1) General overview and logistics
2) More specific info about titles and calculations
3) Making plots
4) Circuit diagrams
5) Other schematics
6) Uncertainties
7) A sample lab report subsection

- Complete lab each week and record data in your notebook
- Writeup to hand in:
- Preferably write up your lab in your notebook, but we will also allow writing on separate lined sheets of paper
- Generally handwritten except pasted/taped plots
- Or a typed document is allowed, as long as…
1) Diagrams are drawn from scratch completely by you.
2) The overall layout is relatively compact.
3) All equations are well formatted - subscripts, superscripts, special characters, understandable layout.
4) Nothing is "snipped" out of the lab manual or websites.
- Hand in to your instructor’s box 5 pm the evening before your next lab, if you write your report in your lab notebook, photocopy your lab report so that you have your notebook available for the next lab
- Contents:
- Title for each section and subsection
- Diagrams, Schematics
- Relevant theory and formulas
- Calculations
- Data in plot format
- Discussion
- Conclusion for lab as a whole

Titles:
Not just “A” or “1” corresponding to lab manual section
– make up appropriate descriptive heading
Calculations
No need to show us your work when doing algebraic calculations, but symbolic formulas and your numeric input are required

Plots:
Options…Mathematica, Origin, Igor, Mathcad, Matlab, Excel (not recommended)
Mathematica = free access, Plot template on website, on laptops in G230
Imagine (or even make) the plot as you are taking data
Error bars when necessary
Appropriate range
Data shown with points
Theory shown with lines
Scale
Axis labels with units

Yes – detailed schematic diagram
(simplify as become familiar with op amp)
No – “my wires” diagram
(unless some there is some specific point)

Schematics showing important wiring or connections between instruments or anything you think is important

Generally an account of the important random and systematic uncertainties will be necessary.
As in the sample report below, you will often want to quote uncertainties on measured and calculated values.
But always strive to make simple estimates of uncertainties, to avoid wasting time estimating uncertainties that will not contribute to the final result. Avoid elaborate propagation-of-uncertainty calculations unless they are really necessary.
Remember also that the uncertainty of a reported number can also be implied by the number of significant digits you report. Don’t state a measured value of voltage is 4.567 V if you are not measuring at the level of mV.