correctly.
 Make sure you are providing enough detail & analysis!
Some Suggestions for the Introduction:
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Explain what is electricity. What is an electric circuit. How does electricity move
through a circuit? What are some properties that a circuit must have in order to allow
electricity to flow through? (For ex., close circuit vs. open circuit.) What is a circuit
diagram?
Discuss voltage in detail. Be sure to discuss the movement of charges in a circuit. Be
sure to include a discussion on batteries & their role in a circuit.
Discuss current in detail. Be sure to discuss current in batteries, and in a circuit.
State your objectives/purpose
Material and Method:
 Third person, past tense
 Describe the experimental procedure and equipment that you used. Describe the
procedure you used to complete the table that was on the blackboard. Be detailed!! (For
ex., you must explain the settings on the voltmeter.) You do not have to include the
procedure from 6.1.
Results:
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Complete data table that was on the blackboard, with all voltage and current readings.
Some suggestions for the Discussion
 Include an interpretation/discussion of your results. You must include a discussion of your
observations of the various circuits you created (for ex, what happened to the lightbulb when you
used 1 battery? 2 batteries?, etc.), as well as reasons behind your observations (for ex., what
made the lightbulb brighter in one circuit and less bright in another?)
 Were there any errors made that could have skewed the results?
 How can the procedure of the experiment be improved?
 Ideas for other experiments, based on this one? Other variables that might be tested?
 Were the objectives of the experiment met?
 Can you make a connection between this experiment and the real world?
References
List all your resources (books used, data tables, web sites consulted) that you used in writing the
introduction and discussion and cite your references using the APA guidelines
***Please note that I will be grading APA format more precisely from this point on. This
includes the reference section and the in-text citations. You MUST have at least 2 references
(only one of which can be your text/workbook). And you MUST use in-text citations. If you are
still having trouble with APA format, you should come see me asap, before this lab is due.****